In case you were wondering, an Explosion Box is a special card that looks like a box however once the lid is removed the sides fall open to reveal pockets, messages, gifts and a variety of other surprises tucked inside.
This was a project I knew I had to try and thought it would be perfect for our Secret Garden mother ~ daughter tea party. My original plan was to make one for each guest and inside they would find the Tea Party Program, Menu, Game and a small gift. I had all of the boxes cut out and ready to decorate and fill but I quickly discovered that these sweet little boxes take more time to assemble than I had originally planned on. So, I set aside all but two, one for our mother and one to hide our game in until it was time to pass them out.
The inside of the boxes are somewhat similar since my intention was to make all the boxes the same so, in theory, the assembly would go faster. The outside seemed to go pretty quickly however once I started on the inside things began to slow down due in part to the constant flow of ideas. That always slows me down.
The pockets with the blue flowers hold the program and the menu. The envelope with the tie closure held The Secret Garden Game { aka: cootie catcher }. The envelopes are made from pictures of quilts in my quilting magazines so each one is different. I drew a template that fit the magazine pages as well as the square in the box and then traced, cut and glued all the pieces. Last but not least I attached a tie closure that wrapped around a punched flower.
For this blue box I made an extra feature to put in the middle since the games would only be there temporarily. A bouquet of flowers seemed perfect for the center and they match the Pomanders I made for the tea party table. The crown on top represents our Queen Bee.
The pink box below is the one that was given to the Queen Bee.
For this box I used coordinating paper but used the same layout. My idea was to have the two different colors of boxes so half would match this box and the other half would match the blue box except for the envelopes which were all a different quilt pattern.
The boxes were to each have the bird seed party favor inside as this one did.
This was such a fun project!
Although I wasn't able to make as many as I had planned I look forward to making more explosion boxes for other special occasions.
Happy Saturday!
