amjay's 30th birthday craft

For my first ever post of instructional crafts, I will share the birthday banner making, LEGO themed gift wrapping, and a handmade explosion box card for my husband.

He celebrated his 30th birthday this July and I had so much plans in store for his birthday. Like a LEGO themed birthday party with birthday banners, party hats, loot bags and all. LOL. But only a portion has materialized. What I did instead is a simple banner, wrapped his gift (a LEGO set), and made him an explosion box card. Thus, the three parts of this post:

I. Birthday Banner 

For the birthday banner, here are the quick easy steps:

1) Cut out triangle shapes for the banner, you can pick the colour that will suit your theme. I used construction paper that I readily have for the banners.;

2) Cut out letters for the HAPPY BIRTHDAY and glue them on the banner cut-outs. For the letters, I used pastel coloured papers; and

3) Line them up and tape the ribbon at the top back side of the banner.

 Here's the final product, with the birthday boy of course!

Amjay's Birthday Banner

II. Birthday gift wrapping

Since his gift is a LEGO Nexo Knights set, I thought of doing some sort of a LEGO themed gift wrapping. This gift wrap technique may look a bit too much of a work, but if it's for someone special, it's definitely worth it. Again quick easy steps for this gift wrap:

1)  Wrap a gift normally as what you would do in any box gift. Since this is quite a big box, I recycled the paper used by the store that delivered the LEGO set. Please see picture in step 3;

2)  Cut out box shapes and different sizes of rectangle. I have used the same construction paper for the banner;

Birthday Gift Wrap Step 2

 3) Glue the cut-out shapes to the wrapped gift. It's better to alternate colours and mimic stacking up LEGOs. Fill up the full front of the gift.

Birthday Gift Wrap Step 3

Here's the LEGO inspired gift wrap.

Amjay's Birthday Gift

III. Explosion Box Card

Lastly, the explosion box card. This is inspired by a video that I have watched from Youtube.  It looks like a normal card when closed but once you open it, it will explode into a box. I will try to properly instruct step by step. =)

 1) Use a cardboard for the base of this card, measuring 11.5" by 6.25". The colour theme is green, black and silver for this card, because green is Amjay's favourite colour.

2) Using a used up roller pen to easily fold the edges, divide the cardboard vertically by 2.75" making four divisions. This will leave a 0.5" at the end then cut out the upper 2.75". of Divide the cardboard horizontally by 2.75" making two divisions. Then fold the lines you have marked. (As of this writing, I have figured that using the tip of a glue applier is better in marking papers for folding). Please see the first picture of the grid below for reference.

And lastly for this step, cut the upper 2.75" of the squares you have formed to separate. Please see the second picture of the grid for this part. 

Explosion Box Card Step 2

3) To decorate the explosion box card, get coloured papers of your liking and cut 6 squares measuring 2.5" x 2.5". Use this cut-out square cards to whatever decoration you prefer. Amjay likes frogs and so, I incorporated that in the card. Using a shape puncher I purchased from Amazon, I punched the upper and lower parts of the square cards and punched a glittered green foam as well. I cut-out a freehand lettering of "AMJ @ 30" using a glittered silver foam. 

 

Explosion Box Card Step 3

 

4) As shown on the picture below, the 0.5" tab at the end should be on your lower right, and that side will be the front side of your card. Put a double sided tape on this side of the tab but do not remove the cover yet.

Make sure to decorate on the lower part of this side for the decorations you want on the front of the card. Put a white or any neutral colour paper on the right as shown on the picture below. You can use this part for your personalized message.

Once you are done decorating the front of you card, flip the card to the other side. Make sure that the 0.5" tab at the end should be on your lower left. Then decorate this part for the inside of your box. Make sure to glue your decorations on the upper portion of the card and maximize the four upper boxes. (Sorry, no picture for this. But you can refer to the picture in step 6 for a view of how this should look like.)

Explosion Box Card Step 4

 

5) Remove the cover of the double-sided tape and connect it to the other side of the cardboard. The end product should be below. I have shown a customized envelope below as well, since the card doesn't fit in any normal sized envelope. I won't go into detail on this one though =)

 

Explosion Box Card Step 5

 

6) Lastly, to provide additional beauty in your card, let's decorate the inside of the box. Inside the opened box card, place two cardboards measuring 1.5" x 3.75. Fold the left side 0.5" inward and the right side 0.5" outward. Stick these two cardboards at upper side and lower side on the middle of the box as show in the second picture on the grid below. Using the same base cardboard, glue your decorations and cut them up according to how you please. You may use other papers for this depending on what you like. Finally, glue them at the back of the two cardboards you have attached at the middle and do some levelling to see all your decorations. Voila! Explosion Box Card!

 

Explosion Box Card Step 6

This may have been a long instructional blog post, but I hope you have enjoyed reading this and hopefully this is helpful on your loved one's birthdays as well!