Poinsettia Explosion Box – Part 1 - Amended

I am grateful to Laura of The Papertrail:

http://followingthepapertrail.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-eighth-day-of-christmas.html

for her gorgeous design for an explosion box on the theme of a poinsettia – very seasonal! She has also made a Youtube video of it, which you can see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaiV-8EXPq8

With her permission, I am posting about my own take on this project. I have spent quite a long time creating the templates on my desk-top publisher, and making layouts on 12 x 12 in cardstock so as to utilise the card as efficiently as possible. I have created image files of these which you can see below. To see a larger version, go to my Microsoft One Drive album.

Materials needed for the project

Dark red cardstock – 1 sheet of 12 x 12 in.

Other red cardstock – 1 sheet of 12 x 12 in.

Dark green cardstock – 2 sheets of 12 x 12 in.

Black and white striped paper – 2 strips 12 in x 1 1/2 in.

Layouts

1. Dark Red Card

If you cut these basic shapes as indicated, you can then use the small templates below, to shape them as required. I only did them like this to make it easier to cut the large sheets of cardstock with a knife or paper trimmer.

The flower shapes on this layout are images taken from the original svg cut files from Penny Duncan Creations:

http://cid-599a4ab7197c18bb.office.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/PDC%20CUT%20FILES%20%5E5All%20Formats%5E6/Flowers/PDC%203D%20Poinsetta%20Flower%209-21-2009

I put them on the cardstock in the blank spaces left after drawing the basic shapes. In my Make The Cut software, I have placed these flowers in exactly the same place on the 12 x 12 virtual Cricut mat, and at exactly the same size. Before cutting the basic shapes with my knife and paper trimmer, I first cut the flower shapes with Jiminy Cricut from the whole, uncut sheet. After doing this, it was easy to cut the shapes from the remaining card.

2. Green Card

You need two sheets of dark green cardstock. From previous experience with boxes, I have found it better to strengthen the sides by making them double-thickness, so I have drawn twice as many box side panels as Laura made in her original design – it may not be strictly necessary, and I’m sure her box is fine, but I just thought it might make it a bit more substantial. These extra pieces I’ve called “Side Strengtheners.” They also serve to cover the back of any embossing you may choose to use to decorate the side panels of the box.

This is the layout for Sheet 1:

and for Sheet 2:

I did the same with these leaf shapes as I did with the flower shapes.

3. Patterned Red Card

Laura suggests using a different red card for the second set of petals. I am using a bright red instead of the dark red of the first set, and I am going to decorate these by stamping them in a dark red to match the other petals. This is the layout for what I have called the Patterned Red Card:

I am also cutting 8 side strengtheners for the lid from this patterned red card sheet, each measuring 2 in x 1 1/2 in - 1/4 in shorter than the lid sides because they don't need tabs. After cutting, the height of each must be trimmed by a further tiny amount – about 1/16 in – to allow for the thickness of the two octagons lining the top of the lid – when they are glued in, the bottom edges should be flush with the lid side pieces.

Once you have cut out all the basic shapes, this is what you have:

(This picture does not show the side strengtheners for the lid, because in the original design, I was not sure whether I needed to make them.)

You can then start to trim some of them to the shapes required for the box.

4. Octagon Template

Take all of the 5 squares of card measuring 4 3/4 inches that you have cut, and trim off the corners as indicated on the template. Do not cut the small lines either side of the “1 in” measurement – these are just to show that the arrows go from one corner to the other. The dotted lines across the template indicate the centre of each side, and are not cut or scored.

5. Petal Template

Cut 8 of these from the 8 rectangles you have cut from the dark red card, measuring 4 1/2 in x 2 in, and another 8 from the rectangles of the same size that you have cut from the other red card. Laura’s original shape is indicated by the straight lines, but I thought it might be quite interesting to make the petals a bit more natural looking, and a bit more curved, so if you want to do this, before you cut the petals out, draw a shape approximating the shape of a poinsettia petal, like the red shape I have drawn. I made the irregular petal shape on the template in my photo editor, but the actual petals are all slightly different, because I drew them by hand before cutting them out with scissors.

6. Large Square and Small Square

Amendment to original design: After making this box for the first time, I decided it would look more attractive to have circles rather than squares to attach the petals to, so I cut the large square and the small square, found their centres by lining up a ruler across the diagonals, and drew circles touching the sides of the squares. (See a future blog post with photos.)

7. Flower Shapes

These are the images I took from Penny Duncan’s poinsettia flowers and leaves – if you haven’t got a cutting machine and want to cut them by hand, you can open the images in a photo editor and make them whatever size you want, and print out templates. If you do have a cutting machine, Penny has done cut files in various formats which you can find on the link above. I use svg files on Jiminy Cricut, using Make The Cut software. I am making 3 poinsettias of different sizes to decorate the lid – the largest one will be white, and then the middle sized and smallest ones will be red, and I have cut these, together with the leaves for all 3 flowers, from the cardstock as indicated above.

To sum up:

When you have cut all the pieces, you will end up with:

Dark red card:

1 octagon for the top of the lid

1 large square and 1 small square, both cut to circles, to which you will attach the petals

8 petals

Green card:

2 octagons for the bottom of the box, and 2 octagons for the lid

8 rectangles for the box sides and 8 side strengtheners

8 small rectangles for the lid sides

Patterned red card:

8 petals

8 side strengtheners for the lid

I hope this is clear – more towards crystal than mud, at any rate!