I’ve seen a lot of lighted cards, but none like this one. I started by measuring the base of the light. It’s 1 5/8″ wide…

I used a large house die that I bought from Aliexpress, and measured my card stock to 8 1/2″ x 9 1/2″ scored at 1 5/8″ on all four sides. You’ll want to cut a notch out of each of the four scores on the long sides up to the score line. That is the top of the box. The bottom is 8 3/8″ x 9 3/8″ and still scored at 1 5/8″ on all four sides.

Back to the top….You’ll want to put the die in the top center of the box, but leave enough room below it for any sentiment you want to place there. When you run the die through the die cutter, you’ll need to fold the ends back on themselves and put the top and bottom flap on top of the die so you can fit it in your die cutter.
After cutting out the house, I cut a decorated piece of card stock to 8 1/2″ x 9 1/2″ then cut 1 5/8″ off the right side,, then off the left side, then off the top, and then the bottom so I can make sure the borders will line up when I glue it to the box. To create a border on the 1 5/8″ pieces, I cut 1/4″ off the outside of the strips and then trimmed the ends by 1/4″ so they are shorter so there’s a border. The top needs to be trimmed a little on each side so it becomes 6 1/4″ x 5 1/4″ tall.
I put the 6 1/4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of card stock under my lid, so that I
could trace the house with a pencil so I knew exactly where to cut the house so the decorated paper would fit perfectly on the lid. Then I put the die on the pencil marks and ran it through the die cutter, then glued it to the lid of the box.
After cutting the house out, I decided I wanted it out of white card stock, so die cut one out of white. I cut some vellum to 6 1/4″ x 5 1/4″ and glued it under the box, then glued the house into the opening for it on the top of the box..
Once I cut the bottom of the box, I covered the bottom underneath with card stock, and put small magnets on the long ends of the box on the outside of the bottom of the box, so it will hold the box together.
I cut the notches on the bottom just like I did the top, then put glue and tear tape on the outside of the flaps I cut, and then folded the flaps up and put the flaps inside the long length of paper and glued the bottom of the box so it’s now a box. Do this on all four sides. Add magnets to the outside long lengths of the box, and then cover them with card stock.
I covered the outside ends of the box with the decorated paper I had cut above, and then put magnets on the front and back of the box to match where they are on the bottom of the box. Now you can cover the outside of the bottom and top of the box with decorated paper that you cut above.

I took two pieces of cardboard that were about 8 1/2″ long and 1 1/2″ wide. I scored them at 1″ and 7 1/2″ which should make the cardboard fit snugly inside the bottom of the box. I put tear tape on the scored 1″ and folded them down so they act as a shelf inside the box. I put a light inside the box on the shelf, then put another shelf so the shelf is almost on top of the light sitting on the first shelf. Then I put glue dots to hold the lights on the shelves, and made sure the lights would show through a certain window of the house. I glued a die cut tree on the side of the house, as well as a tag with the word “JOY” on it and a gold thread with lights glued to it and some die cut bows on the windows.
I took tear tape and ran it around the entire box on the edge and took a long length of gold ribbon and tied a knot in the center, then ran the ribbon around the edge of the box to ensure it will hold if it’s hung on a tree.

• Uncategorized