The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Christmas Non-Wrapped Box

Mostly to find out if I could do it:

Christmas Wrap custom box
Christmas Wrap custom box

The process:

  • Fetch a printable wrapping paper pattern, ignore the watermark
  • Resize / crop to fit a Letter page, print two copies on glossy photo paper
  • Generate a suitable multi-sheet paper box in SVG format
  • Import into LightBurn
  • Rearrange / splice the parts to put the main box on one Letter size sheet and the end caps on another
  • Fire The Laser to score (blue lines) and cut (red lines) the paper
  • Assemble using a glue stick
  • Fill with Christmasy stuff (your choice may vary)
  • Tuck the flap, there’s no need to wrap!

The rearranged main box just barely fits across a Letter page:

Non-Wrapped Christmas Box - main piece - LightBurn layout
Non-Wrapped Christmas Box – main piece – LightBurn layout

You can make many more end caps than you need:

Non-Wrapped Christmas Box - endcaps - LightBurn layout
Non-Wrapped Christmas Box – endcaps – LightBurn layout

Obviously, this makes no sense whatsoever in terms of box making, but the recipient smiled and that’s what I wanted.