Make Your Own DIY Pumpkin Trunk or Treat Candy Collection Box for $3.00!

My pastor's wife asked me to make a box to collect candy for our church's Trunk or Treat. Immediately, I knew I wanted to make a box that looked like a pumpkin. I searched Pinterest, but I couldn't find any. . .

And, anyways, I already knew what I wanted to make in my head:

This box doesn't have to be just for candy collection. You may be a teacher and want to make one for your classroom. If so. . .

This is how to make one yourself!

Total cost: $3.00!

The large box was one that we had at church from some shipment or other. I went to Dollar Tree and found two rolls of orange wrapping paper, and one leafy garland.

The first step was to turn all the flaps of the box so they were out.

The next step was to make knife pleats folded like this: (You can see other pictures of these pleats in other pictures, don't worry. You can also Google "knife pleats - casual.")

Then, I rolled tape like this. . .

And folded them up.

The rolling of the tape was taking too long, so I just started taping the rest of the pleats like this:

This is one side completely finished. (Be patient! It takes a while. Also, don't press down the pleats any farther than about two inches from the top. You want the rest of the paper to be folded but not creased:

Here is a back-side view of the pleats. See how they are folded from this angle?

Okay, once that side was done, I started pleating the other side of the paper.

This is what one whole roll of wrapping paper looked like. See how the middle of the paper is only slightly folded, but only the outer sides are pressed into pleats and taped?

Then, I turned the whole box upside-down and started taping the folded paper onto the bottom left side of the box. (I didn't put any paper on the back, because this box was going to be against a wall. Feel free to put paper on the back of yours if you need it. In that case, buy three rolls of wrapping paper!)

[Not pictured]

Then, I turned the box on the side that will be against the wall, and taped the paper to the box around the bottom of what would be the front.

This next step is VERY important if you want your pumpkin to have "body" and stick out like a real pumpkin: Turn the flaps of the box down. This is a little awkward as the wrapping paper will naturally be creeping up the sides. You kind of have to finagle it so you don't crush the paper as you do this.

Then, I taped the top of the wrapping paper into the top edge of the box. The paper covered exactly half of the pumpkin! I got lucky!

At this point, you can stick your hand inside the paper and sort of push it out from the inside to get it to round out like an actual pumpkin. If you want to fill it with packing peanuts or something light and puffy, feel free. I didn't.

Then, I got smart and instead of pleating one side of the paper at at time, I pleated both sides at the same time. Much faster and easier!

Then, I taped this other piece of paper to the box, starting with the box completely upside-down. . .

And then turning it on its side to finish taping the bottom part around to the front.

It's starting to look like a real pumpkin!

Then, I Googled pictures of pumpkins to make the stem, and free-hand cut one out of a piece of green paper. (If you don't have green paper, you could also paint the stem green.)

Then, I traced the stem on the back flap of the box. . .

And cut it out.

Then, I glued my green paper to it.

To keep the stem upright, I grabbed one of the empty wrapping paper tubes and taped it to the back.

Then, I added the leaf garland. (First I taped two of the leaves to the stem, but the tape kept coming off, so I stapled them.)

The tape on the wrapping paper was starting to pull away from the box, so I reinforced all the tape with clear packing tape.

Okay, now the box is done, but I wanted to make a little sign for people to know what the box was for, so I spent another $3.00 at Dollar Tree and bought this cute little owl and two fall leaves.

I also printed out a speech bubble for the owl to say, "Whoooo wants to help with Trunk or Treat? Deposit candy in the box below!"

The End!

School Supplies Crayon Donation Box

It's coming on "Back to School" time and my church is doing a drive for school supplies for kids in our area. My pastor's wife asked me to make a donation box based on one she saw on Pinterest:

So, the main trick to this project was finding a box that had a stiff, high back.

I found this empty pool noodle box at my local Dollar Tree and they let me have it.

Dollar tree had table cloths in yellow, but it wasn't bold enough, so I found this bold yellow table cloth and multi-colored tissue paper at Wal-Mart.

If you want to make one, you will need the big box, table cloth, and tissue paper, but you also need scissors, tape, black Sharpie, green paper, green Sharpie, bulletin board border (optional), and a yard stick.

With the yard stick, I measured how high I wanted the front and sides of the box to be. . .

. . .and then I drew a line around the sides and front.

Then, I cut around that line and cut all the excess off.

Once all that part was off, only the back was up high (which is how I wanted it for the "crayons"). To make the "crayons" I measured the width of the back part (22") and divided by 4 (5.5").

Then, I measured and drew lines to make the tops of the crayons.

Here is a trick for how to cut cardboard without mangling it: As you cut, fold down the part you are cutting away. That way the part you leave will stay straight and unbent.

Skipping ahead, versus painting this whole project (which would take a long time), I just folded the table cloth over four times and taped the excess edges around the front and sides.

Bottom:

Top:

Back:

Okay, so remember how the "crayons" were to be 5.5" inches wide? This is how I made my crayons (again, versus painting them...so much faster). I marked 5.5" on each piece of tissue paper, and I just folded it into long 5.5" rectangles.

Then, I hung them off the tops of the cardboard and taped the tops to the back.

And then I put rolled taped under the length parts.

This looks sort of messy, so I took a piece of yellow tissue paper. . .

. . .and taped it over the messy part on the inside.

To make the "ric-rac" design on the crayons, I took some bulletin board border (that I will use in my next post) from Dollar Tree and traced it.

Then, I just colored it in.

Instead of cutting out letters, I printed out this graphic that I modified from Google searching. 

To make the iconic green corners, I took some green cardstock that we had on hand (but you can just use construction paper or paint). I traced a corner onto the paper.

Using that triangle as a guide, I cut out four.

I taped two to each corner.

Then, using a green Sharpie, I drew three lines above each green corner.

So here it is finished...kinda. If you zoom in, you can see that the sign covers three pages and looks kind of messy. The graphic didn't print out very well to piece together. 

Fortunately, our office has a big plotter printer, so Shannon, my pastor's wife, printed it out again as one big piece.  

The End!