Shop

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Turn a Vintage-Style Box into a Stunning Valentine's Day Diorama

Q: What's better than a handmade Valentine's Day card?
A: A handmade Valentine's Day diorama, of course!

KB and Friends Yellow Valentine's Day Box Diorama


Over at KB and Friends, we've been busy decorating our printable Valentine's Day boxes to turn them into dioramas, or shadow boxes. And our customers have been busy doing the same.

If you're not familiar with the KB and Friends' printable boxes, they're inexpensive, easy to print, and easy to assemble.

Here's what you get when you purchase one of our printable boxes: two pages (one for the top, and one for the bottom). We give you both a PDF as well as JPEG files (that are delivered within a ZIP file).

Vintage Valentines Day printable box by KB and Friends at Etsy
These files are designed to be printed on 8.5" by 11" cardstock. We use Neenah Exact Index 110 pound white cardstock. (The link is not an affiliate link; we get nothing if you purchase after clicking on the link).

After you print the box on the cardstock, cut it out. We use a guillotine paper cutter for the straight edges, then use scissors to cut out the inside "window" of the box. To glue the sides, we use a glue stick.

Decorating the Box


Then, the fun part is decorating your box. Our boxes vary in size, but the most common size we sell is 7" wide by 5" high by 1.25" deep.

Here's what we did for this very vintage Valentine's Day box:

Vintage Valentine's Day Diorama by KB and Friends


Examples of Decorated Boxes


Now, let's take a look at the dioramas made with some of our other boxes. Our customers are so creative!

Heather James, who sells her work at The Pokey Poodle at Etsy, created this adorable decoration. We love the idea of creating a pipe-cleaner handle.

Valentine's Day decoration by Heather James, The Pokey Poodle

Melody Letford at The Kitschmas Shop at Etsy used the same Assorted Valentines box to create this eye-catching diorama. The handle using gingham ribbon is a cute touch.

Valentine's Day Diorama by Melody Letford of The Kitschmas Shop

Finally, here's a little more inspiration from dioramas that we made here at KB and Friends. We hope you'll make your own!

Valentine's Day Dioramas by KB and Friends