Father's Day Tie-Shaped Box Pattern

I published a post a while back for some Father's Day projects: a tie-shaped box, a shirt-fold card, and a chipboard frame. The chipboard frame tutorial can be seen here, and today I will post the tutorial for the tie-shaped box.

First, download and print out the TIE-SHAPED BOX PATTERN. This is an idea and pattern I saw on a craft web site, but their pattern was very rough, which made assembly very difficult and imprecise, so I created my own pattern. You will want to cut around the general outline of the pattern pieces, essentially to cut away extra white space, so you can fit the pieces closely together on your card stock and eliminate wasted space. I recommend you then use Dotto® temporary adhesive to stick your pattern pieces onto your card stock, and finally trim around the outline of the pattern pieces on the solid lines, and score on any dotted lines. The piece below is the box bottom from the pattern, stuck to Chocolate Chip Textured card stock with Dotto®, after it has been trimmed along all the solid outlines. You should score through the pattern itself, pressing hard to make sure a good score line makes it through to the card stock. After you score, make sure to cut any remaining slits (solid lines) on the pattern, and remove the pattern from the card stock.

After the pattern has been removed, go through and fold on each score line. You will have something resembling the picture below.

You will put adhesive on all the little "tabs" you've folded, and each tab will stick to the card stock side right next to it. The only parts that do not get adhered together are the "knot" of the tie, and the "tail" of the tie. This is where the rectangle tabs on each page of the pattern come in. You'll cut those out in card stock, score them in the middle, then place them in-between the "knot" section and the "tail" section of the tie shape, on each side of the box. See the pictures below for more detail--you can click on each picture to make it larger.

When the scored flaps, and the rectangles are all adhered on the box bottom, it will look like the picture shown below. You basically do the same assembly for the box lid. I like using Designer Series Paper on the box lid, but you can use card stock again if you like. The pattern is sized so that the box lid is slightly larger than the box bottom, so it will slide over it relatively easy. You can add any embellishments you like to the top of the box. To help keep the box closed, you can simply tape it shut, or you can take ribbon, or Chocolate Chip Poly Twill (as I have used on mine) and wrap a length around the "neck" of the tie shape, and tie the ribbon the way you would tie a tie!

I'm not sure you could fit a tie in this box, but the idea is that dad probably already has as many real neckties as he can use, so by giving him this box he still gets the symbolic, traditional gift of a necktie on Father's Day, but you can simply enclose a gift card so Dad can pick whatever he likes. Or, you could print out a note to fold up in the box, which contains directions to Dad's gift. I bought my sweetie a series of motivational talks he had his eye on one time, and since they were mp3's to download, I printed out the link for him and put that in the gift box. Movie (or NASCAR, or gun show, or sports) tickets would also fit well in the box! And you could help your kids make some "coupon books" Dad could cash in for chores or favors, if you use the box bottom as a pattern, and cut your coupon book pages just a bit smaller so they'll fit inside the box.