Make a Heart-shaped Gift Box for Valentine's Day!

In this instructable I’ll show you how to make a simple but pretty heart-shaped gift box for Valentine’s Day!

I visit my local frame shop and pick up scrapes or discontinued mats. Most the time they give me these free or charge a nominal fee. I use these mats for lots of projects and they are perfect for this one!

You’ll also need:

X-Acto Knife or razor blade

Material (1 yard of cloth) This cost me about $1.50

Fancy ribbon (about 2 yards) This cost about 2 bucks. I had the rest of the materials so my total cost was only $3.50!

Hobby spray adhesive or double-sided tape

Hot glue and glue gun

Cardstock

Clear packing tape

Step 1: Cutting the Heart Shapes.

This isn’t as hard as it sounds. You can either find a heart on the web or do that trick like you did in elementary school by folding a sheet of paper in half and cutting half a heart – then when you open it up you’ll have a heart template.
Trace your heart template on a piece of mat and carefully cut with a razor blade or an X-Acto Knife. You'll need two (2) heart-shaped pieces.

Step 2: Covering the Lid

For the lid of your box cover the entire top of the heart in double-sided tape. Then carefully pressed the heart (sticky side down) onto the back of the outstretched material. Used a razor blade to trim off the excess material from your heart.

Step 3: Attaching the Ribbon

Covering the edge of your lid with ribbon will help keep the material from fraying. Use a hot glue gun to attach the ribbon to the edge of the lid. Worked slowly until you circumvented the entire heart with ribbon. Then go back and glue the rest of the ribbon to the underside of the lid.

Step 4: Making the Sides (depth) of the Box

Cut several strips of cardstock. I made mine 2” wide – make yours however deep you want your box to be. Now use your double-sided tape and overlap strip of cardstock until you have one continuous strip of cardstock. Loop this strip on itself until you have a circle. Then crease the circle on both ends. Test to see if this circle fits on one of the hearts with enough room for a lip – adjust the circle size if necessary.

Step 5: Guidelines

Mark 1” in of the edge of your base heart and draw guidelines.

Step 6: Using Guidelines

I used folded over strips of cardstock taped along the edges of my guidelines before I attached my circle of cardstock.

Step 7: Attaching the Side of the Box to the Base

Line one point of your cardstock circle with the intersection on your base and tape the flaps to your circle.Now bend your circle into a heart shape again and work your way around this new heart attaching it to the base with clear packing tape.
The bottom of the box is done.

Step 8: Guidelines for the Lid

Mark 1” in of the edge of your lid heart and draw guidelines.

Step 9: Adding Sides to Your Lid

Make another long strip of cardstock and fold a crease about 5” in – this way you won’t end at one of the points. Then start attaching the cardstock to the lid with clear packing tape just like you did with the base.

Step 10: Finish Attaching Sides to the Lid

You want the lid to be slightly larger than the base so the top and bottom will slide together. Put the base and top together at this point, making sure that the base is on the inside. Now push the cardstock strip to the inside and secure it to the lid with packing tape. Work your way around the box securing the cardstock. Tape the ends of the cardstock together and you’re DONE!