Laser-cut Cardboard Gift Box With Template

I designed these gift boxes to package my home made snow-skin mooncakes (see instructable here) for friends and family.

These templates are designed so that the top and bottom parts each fit into a single sheet of A3 (or 11x17") cardstock. The external dimensions are about 80x200x60mm and internal dimensions are about 70x190x50mm.

I've included the design files so you can customise them as needed. [note: I will upload these soon, after I clean up the files a bit]

Step 1: Templates for Laser Cutting or Manual Exacto Cutting

The top and bottom are designed to each fit one A3 (or 11x17") sheet of cardstock.

The PDF files attached are each A3 sized, although you can scale them to whatever size you like. The solid blue lines are the cut outlines, and the dashed green lines are the score lines for folding.

The reason I designed them this size is so that I can cut them out on my A3-sized desktop laser cutter. I use the 4W Emblaser from Darkly Labs, and I highly recommend it! The settings I used were different for the black and white card, as black absorbs laser energy better than white. I tried to reduce the cut settings to the minimum needed to cut cleanly, but there were still some burn marks on the underside (inside) of the white cardboard cut-out. Luckily these end up on the inside so it is not very noticeable.

If you don't have access to a laser cutter or a plotter-type vinyl cutter (eg Silhouette), you can also print out these templates and cut them out with an Exacto knife. Of course you may want to omit the Voronoi filigree window in the box top unless you have infinite patience and amazing knife control!

Step 2: Fold the Box Top

Follow the steps to fold the box top.

Step 3: Fold the Box Bottom

Follow the steps to fold the box bottom.

Step 4: Enjoy

I hope you find this useful! This template is just a base, that you can adjust to fit different dimensions. Right now I just adjust the template manually by stretching certain sections in AutoCAD, but it would be amazing if I knew how to create a parametric version of this that can generate the template just by typing in the dimensions that you want!

If anyone knows how to do that, let me know.

I've entered this into the cardboard competition. Enjoy!

Comments

[maerma]

I could help you create a parametric version but I'll need the source files or .SCG

[maerma]

.SVG*

[nqtronix]

This is just gorgeous. The pattern is a very unique style I've never seen before. I imagine it will be a perfect box for a variety of gifts!

Unfortunately I don't have a laser cutter yet, and I'm not insane enough to cut it by hand, so I favorited for later use. Thanks you for sharing this with us :)

[ucn]

You're welcome! Apart from the see-through lid pattern, the rest of it could be easily cut-out with a regular paper blade (exacto knife) or even scissors.

[myinstructablerobot]

I love to see your illustration, although I do not have any of this advised machine to make such a detailed and infinite box, I love to see more paper crafts in any varieties. Your one is enjoyable. By the way, I came to this page through your show skin (Autumn Festival Cake) which I was amazed by your design. Thanks for sharing your technical talent

[ucn]

Thank you for the comments. You can use a simple box cutter or exacto knife to cut out normal cardstock for this!

[Izzypup]

I love your boxes! I've been the family box maker for as long as I can remember. Whenever anyone needed a box for an oddly shaped gift I could always visualize the way the cardboard should be cut and folded. (I scored 99.9 in mechanical reasoning on my SATs. I could fly through the problems where 4 differently shaped flat boxes were shown, along with one 3-D box. The problem was to pick the correct flat box that, when folded, would look like the 3-D box. No problem!) My dad worked for a company that made boxes and always threatened to get a job for me there.
Anyway, not a single box I ever made had the class that yours do! The laser cut top is elegant as are your color choices. I was most impressed with the boxes being double thickness. All of the thing I mentioned combine to make your boxed perfect!

[ucn]

Thanks for the compliments, @familyboxmaker! The double thickness really helps to add rigidity to the box when you use thin cardstock. It also hides all the interlocking tabs so that the inside looks clean and neat.

The general design principles are not my original design - I've unfolded commercial chocolate boxes that are quite similar to this in the past, so I based the design off that. I drew it up in vector software from scratch just by imagining how it goes together in my head, which was a fun mental exercise.