Me and my husband don’t celebrate our wedding anniversaries big, however, I wanted to give him something personal this year. It took a me a while to get any idea at all but in the end I remembered that a while ago I saw a box that kind of exploded into several layers. My explosion box is quite simple and made from paper, which makes it perfect and easy to make at home. You can decorate it as you want and thus make it a unique exploding box gift.
This is a tutorial on the base of the box, you can make the same squash card and paper decorations like me, if you want 🙂
Table of Contents
Explosion box – Supplies (to make the base and decorated lid)
- 2 sheets DIN A2 hard paper in any colors you want
- 2 sheets DIN A3 hard paper in any colors you want
- 1 m of thin ribbon
- scissors
- glue
- ruler
- pencil
To decorate:
- photos
- color paper thin and hard
- scrapbooking paper or paper for business cards
- heart paper cutter
- golden felted pen or acrylic paint and a brush
- tutorials for the explosion box decor HERE and HERE
Instructions for Creating the Explosion Box
Base
From one sheet of hard paper cut a square 36 x 36 cm. Measure it into nine smaller squares of 12 x 12 cm. From a piece of paper cut a heart template that fits into one smaller square and aligns as shown in the picture. Using this template draw a heart in all the four corner squares.
Cut out the heart shape as you see in the picture.
Do the same in all four corners. Then score and fold all the black lines. Use a ruler and a pair of scissors to score the paper, or a paper cutter with a scoring knife.
 
When you’re done you should be able to fold the paper into a box shape.
 
Now decorate the first layer of your box. If you want to make the same box for photos that I made, you can check out the tutorial here.
Creating the Explosion Box’s Lid
Next make the lid. Cut a square of 20,6 x 20,6 cm from hard paper. Score and fold all four sides 4 cm from the edge (red lines in the picture).
Cut the 4 cm lines that are marked green in the picture.
Fold the cut pieces upwards. these are the overlaps that you will glue to the sides of the lid.
Fold the sides of the lid upwards so they are perpendicular to the base of the lid, fold the overlaps inside and glue them.
You can decorate the lid for example as follows: take two ribbons, cross them in the center of the lid and glue. Fold the ends of the ribbons inside the lid and glue again.
Add bows in the center.
I also glued an envelope with a message on the inside of the lid. Find our here how to make a square envelope.
Try to fold the box and put the lid on.
Adding a Second Layer to your Explosion Box
Let’s make the second layer. Cut out another hard paper square, this time 33 x 33 cm and draw a grid of 9 squares 11 x 11 cm. Cut off the corner squares.
Score the lines connecting the squares and fold.
Glue the second layer in the center of the bottom of the first layer.
Decorate the second layer as you wish. One of the decorations I chose was the squash card, you can find the tutorial here.
Adding a Third Layer
Make the third layer in the same way you made the second one, just this time the square you start with will be 3 cm smaller. That means 30 x 30 cm and you draw a grid of nine squares of 10 x 10 cm. Then continue with the same steps. I also used the round corner cutter to shape the corners round.
Once again, there are no limits to your imagination and to how you decide to decorate the third layer. In the end I made a smaller box which I put in the folded exploding box, it has a small gift in it.
That’s all, here are some photos of my exploding box for inspiration:
