I've had a great 2016. Some of my friends have had a pretty bad year.

This is a little gift, designed to cheer up someone who needs reminded of the good things in life.

It should be makeable from things you have around the house, and it can be modified according to deficiencies in inventory and varying proverbs.

It is a simple origami box containing:-

Two marbles, in case anyone claims you've lost yours
An eraser, to tidy up any little mistakes
Two pennies to rub together
A pencil to help you make your mark
Some elastic for when the ends won't quite meet
Some BluTak to help you stick to it
String to help you hold it together
A list to help you count your blessings
A candle to light your way
A plaster to heal you when you hurt
A teabag for when you need a nice cup of tea
A chocolate to remind you that life is sweet

Step 1: Assemble the Contents

The idea of the gift is to break the power of the negative things that some people say.

Examples in British English are "you've lost your marbles," "you haven't got two pennies to rub together," etc.

The things I collected from around the house are shown and labelled in the picture.

You will also need to print out the document file which is attached. It is sized for A4 paper, but will print fine on Letter. If you change the paper size, then the box will be a slightly different size, but that's not a problem.

Happiness.odt
Download

Step 2: Make the Box

First of all, print out the file, and then cut the printed page below the solid line.

Then fold the large piece of blank paper into a right-angled triangle and cut off the overage. This will give you a square of paper

To make the box, I found a video on YouTube which showed how to do it very nicely. I have photographed my progress, and described the stages below, but the final part of shuffling the creased piece into a box is best viewed in video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENdSjQIoljQ

To make the box, fold and crease the paper in half across both axes and both diagonals.

Then fold and crease along the axes to add creases at the quarter-way mark.

Then fold and crease the corners to the centre.

There will now be three parallel creases along each axis and diagonal.

Then fold and crease the corners to the three-quarter way mark on the diagonals.

This will leave five parallel creases on each diagonal.

The last crease is slightly trickier:- fold each edge in to the crease at the quarter-way mark, but ONLY crease it along one side and from the last diagonal crease to the corner.

The base of the box will be the four creased diamonds in the centre of the square. Lift up each box side, tucking the corners inwards.

Then fold each flap over along the partial crease. Then push each flap down in turn, tucking the last one underneath.

This is the completed box (currently empty, but we'll fill it in the next step).

Step 3: Shortening Things to Fit

Pretty simple.

Now you've got a box, measure the candle and pencil against it (this is why variations in the size of the box don't matter).

I wanted a clean end to the candle, so rather than cutting with a pair of pliers, I used an XActo saw. Then I used the same for the pencil. As a tip, do it in that order, or the graphite from cutting the pencil will make a mess of the candle.

The eraser was cut with a box-cutter to give a little oblong scrap with clean sides.

The string and elastic were just cut with scissors, but I tied a simple overhand knot at the ends of the elastic to prevent it unravelling.

Step 4: Put It Together

Open the flaps of the box up again, and put everything inside. I laid the plaster and teabag on the bottom, added the rest and put the list of blessings and the guide to contents on top.

Then I folded the box closed again, and wrote on the lid with a sharpie.

Step 5: Lessons Learned and Future Changes

The box wasn't folded very well. This is because I was pausing every step to take photographs (honest). Every other one I've folded has gone much better, so don't let this poor example put you off. Tying a ribbon around the outside would solve the slight sagging, but I wanted to show the absolute minimum for this gift.

The cut end of the pencil:- it was fascinating how clean it was until the saw blade encountered the graphite, and how black it was afterwards. This disappeared once I'd sharpened the pencil, so it didn't affect the finished gift.

The text in the document is based on British proverbs. The contents are what I had in the house. If I had sticky paper stars, I'd had put one in along with a suitable sentence.

If you make this, please experiment. Use your local proverbs to inspire you. If you're stuck, send me a message and I'll do my best to help.