Thursday Tidbits – Cookie Box Template Hybrid Project

May 10th, 2012

Hello, there! Melissa T. is here to bring you another tasty morsel in the form of hybrid art using digital scrapbooking supplies and GIMP 2.0. I sincerely hope that everyone enjoyed last week’s introduction to GIMP, Moleskine, Milliande, and the freebies I created. I know that it was a lot to absorb, so this week I have another hybrid project for you to enjoy.

For those of you who don’t know, this week is Teacher Appreciation Week, plus Sunday is Mother’s Day. Those are two great occasions in which sentiment (and even gifts) are appreciated. Today we will be creating a Cookie Box (fill with your own recipe for your favorite cookie) designed in GIMP. I suggest printing out the template on white paper first and cutting it out before printing the finished one on cardstock. That way, you know exactly where to fold and glue your box edges.

1. Open GIMP 2.0 and click on “Open a New File.”

2. Once opened, you will click on the template format for the cookie box wherever you choose to save it on your computer.

3. Pick out the paper from your “Outside Content Folder” on your computer or external hard drive. Click on the File button and select “Open a file” and import it into a new document. From here you will want to shrink the size of the paper and copy and paste it into the background of your template. You do not have to stick with one color or style of paper since it is your project. Using this template, it is rather hard to use the “Fill” option, so you will have to cut and shrink the paper, move it, and rotate it to fill in all of the rectangles.

4. Choose an embellishment or word Art to add to your cookie box and select “Open a new file” to import it into GIMP. You will want to shrink the embellishments, word art, or even pictures that you open before copying and pasting onto the first template.

5. Repeat this step as many times as necessary until you feel that you have completed designing the front and back of your box.

6. Once finished, save the file and print it on heavy cardstock. Cut out the template, fold, glue as directed, and allow to dry before inserting your cookie or gift of choice (this is the perfect size for a Post-It pad for a teacher gift).

For my sample template, I created a design from Divine Digital’s Blog Hop this past week on Women in Creativity in which Sugar Moon participated. You may either use my PDF or create your own using all of the freebies and “Outside Content” you can find. The world is your proverbial creative oyster!

All of the tools are here to start your cookie box hybrid project.Cut out the template along the solid lines, fold along the dotted, and glue along the diagonal lines.Allow your box to dry after gluing before closing the cookie box completely.This is what your finished Cookie Box will look like!