Let Them Eat Cake: Suzanne's Birthday Explosion Box

Hello Crafty Friends!

Time to make a cup of tea, cut yourself a slice of cake and enjoy our first Project of the Month.

Our May Kit is Let Them Eat Cake and it's SO yummy!! You'll be drooling over all the scrumptious projects our Creative Team have planned for you!

So let'get started today with Suzanne's Explosion Box....

Hi everyone. I'm very excited to be presenting my first creative team project made from the May kit from Aunty Vera Scrap and Craft.   'Let them eat cake' is the theme set for this month's kit and let me just say it was super fun to get into all the wonderful goodies in this kit.

I decided to make a Birthday explosion box as my first project.  Explosion boxes have become quite popular lately and I had recently made one which people really seemed to like, so I made another .  The explosion box I'm making is really quite simple.  All you need are a couple of piece of 12 x 12 cardstock as your base and the Kaisercraft 'High Tea' papers from the May kit and you're good to go.

I chose some pink cardstock that coordinated with the beautiful papers that Aunty Vera chose for the kit from Kaisercraft (High Tea collection).  I scored this cardstock at the 4 and 8 inch marks on my scoreboard and then turned it 90degrees and scored at 4 and 8 inch marks again. I scored from each corner of the centre square to the outside corner of the cardstock.so that these form the fold in corners of the box. I then cut across the corner from the 4 inch mark on one side to the 4 inch mark on the other side. (This forms a triangle shape).  This is the base of your explosion box



12 x 12 cardstock scored at 4 and 8 inch and corners  scored and cut off

I then cut one of the patterned papers into nine 4x 4 inch pieces of paper and glued one on each side of the outside of the box and the other 5 squares on the inside of the box (4 sides and base)  I inked all the edges of the paper before sticking them on.  I then  decorated two sides of the outside of the box with 'happy birthday' die cuts and I used the cake die from the kit to decorate the other two sides.

Happy Birthday die cuts

cake diecut

Glued the patterned paper on the inside

I then made two envelopes with my envelope punch board (3 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch envelope using 6 x 6 inch piece of paper) and used a die from my stash to make a frame and rose embellishment.  I also used a flower diecut from another kaisercraft collection that matched perfectly to finish off the four inside sides of the box.


Envelope for goodies or gift card

Frame and rose



Die cut

Another Envelope for goodies or gift card

Inside this box I then insert another box.  I used a piece of 9 x 9 inch paper from the collection and scored it at 3 and 6 inch, then turned it 90deg and scored at 3 and 6 inch again.  This time the corner squares are cut out and used to cover the inside of the box to give the sides more strength.


9 x 9 inch paper with corner squares removed and used inside the box for strength.

 I then cut 4 pieces of coordinating cardstock with another of my dies and glued these on all sides of the inside of the box for strength. You don't need to do this step, but I found my decorations were disappearing into the background papers.

Cardstock added for strength

The inside has been decorated with the teacup stamp which I coloured with my prismacolour pencils to match the papers. 

Stamp from the collection fussy cut and coloured to match the papers

 The next side I put in 3 of the beautiful Prima flowers from the collection

3 small prima flowers

 Next I added a cutout from the papers

cutout from the papers

and lastly I made a shaker flower.  To make this I diecut a flower shape about 8 times.  For the back of the shaker I diecut a circle that covered the back in white and then covered it with the cute washi tape with the macarons on it.  I stacked 6 of the flower shapes together and glued them all on top of each other.  With the last two flower shapes I used glossy accents to glue a piece of clear acetate between them for the window. I set this aside to dry.  With the doodle pops I used the tiny heart shapes to add to the inside of the shaker and then I added glitter and micro beads and glued on the clear window flower shape.  On the outside of the flower shaped shaker I used the 6 tiny macarons to decorate the outside of the shaker.

Shaker card

To finish off the inside of the box I created a cake using the cake die and some of my circle dies.  I cut the cake stand out 9 times with white cardstock and 3 times with patterned paper and glued them together (3 white cardstock cut outs and 1 patterned paper cut out stuck together for strength).  I then folded the cakestands down the centre and glued the three together with the centre fold all joining together in the middle.  I cut a scalloped circle for the cake plate. The three cakes are made using strips of paper and small circles. The biggest cake is made with a 1/2inch strip of paper, the middle cake 3/8inch strip of paper and smallest cake is using a 2/8 inch strip of paper. I then diecut the small cake topper three times with patterned paper and folded them in the centre and stuck them together.

a cake for the centre of the box

For the lid I used a piece of matching cardstock and cut a piece at 6 1/8 inches square.  I then scored this piece of cardstock at 1 inch then turned it 90deg and did this to all four sides.  I then cut 1 side of the 1 inch squares in the corners to form the tab to glue the lid together.  I used some lace from my stash to decorate the sides of the lid and I added a piece of the patterned paper to the top before adding some pink and peach feathers and 3 of the Prima flowers to finish off the lid.


Lid with lace edge and coordinating paper on top



completed project

 I really hope you like my completed birthday explosion box.


You can see my video showing this explosion box HERE.
You can see my video on how to make an explosion box HERE 
You can see my video on how to make the shaker and cake HERE.
The May kit is available HERE