Tutorial: Fabric Candy Box

I am just a little bit excited about this project! I actually thought of it and made it before Christmas – which totally took me out of the Christmas mood and made me so ready for Valentine’s Day! The fun thing about this candy box is it is made from a red t-shirt (that I had leftover from making this cowgirl shirt), a little bit of batting, and cardboard from a cereal box. So simple! So fun!

To start with, you need to decide how large you want your candy box. I just drew a heart on a piece of paper and made that my stencil. The heart will be the finished size of the box.

From your heart stencil, cut 4 cardboard hearts and 2 batting hearts. Using the spine of your cereal box, cut a few 1” wide strips of cardboard (I ended up only using 2 on my box – but it all depends how big you are going!).

Next, you are going to glue together some cardboard and batting sandwiches (I used hot glue). Think of the cardboard as the bread and the batting as the peanut butter (or whatever your sandwich of choice is). You are going to make two sandwiches.

Using your heart sandwich as a stencil, cut the red knit fabric. I prefer a seam allowance of ¼”, so I cut my red fabric ¼” wider along all sides of the heart sandwich. Cut 4 red hearts.

With right-sides together, sew 2 red hearts together all the way around (leaving no gaps). Repeat with your second set of red hearts.

Next, clip the curves and points around your heart. Carefully cut a slit in one of your hearts (careful – don’t go through both layers!). Make sure that your slit stays in the center of the heart (stay at least 1” away from all edges). Repeat with your second set of red hearts.

Turn your heart right-side-out through the slit you cut. Repeat with your second set of red hearts.

Carefully stuff your heart cardboard sandwich inside of the red heart layers. I ended up cutting my slit wider; cutting a horizontal slit worked a lot better than a vertical slit in order to get the heart sandwich inside. It will look messy on one side, but we will cover that up.

When you turn your heart over, it will look like this!

Repeat with your second set of red hearts. (You can see for the top of the box, I decided to add some little white hearts. Totally optional – you can leave it plain or dress it up as much as you want!)

Next, we are going to cut 2 more red hearts to cover up those ugly/messy slits we made on the inside of the hearts. I made my red hearts 1” smaller on all sides than the finished heart size.

Glue these on the inside of your box (making sure to center them) with your hot glue gun by putting a thin bead of glue close to the edge of the smaller heart. I embellished mine with some white thread and the word ‘love’ (that will show once all of the candy is eaten out of the boxJ). It may help to glue the ugly/messy slit down flat before you glue these hearts on top.

Next, we are going to make a sleeve for the rim of the box. My rim has a width of 1”, so I cut a strip of red fabric 2.5” (for a ¼” seam allowance), making sure to have a length longer than the distance around the smaller heart. With right-sides together, sew a ¼” seam allowance along the length of the strip. Tape together two pieces of cardboard that you cut earlier, end-to-end.

Turn right-side-out, and slide over the cardboard strips. I measured around the smaller heart that is glued inside of the box, and cut my cardboard to exactly that length. I trimmed the excess red fabric (leaving about ½”-1” extra). I then taped together the two ends of the cardboard (end-to-end), so it made one long loop.

Slide your fabric all the way around the loop, making sure it is nice and even. Overlap the excess fabric. Tuck under raw edges, and glue the edge in place.

Using a small bead of hot glue, glue one edge of the fabric-covered cardboard strip to the base of the box. I made sure that I got nice and close to the inside heart, but I didn’t glue on top of it. I also used the hinge of where two cardboard strips came together as the bottom corner of the box (that made gluing it down much easier). Double check that it is glued down all the way around (I missed a couple of little spots the first time I did this).

Finally, place the lid of your candy box on top of the base. The heart that is glued under the lid makes sure that the lid didn’t slide around (it fits perfectly inside of the rim that is glued on the base of the box).

Fill with candy and special treats, and give it away to someone you love!

I would love to see some pictures of how you made your box unique! And for ideas to fill up the box - try Raspberry Ribbons (a delicious butter cookie)...more recipes to come this week!

Have a ‘love’ly day!

Blogs I link to: CraftOManiac, Brassy Apple, Sumo’s Sweet Stuff, Tip Junkie, Shwin and Shwin, Home Stories A to Z, Creative Itch, Sugar Bee Crafts, Coastal Charm, Not Just a Housewife, Hope Studios, Chef in Training, Mommy By Day Crafter By Night, Southern Lovely, Passionately Artistic, Sew Woodsy, Savvy Southern Style, Ginger Snaps, Someday Crafts, Creations by Kara, Rae Gun Ramblings, Delightful Order, House of Hepworths, The CSI Project, Remodelaholic, Tatertots & Jello, Shabby Nest, Chic on a Shoestring, Simple Home Life, 30 Handmade Days, Family Ever After, Craftionary, I Heart Nap Time, Positively Splendid, Nifty Thrifty Things

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