I’m guilty of judging a book by it’s cover. I’m a sucker for packaging, as I’m sure a lot of people are. Packaging is very important in a traditional brick & mortar shop because it’s the first thing you see and touch. In the e-commerce world it’s not the first thing you see, most of the time you don’t see it at all before you buy. However, it’s become a thing to get excited about packaging once you’ve receive your package in the mail. I’d say this is especially true with Etsy, given the hand made nature of the platform, it makes sense to add those personal touches to your product so when you’re customer finally gets to open it up, it’s a more person experience. You need to make sure your customer’s shopping journey is a special one, from the moment they stumble onto your site to when they finally get that beautiful box in the mail.
Lately I’ve been re-vamping my packaging since I’m starting to carry a few more product types. I’ll write a blog post later about my the packaging I use for shipping and how I brand it but I’m still working on that. For this post I want to share my DIY necklace packaging for my Etsy shop. I’m really happy with the outcome, it’s very cheap to make and even though it does take some time, I think it’s 100% worth it. I used the Cricut to cut, score and write on this but you can also do this all with an exacto knife and scoring tool. I recently purchased the Cricut and I love it, I’m cutting everything and it’s so much fun. You can check out this lap top vinyl I made just to get an idea of the fun I’ve been having.
Ok, let’s get started. These are the things you’ll need:
- Matchbox template printable
- Cricut OR exacto knife & scoring tool
- Good glue
- Stamp (optional) & ink
- 100 LB Cardstock
From the template, you will want to cut out all the solid black lines and then score all the dotted lines. If you are using a knife, make sure you are working on a cutting mat and have a nice sharp blade!! OR if you’re using the Cricut, I had the setting on ‘custom’ and chose the heavy watercolor (140LB) paper, to get better cuts and scores.
I use the awesome stamp I made just for this project and carefully align it with the card stock so I get the image nice and centred. (This part can be tricky, I did waste a couple because it’s crooked) I suggest doing this on a coffee table where you can be higher over top of the stamp and card stock so you have a good view of where it’s lining up.
Next you will want to fold all the scored parts in and put glue on both sides and hold down until it’s some what dry. If you are using the Cricut, I doubled the score lines so it would be a little deeper/stronger. I also folded the opposite way first and then the correct way because it seemed to make a cleaner fold. I make sure to fold all the edges first before starting to glue.
I find the 100LB card stock the perfect weight, it’s not too heavy so it’s hard to fold but not so light that the box looses it’s integrity.
Once you’ve let it dry completely you can add in the necklace holder part that will fit inside the box, make sure to fold up the little pull tab so you have a way of getting it out. Try sliding in the drawer part to make sure it fits! (It should if all the edges are lined up!) Once I have the necklace in place, using the slits cut out on both side, I also tape the chain to the back of the card stock so it doesn’t slide around too much.
That’s pretty much it! It’s really simple and easy but so much better than those plain jewelry boxes you get at Michaels or online. I’d say it takes about 15 minutes to make one box but if I make a bunch at once it definitely goes by quicker. I also put some stickers and branding on little black envelopes and tucked the box inside. Of course I also cut these stickers using my Cricut.
I also created a white version where I used the Cricut to ‘draw’ inside, if you check out the youtube video at the end of this post you can see how that turns out and you can get a more step by step tutorial of how I cut them out and put them together.
If you like the laser cut acrylic bossbabe necklace I have inside, you can grab them from my etsy shop!
Check out the YouTube tutorial here!