Stampin’ Up! Template Thursday: Purse in a Box (holds standard-sized cards)

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the Box in a Bag project.  Although you see them, and tutorials on how to make them, all over blogs and websites, the original designer of that project is Diana Gibbs, and you can see her tutorial for it HERE. Why do I tell you that?  Because I’m a big believer in credit being given where credit is due. If I design something myself, I’m proud to say it, if I copied something, even if I don’t know who the original creator is, you’ll always see me say that the original idea is not mine.  My project today was inspired by Diana’s, but this template I’m sharing is my own design. 

Diana’s box in a bag has a base dimension that is 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" and it ‘s height is 5 1/2" – making it the perfect size for packaging up some treats to give as a gift.  As I was going through her tutorial, I thought, "wouldn’t it be great to come up with something similar that would hold cards?". 

So after playing around with various dimensions, my "Purse in a Box" evolved.  The base dimensions are 2" x 6" and it’s height is 6", making it the perfect size to hold between 4-6 standard-sized cards (4 1/4" x 5 1/2") and their envelopes.

I’ve put together a template and tutorial for you on how to create this project.  This project uses the following supplies (all Stampin’ Up!):

Stamps: Bella’s Blossoms
Paper: Whisper White, Old Olive CS, Designer Prints Old Olive (from the retired collection – there was a whole new series of patterns released with this new catalogue)
Ink: Pretty in Pink, Old Olive, Basic Black
Accessories: Stylized Silver Hodgepodge Hardware, 1/16" handheld punch, paper piercer & foam mat, slit punch, ticket corner punch, Tombow Multipurpose glue, Clear Chunky Glitter, paper snips, bone folder, sticky strip, Crop a Dial, Tab punch, Wide Olive Grosgrain Ribbon.

You can download the template for the base HERE.

You will need to cut the following dimensions for the purse:

Old Olive CS for box base: 8" x 4"
Old Olive CS for strips: 1 1/2" x 8 1/2" (two strips)
Old Olive DP for purse: 6" x 10"
Old Olive DP: 6" x 8"

Step 1: Take an 8" x 4" piece of Old Olive CS and score in 1" from all four sides, crease along the score lines with your bone folder, and cut the flaps as shown in the template you downloaded above.

Step 2: Place two small pieces of sticky strip on the back side of each of the small flaps.

Step 3: Peel the backing off of the small flaps and stick to the inside of the middle flaps.

Step 4: Repeat on the other side.  Place sticky strip all along the base of the "box" on all four sides.

Step 5:  Peel the backing off of the front and both sides of the box base. Take your 6" x 10" piece of DP and starting at one end, align the edge of the DP with the bottom edge of the box side and carefully, bring it around the front, and end at the other side.   *Make sure you wrap the 9" side along the bottom of the box  – the 6" side is the height* It will look like this:

Step 6: Peel the backing off of the sticky strip on the front of the box base, take your 6" x 8" piece of DP, center it (you just eyeball this) and stick it to the sticky strip so that the bottom of the DP is aligned with the bottom of the box.  Because the dimensions are so close, be VERY CAREFUL that you stick the correct side (i.e. the 10" side) to the box bottom.  Notice from the picture below that the sides are still not stuck down.

Step 7: Lay your box down (in the picture you are looking at the bottom of the box) and place a small piece of sticky strip on the sides of the DP as shown (along the bottom edge).  Peel off the sticky strip backing and stick the sides down, making sure that the bottom of the side pieces are aligned with the bottom edge of the box.

Step 8: Stand the box up so that you are looking at the sides. Notice that the edges naturally overlap about 1".  Now take a look at the next picture to see how you want the edges to overlap when you stick them together.  

Step 9: When you stick the two pieces of DP together, you only want them to overlap about 1/4".  This is VERY IMPORTANT if you want to be able to get the "purse" look, with the top of the bag being wider than the bottom of the bag.  Now that you see how the sides should overlap, you need to add some adhesive to the inside of the side flap to stick them together.  See step 10 for this.

Step 10: Place a small piece of sticky strip at the top, and then use your Tombow Multi-purpose adhesive and place a thin layer along the edge of the side "flap". Stand the box up and stick as shown in the picture above so that the two edges overlap by only about 1/4".  Repeat on the other side.

Step 11: This is how your purse now looks.

Step 12: Take two 1 1/2" x 8 1/2" strips of Old Olive CS.  Create a scalloped border using the slit punch (or, if you don’t mind smaller scallops, you can use Stampin’ Up!’s new scallop edge punch). Place sticky strip all along the bottom edge of the scalloped border.

Step 13: Peel the backing off of one of your scalloped strips. Starting on the side of the box, about 1/4" in from the end, carefully  stick the scalloped border to the base of the purse, making sure you align the bottom edge of the scalloped border with the bottom of the purse so that the seam (where the DP and the bottom of the box meet) is totally covered.

Step 14: On the side of the box, carefully cut off a couple of the scallops so that they don’t show, when you overlap the next scalloped border with the first border.

Step 15:  Peel the backing off of the sticky strip on the second scalloped border. Carefully align it with the first one, so that the scallops match.

Step 16: Continue to stick the border all along the bottom edge of the box.  When you get to the other side of the box, trim the scalloped border (i.e. make it shorter) if necessary to align it with the scallops on the first border, on the other side.  Your purse is finished!

Step 18: Decorate your purse front as desired.  To tie it shut I punched out two tabs with the tab punch, folded them in half, centered and attached them to the front and back of the purse, punched a hole in them using the Crop-a-Dile and tied them together using the wide olive grosgrain.  Alternately you could leave it open with no tie, or you could add two tabs to the front and back and add "handles" so it looks more like a purse or tote. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!