Padded Heart Box

Last updated on February 24th, 2018 at 12:30 am

No sewing is required to make this padded heart-shaped trinket or treat box for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day.

by Jane Lake

Fill the box with homemade hazelnut chocolates, printable Valentine coupons,Valentine Oreo Truffles or, simply, your choice of treats or trinkets.

This padded heart box shown is wood chip, but paper mache or cardboard boxes would work equally well, in whatever size you need. You can often find heart shaped boxes at thrift stores or discount stores.

Materials List:

• heart shaped box – wood chip, cardboard or paper mache
• tacky glue or hot glue
  floral fabric scrap
• small amount of quilt batting or similar
• pregathered lace edging
• fancy rick rack type ribbon to frame the heart
• paper to make a heart pattern
• scissors
• ribbon to coordinate with fabric color, to cover the box side – this should be nearly as wide as your box is deep, measured from the bottom edge of the lid to the bottom of the box
• measuring tape
• pencil
• felt for lining (optional)

Instructions:

Trace around your box on a piece of paper and cut out the heart shape. Fold in half, and trace a line 1/2″ from the outside edge. Cut out this smaller heart, open out, and place it on the box lid to test the fit. It should fit inside the larger heart of the box lid shape, with a half inch of the lid showing all around it. Pencil around this shape directly on the box lid.

Using the paper heart as a pattern, cut one heart from the quilt batting and one heart from the fabric. Carefully cut off about 1/8″ all around the quilt batting and glue it within the penciled heart on the box lid.

Position the fabric heart on top of the quilt batting. Put a dab of hot glue or tacky glue just inside the bottom point of the pencilled heart and press the point of the fabric heart heart into the glue. Once it is holding in place, repeat this process twice more, dabbing a spot of glue just within each of the two penciled arches that form the top of the heart.

Now that the fabric heart is positioned correctly, run a bead of glue along one side and up to the dab of the glue on the arch, then press the fabric into this line of glue. Repeat on the other side, and do the same at the top, running a bead of glue on the inside of both arches, to secure the fabric heart completely in place.

Beginning and ending at the bottom point of the padded fabric heart, glue down the edge of the pregathered lace close to the edge of the fabric heart.

Cover the edges of both the fabric heart and the pre-gathered lace by gluing down the rick rack type ribbon. This should begin and end at the bottom point of the padded fabric heart and frame it completely.

Add a small bow and a cluster of small silk flowers or ribbon roses at the top of the fabric heart.

Glue the wide ribbon around the bottom of the box to finish.

Optional:
You could line the box with felt scraps cut to fit. Simply measure the depth of your box and the length required for felt to fit all around inside it. Add a 1/4″ to the length and cut a rectangle of felt to these dimensions. Do a dry fit first, overlap the ends of the felt, trim the length to an exact fit and glue in place.

To line the bottom, trace around the box on felt, then cut out this heart a little smaller than the traced pattern so the felt will fit snugly inside the box. Glue in place.