One of my friends who got married this year told me last week that she had the hardest time finding favor boxes to use at the reception. Everything she found was either too ugly or too expensive. Oh how I wish she’d told me about this BEFORE the wedding, or I could have helped! Even though it’s too late to help her now, I thought this would be a great project to do for the rest of you, because there are always tons of occasions where favor boxes come in handy. You can use them for bridal or baby showers, birthday parties, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and so on. Heck, you could even use these for Halloween trick-or-treaters if you’re so inclined. Oh, the possibilities!

First is the most fun part — choosing the cardstock. You can use absolutely any patterned cardstock you like (don’t try using paper; it won’t be stiff enough). A trip to the scrapbook store or craft store will reveal hundreds of choices, and you can easily pick something to suit your occasion. A nice double-sided cardstock will give you extraordinary results, so keep an eye out for that.

Next, download my favor box template and the matching folding guide:

Download our Favor Box Template

Download our Favor Box Folding Guide

To get the template pattern onto your paper, you have two options. One method is to print a single template, cut it out, and trace around it onto each sheet of cardstock, then cut the shape out of the cardstock. This method will let you make the most of your cardstock scraps, but it is time-consuming and can lead to imperfect results.

My preferred method is to print the favor box template directly onto the cardstock. Just trim your cardstock to 8.5″ x 11″ and feed it right through your printer. Then cut each one out and you’re ready to go.

With all your templates printed and cut, and with a copy of the color-coded folding guide at your side, you’re ready to go.

Now we’ll score all our folds. To do this, you’ll need a ruler or straight edge and a bone folder. Take a look at the red line on the folding guide. This is our first score. Line the ruler up on your box where the red line indicates, and run the bone folder firmly once or twice along the edge, to make a nice score line.

Then do the same thing for the yellow line and then the green line on the folding guide.

Now look at the four light blue lines on the folding guide, and score each of those.

Your scoring is now completed, but let me take a moment to show you another scoring technique which you may find easier.

Instead of keeping your folding guide on the desk next to you, try cutting it out and laying it on top of the box piece. Then your score lines are right there where you can easily see them, and you can score right through the template and the box piece at the same time. You’ll have to press a little harder, but this can be a great way to keep things lined up. In fact, you may want to try this technique for the first couple of boxes you make, until you get a good feel for it!

With your box fully scored, it’s time to now fold it. Just bend each of the score lines and they’ll fold easily. You’ll end up with something that looks like this:

To put the box together, the first thing you need to do is attach the two ends so that you’ve got a box shape. There’s a little tab on one end that needs to be taped to the other end, and I’ve got a really easy trick for making that line up perfect and straight.

Flip the piece over so the inside is on top (isn’t my double-sided cardstock gorgeous?) and the tallest part of the box is on the right. Fold that tall part over on the first crease.

Now take a piece of double-sided tape and stick it on the tab, right where I’m pointing in this picture.

Lift the left end of the box and bend it along the first fold line. When folded, it should meet the other end of the box perfectly.

Press firmly to secure the tape, and when you let go you’ll see that you now have a box shape forming.

Find the top of the box and bend in the two side flaps, then tuck in the lid.

This will give you a nice flat surface which will help you put together the bottom of the box, which is a little trickier.

For the bottom of the box, start by folding in the square tab that has the notch in it. Then fold in the two side pieces.

Now fold in the fourth flap, and gently push it down at the center, which will push the other flaps out of the way slightly.

When you’ve (gently!) pushed far enough, you will hear a slight snap as the tab pops into the hole. When you release pressure, the flaps will move back in place and you’ll have a nice, smooth box bottom.

Ta-da! The box is done!

Well, it’s done unless you want to fill it and embellish it, that is! There are tons of things you can tuck inside the box, like Jordan almonds for a wedding, or Hershey’s Kisses for just about any occasion.

And when it comes to embellishing the box, you have lots of options. You can tuck the lid’s flap inside the box or you can leave it out. If you leave it out, you could even add a little self-stick Velcro dot under the flap to make it easy to open and close repeatedly

And a satin ribbon tied around the box in a cute little bow will send you way off the cuteness charts.

You could even print your photo (or other emblem) onto cute little 1″ round stickers and use them to seal the box closed. How sweet would that be at a wedding?

Readers, we’d love to hear more ideas on how to decorate these boxes and more uses for them besides wedding favors. Please share your ideas in the comments!