Box and card designing

I had a productive day yesterday. Wed night I didn't sleep particularly well so my mind started thinking about my folksy shop. I think I'm going to have the posher jewellery bits there and the cheaper bits in Stu's shop. I decided that I need packaging if I am to be posting things off though. I like pillow boxes so thought about making some of those. I also pondered business cards. I've seen that a lot of people use the mini moo cards. I have looked in to it before but have decided its a waste of pennies when I have all the bits to make my own here.

So, after a couple of buckets of tea and a bowl of cornflakes I set to work. Rather than make my own pillow box net I thought I may as well look around. There's no point reinventing the wheel after all. Found this site with a few box patterns on. I thought I had already made up my mind on a pillow box but loved the curved box pattern. I printed off both designs on cheap paper just to have a proper look at them and make them up. Well, nice though they are, scoring curves is a pain so I had another think.

In the end I went for a basic cuboid shape with semicircles on the top. I planned it on squared paper first then transferred it to the computer. I then added damselflies and printed onto A5 glossy thick paper; tweaked; printed; tweaked; nearly cried when psp crashed (because numpty here hadn't been saving); restarted; printed final design. There was also a bit of space at the bottom of the A5 sheet so popped on a couple of one sided mini moo sized cards. The idea is that the jewellery will be wrapped in lilac tissue paper and the box tied with lilac ribbon. I don't have any at the moment but pics show the gist. What do you think?

I then started to think about the mini cards and how it would be great to have them double sided. The A5 glossy paper I was using looked like it would print on the back as it looks like normal paper. So I tried it out and it did. Yay! I can fit 14 cards on one sheet of A5. Not sure if I'm happy with the final design- the front looks a bit sparse but The print template and layered design is saved so it wont be difficult to change. Here they are. The one on the left is the single sided one.

I also spent a bit of time hammering and soldering some bits for the shop. They went in the tumbler early eve but I went out last night (to Talking Heads in Southampton and saw some great bands- Mash Attack; Knock Out; Sonic Boom Six) so the bits aren't finished. You'll have to wait to see what I've been playing with. I may get them finished today depending on how time goes. Or I may lie in the bath for a couple of hours instead!