Hot Air Balloon Cupcake Box DIY Tutorial

I have been wanting to design a new printable box shape for a while and after much testing, some arguments with my printer and a happy accident I have created this cupcake box!   It is slightly larger than my existing box shapes (3 inches square), so comes on more than 1 sheet but is still easy to make. 

This box has a hot air balloon theme, to match my latest range of printables, but I will be making cupcake boxes with other designs soon too.  There are 4 boxes featuring different balloons and colour schemes (blue, red, green and yellow), in this tutorial I will just be making the blue box but they are all made in exactly the same way…

There are 2 sheets you will need to print for the box, plus an additional sheet for an optional lid.  Each sheet can be printed on A4 or letter sized (8.5 x 11 inch) card.  For best results when printing, I recommend using your printer's highest quality setting and printing on a good quality card.  I print my boxes onto 240gsm white card…

Cut around the outside of box parts 1 and 2.  Then score and fold along the dashed lines (Tip – use a craft knife and ruler for straight edges, and a sheet of craft foam under the card when you’re scoring with a bone folder)

Glue tab ‘A’ (on box part 2) to the centre square on box part 1 (marked side A), your box should now look like this…

Glue the remaining tabs marked with ‘glue’.  You can leave the box like this, and fill with sweets or other small gifts…

Or if you are making it for a cupcake, make the cupcake holder to fit inside the box.  Cut around the edge of the cupcake holder and cut out the circle in the centre.  Score and fold along the dashed lines, then glue the tabs.  Your cupcake holder should look like this…

There is also an optional lid you can make, which is printed on a separate sheet (with 2 lids on one sheet).  Make this in exactly the same way as the cupcake holder (it is slightly larger than the cupcake holder).  Slide the lid over the top of the box.

Alternatively you can cut away the top part of the box before sliding over the optional lid.  You could also glue a piece of acetate to the inside of the lid, so that the circle hole becomes a window and you can see inside the box.

A few other ideas for customising your box are mixing and matching the coloured cupcake holders and lids, using ribbon or baker’s twine around the outside of the box and adding one of the tags (which come on page 1 of the box templates).

If you would like to make your own boxes you can buy the templates for this box and other designs from my shop here: shop printable gift boxes

The baker’s twine tied around the box in the photo at the top of this post is ‘Eton Blue’ – you can buy this (and lots of other colours too!) from my shop here: shop baker's twine

I hope you like these boxes and if you make some of your own I would love to see your photos! :)