3×3 Box and Gift Tags

I had an thought yesterday: I realized why I always feel like my life is so darn busy all the time... I‘m not doing what I truly love to do. Of course my life feels busy! I’d rather be crafting. Is there a bumper sticker for that motto?

I’ve been thinking, lately, about how I can make crafting profitable enough to quit my day job. Also, is it possible to have a craft job where I can spend most of my time creating rather than selling? It seems so out of reach. But, there are people in the world that do it, somewhere. Right? I dream of having my own line of paper craft items. However, I think it takes much more than creativity to be successful. One must have business smarts, connections, people skills, an organized plan, and a whole lot of patience. I doubt I have all those skills and qualities. I’m also not sure I’m ready to turn my hobby into a business. For now, I just want to stamp.

Before today’s project, I’ll quickly answer a question from yesterday’s post. Janie asked:

Do you actually trim out each flower slowly after stamping it? like your cut outs? i been scratching my head about it bc they all look so perfectly cut with all your other stamps florals.

Yup! I cut out the flowers with a pair of thin tipped scissors by Fiskars. The thin tip comes in handy for cutting sharp corners and small images on paper. I purchased the scissors from Michaels. However, when I stopped by the store yesterday, Michaels was having a promotion: All Fiskars scrapbooking tools were 40% off, including my scissors!

Ok, now to the project of the day. With my new Scor-Pal, I made a small box with a removable belly band, and I filled it with 3″x3″ gift tags, perfect for adorning holiday gifts.It’s the same box template that I used to make my mini thank you cards.

Box & Card Recipe: SU Season of Joy (110384) and So Many Scallops (retired) stamp sets, Martha Stewart snowflake punch and bakers string, Bazzil textured cardstock (for box), SU real red, old olive, baja breeze inks and card stock, SU designer paper in Haiku, brown twine, rhinestone, and blue ribbon from Michaels

Although I used a Scor-Pal to score the lines for this box, the project is very simple, and you can easily score the lines using a bone folder. This box is the gateway box into more complicated paper craft projects. It gets very addicting.

If you want to try this project on your own, I posted a template for the gift box with all the measurements, plus cut and score lines. The card size should be 3″x3″ after being scored and folded, and then they will fit perfectly inside the box.

Gift Tag Box Bottom
Gift Tag Box Top

Happy stamping!