Winter Woodland's Tea Sampler Box

Hi guys!  I'm back today with a quick tutorial using the Cricut.  I was looking for a small, cute box to put some tea in to send to a friend and I saw one of the 3D buildings on the Winter Woodland cartridge that I thought would be perfect.  The building was originally meant to be a church, but that's where you can use your imagination.  =) 

Using cardstock from the Shabby Chic collection by Tim Holtz, I used the Fit-to-Page function to cut out two 3dBldg2 (one of the cuts was made using the shift key, and was for the solid cut that fits inside the box).  There is a roof, steeple, & doors that could've been cut, but I chose to simplify it with only the two cuts. 

In the back of the booklet for Winter Woodland there are directions on how to assemble the 3D village buildings.  For my Tea Room, I assembled the solid shape box first, added foam dot adhesives, then wrapped the outside building shape with the cutouts around the the solid shaped box to seal it together.  By the way...you don't have to add foam dots as I did.  I just wanted to add some dimension to the cutout portions.

I used Glaze pens to draw on the detailed accents such as the tea room sign, door, bushes, & trees.  I love these 3D type gel pens, as they give the look & feel of embossing after they dry.  I also added a bit of lace at the top of the awning both in front & back, and on the sides.

The sides were originally meant to be stained glass windows, but I decided to give them the look of trees instead (yes, my imagination was at play here).  I used the Glaze pens again, and since they are translucent you're able to see the pattern of the cardstock through the green of the trees.  I rather liked the look of it -- but I bet it would be great as stained glass too, so I'll have to remember that for another project. 

Because I wanted to use this as a Tea Sampler box, I added a bottom enclosure.   To determine the size of the cardstock I should cut, I simply drew around the the base of the building -- I subtracted 1/4" from two neighboring sides, and then added a 1/2" to all four sides before cutting my cardstock.  Then I scored each side of the cardstock at 1/2" and snipped off the corners where the scoring intersected (that just helps it not to be bulky fitting it into the base).  I hope that makes sense -- basically you want the bottom insert to be about 1/8" smaller all around so it fits easily into the base since the foam dots will add thickness to the box.  The extra 1/2" is to create tabs to hold the base in place -- I applied score tape to the four scored sides and adhered it to the inside base of the building.


Just a little imagination and I was able to create a quick Tea Sampler Box from just three pieces of cardstock.  I added a variety of tea samples & it fit neatly into a cellophane bag with ribbon.  I think these would be great to make as party gifts too.  You could customize it to be a coffee shop with Starbucks samplers, or a Candy Store for sweets...Oh the possibilities!  =)

Thanks for peeking in today.  Hope your weekend is fabulous!  Lisa