My new mission: provide all nieces and nephews exploding box cards for their 16th birthday! (3 down, 17 to go!) Thank goodness they are fairly spread out. I may get roped into doing this for my own boys too...
These bad boys are very time consuming. I try to make fun interactive items on all flaps. There are 3 layers to this box and 4 flaps, which equals 12 parts to essentially make mini cards/decorate. Phew!
Interactive parts include:
- Waterfall
- Lift-a-flap
- Spinners
- Pockets
- Fold outs
- Sliders
I also include small gifts and usually a $5-10 bill depending on the gifts already included.
Small gifts incorporated:
- Nail stickers
- Enamel pins
- Magnetic bookmarks
- Mini Post-it Notes
Below is an image of one I created a while back for a niece who loves music and plays clarinet.
I used this template as a guide on how I was going to go about making these out of 12" x 12" pages. Be sure to get paper that is 2 sided. It makes it look fancier when the back of the flaps have color or design on it, instead of just white.
If you make a little pocket to include mini Post-it Notes be sure to plan on having that on the top most flap (when it's laying open). It doesn't lay flat if you do it in the middle layer or the bottom layer. I learned that the hard way...
I hope I inspired you to go out there and create your own exploding box card. It's time consuming, but super fun to watch everyone Oooo and Ahhh over it.
