Gift Box Idea: Recycle a Ribbon Spool

Mother’s Day is on May 13th. That is less than 3 weeks away. Earth Day was three day ago. To celebrate each I have a gift box idea for you.  I made the box in honor of my mom using recycled materials– empty ribbon spools that I normally would have thrown in the trash.

My mom is no longer here on on earth, but I do like to think about her on Mother’s Day even though I no longer need to give her a gift.   She loved creative things and always preferred handmade over store bought gifts. Every year as I was growing up,  I would try to come up with something special for her.  She often liked how I wrapped the gifts, better than the actual gift.

I used an empty ribbon spool to create a pretty and functional gift box.  I made a few to show you that there are many different ways to embellish these ribbon spool boxes to fit perfectly with your mom’s personality.  The cost to make this is next to nothing.  Gift wrap, tissue paper, small snippets of ribbon, and a bead or button.

I love coming up with ways to recycle packaging – like these ribbon spools. I use lots of ribbon and hate seeing the spools go to waste. They look a little sad without ribbon, but with a few pieces of decorative paper they will soon be providing lots of personality  –  enabling you to give your mom or teacher a gift in fab gift box that has present presence.

supplies needed:

• Ribbon spool
  Decorative paper
• Cardboard – optional
• Glue stick
• Spray adhesive
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Ribbon
• Beads and buttons
• Hot glue

1.  Carefully remove top and bottom circles from the spool. They come off fairly easily.  If they are damaged you can discard them and use a piece of cardboard instead.  Trace one end of cardboard tube two times on the center of the spool circles or a piece of cardboard and cut each circle out.

2. Cut two pieces of decorative paper (I found this black and white houndstooth at Marshalls) about 1- inch larger in diameter than your cut cardboard circles. Use a glue stick or spray adhesive to attach center of wrong side of paper to each cardboard circle. With scissors, cut tabs around paper and then glue them down around the cardboard circles.

3. Cut 2 circles from paper the same size as the cardboard circles.   Glue one over the tabbed side of one of the circles.  Don’t cover the other circle yet.

4. To cover tube: Cut paper wide enough to go around the tube and slightly overlap. For height – cut 2-inches longer than height of tube. Center the paper over tube so there is excess paper on each end of the tube.

Use glue to attach paper to cardboard tube making sure there are no air bubbles or wrinkles.  Cut excess on top into tabs.  Fold down the tabs and glue.

5. For the bottom – use one of the covered circles -and fit to the bottom of the tube.  Cut excess paper into tabs. Fold tabs down around bottom and glue to secure.

 6. Glue last circle over the bottom.

 7. It should look like this.

 8. For the lining: Use the same paper or a second coordinating one. I color copied a vintage floral hankie.  My mom loved lilacs  – these violets were the closest I could find.

9. Cut the paper to the height of the tube and wide enough to cover the inside of the tube,  Attach with glue.  (The two cardboard covered paper circles in the photo are for another project I will show you soon)

10.  To make the lid:  Use the other covered circle.  Cut a piece of ribbon long enough to travel from the bottom of the tube up and to the center of the top. Glue one end on the top and then  cover with the the cut paper circle.

11.  You can also make the ribbon extra long and make a loop on the opposite side of the top so you have one continuous piece of ribbon running under the top. I chose to use a different ribbon for the loop/latch.  I cut a 3-inch piece, made a loop and glued the ends down under the paper.

12. It looks like this.

13.  Run glue along the outside side of ribbon.

14. Place ribbon inside tube and press in to secure.  Place a small dab of hot glue under the top edge where the ribbon acts as a hinge.  The glue stick doesn’t have enough holding power for this which is why hot glue is needed. Let the top hang down as shown until dry.

15. It should look like this.  Hot glue a button on the outside of the tube where the ribbon will latch and loop around.  I used two buttons.  This is the first, I placed a flower rhinestone one on top of it to add more depth so that the ribbon loop had something to go around.

I made paper flowers for the gift boxes shown in the first photo, but you could embellish the tops in many different ways.  If you would like to add your mom’s initial you can print these labels from Martha Stewart.  There is a free printout for every letter.  Click here to go to this page to print out the monogram labels.

After cutting out my initial, I cut out a piece of black paper slightly larger and glued them together.  I used scallop scissors to scallop the edges and then attached it to the top of the gift box.

On the smallest box, I used a button on the ribbon. Under the ribbon tab is a sticky back Velcro dot.  I used a bead and a button with an inset center to loop the ribbon latch around.

Here is a recap of how the inside of the gift box looks. This spool is very short so it is easier to see how it all goes together.   As another variation you could leave off the top and create small bowls to hold paperclips, jewelry, or other small items.

To see how I made the pink flower you can follow the tutorial in this post:  How to Make a Tissue Paper Flower Valentine Box.

Here is the link to the post on how to make the frilly tissue paper mum gift box topper.