Making handmade gift boxes and bags yourself to give a gift to a loved one adds more value to the gift itself and shows how much you care and put thought into the gift. Not only that, it is one super easy and fun craft project that can be done in an hour, and that too using simple materials that can be gathered from across the household. The following is a step by step tutorial to making beautiful heart shaped boxes of any size of your choice.

Gathering Supplies

The first thing that you will need to do is gather the supplies for making the boxes. Only a few basic supplies are required, some kraft material, if possible in two thicknesses, otherwise a medium thickness that can easily be curved without cracking will work just fine; a pencil, a ruler, some scrap paper (construction paper or even newspaper will work), scotch tape or any tape for securing, glue for joining, some string for measuring, scissors for cutting and any material that you might want to use for decorating.

Drawing the template and Cutting the pieces

Taking some scrap paper, and measuring with a ruler, and using the pencil, draw a perfect square and cut it out with the help of scissors. Fold the square in half and using the pencil draw a half heart shape starting the point from the folded side, making a semi-circle and then continuing the semi-circle to the folded end of the square making a triangle. Cut this shape out and unfold to reveal a perfect heart shape. Trace this shape on to the kraft material and cut this heart out using scissors.

Using the same heart template drawn on scrap paper, trace it again on to another piece of kraft cardstock and this time while cutting it out, cut it slightly bigger, the difference in size being approximately equal to two times the thickness of the kraft cardstock itself.

Now using some string, trace along the perimeter of heart one (smaller) and then measure the length of string with the ruler. Repeat for heart two (bigger) as well. Divide each of the perimeters by two. Determine what you would like the height of the box to be. For instance for a 4 inch box, you would need two kraft cardstock pieces measuring 4 inches (width) x half the perimeter of small heart (length).

Similarly determine the height of the lid. The lid will rest towards the outside of the box, so the more the height of the lid, the more of the base will be hidden by the lid when the box is closed. For a 1 inch lid, you would again need two pieces of kraft cardstock measuring 1 inch x half the perimeter of the large heart.

Assembling

Once all the pieces are cut, two heart pieces and 2 strips for the base and 2 strips for the lid. Starting with assembling the base of the box, take of one the base strips and the smaller heart cut out. Starting from the base point of the heart, take one of the strips and curve it along the heart shape, keeping it flush with the edge. Using pieces of tape keep securing it as you go along. The closer and the more the tape pieces the better the shape will turn out. This strip should fit exactly till the middle point of the heart. Take the other strip and again starting from the base point, first secure it with tape with the first strip and continue curving it along the shape as done before. Once you reach the midpoint, join both the strip pieces together in the center point where they should perfectly meet.

Repeat the same steps for the lids, using the bigger heart shape and the two thinner kraft strips. The lid should fit perfectly on to the base box. Your custom boxes are ready for decoration.

Decorating

Now that the box has been assembled, the tapes and the kraft cardstock showing need to be covered. This can be done using beautiful coordinated decorative paper for the base and the lid, or decorative paper for either and plain colored paper for the other. Cut both the heart shapes out of the papers of choice. Then cut a long strip measuring the perimeter of the smaller heart with the width equivalent to the height of the base and a similar long strip measuring the perimeter of the bigger heart and of the same width as the height of the lid. Using glue adhere the heart shapes on to the base and lid first, followed by the strips starting from the middle point of the heart.

If you should choose to paint the box, instead of using decorative paper, plain white or colored construction paper can also be used and then painted on with paints as you like.

Once the box has been covered it can be used as is or further decorated using any materials that may be available, such as flowers, or ribbons or lace to give an edge to the sides and so on. Only the imagination is the limit here. Once done, now sit back and marvel at your beautiful heart shaped decorative gift boxes with lids and use them to give a beautiful gift or they can be used as a storage box if you decide to keep it with yourself instead.