Explosion Box

This was my first explosion box ever created and I had a blast! For anyone that isn't familiar with an Explosion Box, it is basically a scrapbook in a box. Using any Designer Series Paper set will work perfectly for this project.

I was originally looking for a mini-scrapbook tutorial to make as a gift for her birthday and came across this tutorial by Susan Wong. The colors she used were BEAUTIFUL and happened to be my best friend's favorite colors, however I didn't have that color in stock so I chose the Celebrations Designer Series Paper (DSP) since I knew Idea Book & Catalog lists all the coordinating colors from the design. Unfortunately the Celebrations DSP is retired (I couldn't post this earlier for fear of my friend seeing her gift early - sorry!) but you can see with this set that any DSP would be perfect - just pick your desired color scheme and GO!

I created the base and lid with the DSP instead of cardstock which I'm not sure I would recommend. I was using my scoring tool and forgot how much different the cardstock is from the DSP and actually ripped through my first attempt of scoring. Thank goodness there are 2 sheets of every design in the kit!

I consider myself creatively challenged so while creating the base, lid, and layers was easy - I found it difficult to decide how I was going to design each "page." (Not to mention that I had to fit this in around my 3 month old baby's feeding schedule.) Once I started to look at ideas others had used and looked at all my accessories and tools it was easy!

 This is what the explosion box looks like when the lid is taken off. In most tutorials you will find online the box instantly "explodes" flat. I chose Susan Wong's tutorial because the base layer is cut a little differently allowing each section to "interlock" with other sections allowing it to stand together when opening and when putting the lid back on.

This is the finished product. I had some pages embellished with ribbons, punched borders, envelopes made with the Big Shot, stamped images, pearl jewels, rhinestone brads, etc...while other pages simply had a layer of DSP or plain cardstock.

I included a roll of SNAIL adhesive for her to apply her favorite pictures and made her swear to send me pics of her finished project. If I get them I will add them here.

My friend did love this gift and her mother was in awe of how elaborate this looked. They had no idea that this really took very little time to create. I would love to see other pics of your explosion boxes created either as inspired by my blog post or from a previous project.

Follow this link to see all the beautiful DSP's currently offered in the 2011-12 Idea Book & Catalog. There are four pages of various DSP selections followed by Quick Accents (adhesive embellishments that coordinate with a few of the DSP's) and Simply Scrappin Kits that include DSP, textured card stock, and adhesive embellishments that all coordinate to make the perfect scrapbook page or card.