Christmas Tree Ornament Gift Box Pattern

I am not only a craft book junkie, I love to read graphic and industrial design books. There is a wealth of info in them that can easily be translated into crafts and they are packed full of inspiration and technical goodness.

This is just one cool example:

Forms, Folds and Sizes, Second Edition

All the Details Graphic Designers Need to Know but Can Never Find

Poppy Evans, Aaris Sherin

It’s tough to remember all the minute details of packaging standards and conversions when you are a designer juggling varied projects. With Forms, Folds, and Sizes – Second Edition, you can just look them up! Including updated information and new topics, this handbook provides designers with all the little details that can make or break a design, such as how much space to leave in the gutter when designing barrel folds, how to layout a template for a box and the ratios of each part, metric conversion charts, and standard envelope sizes in the USA, Europe, Canada, and Asia.

Featuring new topics such as sustainable design, web design, and grid design basics, Forms, Folds, and Sizes – Second Edition is the one resource to turn to for answers to everything from folds and bindings to paper, imaging, and much, much more!

Poppy Evans is an award-winning writer and graphic designer. She is the former art director of Screen Printing and American Music Teacher magazines, and former managing editor of HOW magazine.

Aaris Sherin is author of the book

SustainAble: A Handbook of Materials and Applications for Graphic Designers and Their Clients. She is an associate professor of design at St. John’s University in Queens, NY. She often writes for trade publications such as STEP inside design and PRINT.

Forms, Folds and Sizes, Second Edition

All the Details Graphic Designers Need to Know but Can Never Find

will be released in January (available for pre-order now) but I have a sneak peek for you:

This is the page that inspired today's project. (Click on it to enlarge and see the patterns.)

This is what I came up with:

They are little Christmas tree gift box ornaments. They are made out of wallpaper sample book paper, a pom pom and a tiny bit of ribbon.

 

Here is how I developed the pattern.

I first took a piece of paper and made a cone. Then I just started cutting the bottom to mimic the ovals I saw in the pillow-pack pattern in Forms, Folds and Sizes.

I played with the pattern a bit and made a second sample.

Then I drew lines on the folds and scanned it into the computer.

I evened up all the lines and printed the pattern out.

(Click on the pattern to download and use at any size.)

To make the Christmas tree gift box ornaments I simply held the cut out pattern on top of the wallpaper sample page (I did this because in some cases I was being fussy about where the print on the paper fell on the pattern).

Then I folded back the side flap, applied glue and stuck it under the opposite side.

Then I folded up the two bottom flaps.

All that was left to do was glue a small loop into a pom pom and then the pom pom onto the tip of the tree.

Oh and then let's not forget to fill each tree with a little gift(I am using mine for jewelry)!

So make some fun little Christmas tree ornament gift boxes or get inspired to design your own!

And hey, if you get stumped, shoot me an email and I see if I can help you out.

On a fun and final note for today, we are working on a 12 days of Christmas book give-away starting soon, so be sure to pop on back here or subscribe (upper left side column) so you won't miss out!

Comments

[Joan Cromley]

Thanks for the box design. I was looking for something like this for my daughter's preschool gift exchange - this is perfect!

[Judy in Iowa]

What a great idea! I was just thinking of throwing away the wallpaper book i had...no more! I've made 20 of these! They are SO beautiful and will hold gifts. Then the wallpaper gave me more ideas for my ATCs. Thanks for sparking that creativity in me! HUGS