Diy treasure chest

Here's a little thing my fiancé and I put together for our friend's birthday. He's going to be four and is really into pirates. So we bought him a pirate themed game and decided to make a treasure chest out of the gift box. A lot of the material we already had around the house so it didn't cost us anything but my time (about an hour) to shape and design the box. We plan on "burying" the gift somewhere in his house (we live in a city, no yards!) and we'll give him a treasure map of the floor plan to find it. I had fun creating it and didn't stress about perfect corners much (he'll be four!), so there are no real measurements here. I'd love to hear how you modified this idea to suit your needs. You'll need materials. I gathered: a large cutting mat (something to protect your surface) a box cutter (sharp blades really help) a cardboard box (we recycled a rectangular medium shipping box) roll of 1/2" wide double sided tape roll of 1" wide black duct tape thin point sharpie marker 12" L metal square ruler clear scotch tape approx 3ft x 1ft of brown craft paper wide felt black and brown markers a brown colored pencil gold metallic marker a gold metallic gift bow some shiny yellow/gold plastic baubles yellow/gold gift paper First find a box that your gift sits nicely in.

Step 1: Step 1 - Create your curved top

Put your gift in the box to estimate the correct height necessary for your "walls". Just above the "gift line" insert your sharp box cutter blade into each corner of the wall and cut up to the top. Be careful to position yourself so if your blade slips you don't stab your arm or eye, this is a pirate party not a slasher film. Bend the cut walls over the gift line, you'll see the flaps of the cover meet neatly across the gift and already form the treasure chest dome effect. Hooray!