Desk Tidy

First off apologies for the photos, there wasnt a single place in the house that had decent light today thanks to dark grey skys and lots of rain.

The instructions are a very rough guide to assembling my desk tidy. Because my template has sizes for 2 different boxes I wont be talking of measurements. You will need to be accurate with your scoring or cutting. The single drawer box is the easiest to make.

First off cut, score and sharpen the folds of the back. It's vitally important for the smaller box or if using 2 drawers that you cut away as shown in the pic.

Attach plenty of strong dst to the flap and bring flush the side. When you've attached both sides you will have a 4 sided box.

Next I assemble the drawer sleeves. If you are making a single drawer you will only have 3 sections this will just be for the sides and top. Score and fold then cut away triangles from the smaller sections.

Lots and lots of dst

Use some glue stick over the tape and carefully ease one corner into place. It's important that the tiny flaps meet the back and that the side is flush to the outer sides. The smaller box drawers arent square so make sure you have the sleeve the right way up.

One corner of the sleeve will be lose but that's right.

Next fit in the other sleeve.

Now to assemble the front panel. Sharpen the creases and cut away 2 triangles. I used a scallop punch to create a lip. Plenty more strong dst

Again using glue stick over the dst carefully place one corner of the panel into place. The sides & back must meet and the bottom has to be flush to the top of the drawer sleeves.

Glue in the other side and you should nearly be finished.

Normally with a box I would cut the sections a different way but this time you need the strength that folding the flaps clockwise will give. Just a case now of glueing the sides together and adding ribbons, eyelets or brads for handles.

You might find it easier to assemble the drawers first and wrap the sleeves around them as you're fixing the sleeves into place. You might also find it easier to attach the sleeves & front panel before bringing the back section together.

Stationary Box step by step

I'd love to claim this idea as mine but it isnt. I've seen many similar templates and diecut kits around but my favourite and the one on which I took inspiration from is Dannie She has a pdf template for a US sized box and 2 video tutorials on making them. It's well worth watching and may make some of my instructions a bit clearer.

Going back to my version.

I'm going to assume that everyone knows the basics of boxmaking and only show some of the more important steps otherwise we'd have ended up with 100+ boring photos and an awful lot of waiting for the page to load.





First thing you need to do is cut your back, front, sides and lid either by hand or with my svg patterns for scal. If you're cutting by hand you will need at least 4 sheets of strong but not too thick card. Scal will take 3 sheets of 12*12.





Once cut and all the fold lines are scored you will need to think about which areas are going to be on show and need to be decorated. Stick all your paper in place apart from the inside of the front. You'll need to do that last so you can attach all your ribbons and slots before sticking into place.






This is the inside of the back, because only the top area will ever show I've only stuck the paper part way down. All of the sides have been folded inwards and the creases sharpened with a bone folder.



Attach strong dst to the 2 small flaps and stick them to the inside of the sides of the back.

You'll now have this shape section, I've turned it upside down so that it's easier to photo. Some people find it easier to attach to the front now, others find it easier to add the sections. I'm going to show adding the sections first because it was easier to photo.

Next you need to attach dst to the 2 larger sections if making the box to fit a6 cards. Please pay attention to one of the panels not having dst. Or just the outer edges of the 6*6 section panel. The bottom inch or so will not be seen so I've saved on paper.

I find it best to rub some glue stick over the tape before carefully sliding them together as shown. It's essential to have them butted together precisely, I find it helps to hold them flat to the table.

Remove the dst from one side and butt the side and tab against the back. Again it's essential to be precise.

Remove the rest of the dst and again butt up against the back and side. If you've been accurate with your cutting and folding the section will be level with the cutaway section.

Repeat this with the bottom panels. You'll see on this photo I chose the smaller sections of the scal cutting pattern to leave me room to stand a pen. If you want to do the same when cutting by hand cut one of the sections 1.5cms smaller

Now I'm going to add the front to the back, as I said earlier you can do this before attaching the sections.

Add some strong dst to the flap that was on the bottom of the cutting diagram. Rub over some glue stick and carefully attach to the bottom of the back. It must have all the folds lined properly or your front will not fold up properly.

The lid is a standard box so I've shown no step by steps.

Now you'll want to start adding all your contents.

The more of these boxes I make the more tips I'm discovering.

1, don't add the decoartive paper to the inside of the front until you've worked out what's going to be attached, where and how you're going to attach it. Specially important if you need to poke ribbon/elastic through to hold pencils/rubbers.

2, Slots to hold memo pads are normally a great idea but because of how the front folds upwards the memo pads will slide out. Making a small lid helps as it will hold the pad in place while the box is closed as well as looking pretty. You will still need to cut 2 slits to hold the back panel but think about having them quite low towards the end of the pad otherwise you wont be able to remove it.

3, Larger & busier patterns seem to work better on the outside with pretty delicate ones inside.

4, If you've aquired the plain wooden pencils like the ones from Ikea or Argos they can be inked to match the papers quite nicely but make sure you let them dry for an hour or so before putting them in the box, you don't want inky fingers or pencils ruining all your work.

5, If you've cut by hand the back fold around section can look a bit unsightly. A border punch can help liven it up a bit but you don't want to cut too much away or fold it in on itself. This fold around is needed to stop the front crashing down once you have your pad attached.

I'm sure I'll think up some more tips as I'm making more boxes but if you think of any please leave a comment and share it with others.

from this to this

I've always enjoyed making pop out aperature cards and scal has made it possible to make them with fancy aperatures. This is my Bauble w aperature card base and I've used my new flourish bauble design to make a dangly for it. The flourish bauble isnt available yet but it will be in a couple of days.

In case you're wondering it's not a fancy card I just used my new Stampin'Up! snowburst stamp set with some lavender lace, pale plum and cameo coral ink to create the background. Not 3 colours I'd normally put together but I think they work well for a contempory Christmas.

One of the beauties of this sort of card is if you make 5 identical you can back to back them to create a star/lantern card. (I do wish the companies selling diecut bases & templates would all call cards by the same name as each other!)

I took it a little bit further than just sticking 5 together by adding larger base layers to create more interest when it's open.

It's a very time consuming card to make and it takes a lot of card & strong dst but they do make for a wow factor when you open them.

If you fancy having a go you'll need to cut 5 w aperature cards 5" high.
5 of the next layer, 5*10" and scored in the middle.
5 of the next layer, 5* 11" again scored in the middle
5 of the outer layer (when closed) 5**12" and again scored in the middle.
Plus extra card and ribbon to decorate.

Basically all you do is stick everything together along the side edges. I like to use strong dst covered with some glue stick. The glue stick gives me a few moments of slippy time when I can make sure all of the edges are flush. If anyone wants just email me and I'll post a step by step but I'm assuming if you have scal and a cricut you'll be familiar with how star cards work.



This is a close up of the flourish bauble. It took a sticky mat and nerves of steel taking these off of the mat as I'd cut a dozen all about 2" wide. I doubt you can see the detail but behind the aperature I used lavender lace ink with my new SU Sparkling wheel to decorate the cardstock on the layer below.

Here is the card all ready to go in a box for hubbys head office. Stamps and colours have already been mentioned but I also used a punches three sentiment stamp plus the matching SU punch and the new SU lacey edge punch.

sneaky peek

One of the items I've always wanted to make is a stationary case but all of the tutorials I've found online are for US size cards and as much as I love 3" notecards I have little use for them. So after many naughty words and an awful lot of wasted card I've finally got the sizes right for uk a6 & 6*6 cards.



Here is the inside of 1 variation and it's designed to hold a6 cards in the back section and has a space on the lower row to hold a pen.

I've made several variations of the inside, the back section also comes ready to place 6"sqr cards & envies and the front section comes as shown with space for a pen or with 2 sections going right to the sides.

While I was making the box I did take some photos and I'll be making a step by step tutorial here. It's not going to be an in depth tutorial though and I'm going to assume everyone is familar with basic box making. If you want to go shopping ready to follow the tutorial you will need to have 4 sheets of good quality 12*12 card stock and 3 sheets of coordinating paper to decorate. The tutorial wont be here until about the 13th Oct though, this is so the how to is a secret from a great bunch of ladies from Docrafts. They're coming here for a play day and this is what I'm going to have them making although they will be using my pdf version and cutting everything by hand from a4.