Easter Surprise!

I literally could not wait to get home and start working on my altered project this month...which is really unusual for me. I always do my layouts first. I was soooo excited when I saw the Vanilla Chai paper in the Basic Grey Marrakech line because I knew exactly what my project would be for this month - an exploding box! Now if you know anything about me, you know exploding boxes are my favorite thing to make, so no big deal, right? Well, the reason I was so excited this time is that the Vanilla Chai paper has the perfect symmetrical pattern for creating a box with the same pattern on each and every side! And the paper is so gorgeous!
First I cut the paper to a 9" x 9" square. Then I scored it 3" in from each side, creating a 3x3 grid pattern. (Have I mentioned lately how much I love my Scor-Pal?)

Then I scored the (4) corner squares with diagonal lines going from the center out to each corner. I folded the box along the score lines so that the sides folded up and the corners folded in.
The inside of the box was decorated with the scraps from the Vanilla Chai and also from another coordinating paper in the Marrakech line, Mandarin Slice. (It looks as good as it sounds!)

At this point I decided that this particular exploding box was actually going to become a 3-D Easter card so I grabbed some really cute Mrs. Grossman's baby duck stickers from the sticker wall at Scrapbooks Plus, pulled out my collection of Easter themed clear acrylic stamps and had fun decorating the panels inside the box.
I have been itching to try my Martha Stewart Picket Fence Edge Punch and I realized it would make a really cute 3-D accent for the center of my box. The baby duck in the center is from a Sizzix die in my stash.

The box top is created from white card stock cut to 5"x5". It is scored 1" in from each edge, and the corners are scored and folded on the diagonal. I used a coordinating Basic Grey flower stamp and some embossing powder to create a 3D element which I placed on pop dots on the box top, then I finished it off with some American Crafts Ribbon - it is one of the mini rolls on the ribbon rack in the front of Scrapbooks Plus.

I really love how this turned out! I hope you will give it a try!