Mini Christmas Packages with Buttons

By Jen Goode on July 5, 2012 in Holidays

I really love tiny decor pieces. You can put then in small spaces and it’s like finding a little treasure when you look around the house. This month’s challenge is to use Styrofoam and create a Christmas themed item, so I tied in my love for tiny things and recycled materials and came up with these tiny packages.

Materials you need:

Styrofoam cubes (I cut a large cube into smaller cubes)
Christmas themed buttons
Brown paper – lunch sacks work great
Twine
Glue
Scissors
Black marker or drawing pen (Sharpies work great!)
Paint and brush – optional

mini Christmas packages with buttons tutorial

Steps to make your own mini Christmas packages with buttons

You’ll need Styrofoam in cubes, I started with a large cube.
Cut the Styrofoam into small cubes. These are approximately 1.5″ square. You can use a bread knife or a foam cutter. I was able to get 8 small cubes out of one large cube.
Wrap each small cube with brown paper and tie with twine. Instead of taping the paper as you would with traditional gift wrapping, glue in place. I used glue dots so there was no drying time. If you want to create the look of gift wrap, decorate the paper before wrapping the Styrofoam cubes. I painted a green glitter dots on mine using DecoArt’s Glamour Dust paint.
Decide how you want to decorate your cubes and leave those sides free of other embellishments, twine, etc.
Tie a large green button and a small red button together with twine. Then glue to the front of one of the packages. This is the “O” in joy.
Choose extra buttons to decorate your packages. Buttons Galore and more has some great Christmas button sets you can choose from.
Attach extra buttons to the packages such as button gift tags, a candy cane or a small Christmas candy.

I found that the packages were so small, they didn’t stand up like I wanted when setting out to decorate. To fix this problem, you can hot glue each package to a small piece of balsa wood or cardboard. You could also stack your mini gifts and hold in place by using floral wire or toothpicks between each box. Decorate as desired.

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Jen Goode

Jen Goode is the owner and “doodler in charge” of JGoode Designs, a Denver based art and design studio. She has been a creative professional since 1996, developing art for a variety of uses in an array of mediums from handmade crafts to Graphic design and illustration. Jen, a designer member of CHA, is a tech savvy, work-at-home mom of 3 who shares her creative inspirations with other moms through her sites Projects for Preschoolers and 100 Directions and as a featured contributor on various sites throughout the web. Jen's motto is "Inspiring Smiles Every Day".