Creepy Crawly Bug Box

Splash some color on your insect
carrier for a jazzy look.

• Paper grocery bag
• Tracing paper
• 12 inch squares of light blue and white card stock
• Glue stick
• Scissors
• Crafts knife
• Accu-Cut Roller Die Cutting Machine and dyes: Super Jumbo Take Out Box #BX960, Small Clear Cut Diamond DM200A, and Large Ants #A1262 (optional)
• Scrap of polyfoam and heavy cardboard (or Accu-Cut HALOS Die-Cut Rubber Stamping Starter Set #HAL100)
• Black and green ink pads
• Leaf rubber stamp
• Fixative spray
• Tulip pearl #-D Paint: Sea Mist
• Plaid Gallery Glass Paint: Black Onyx
• Small wiggle eyes
• Scraps of yellow and red cards tock
• Punches: 1/8 inch hole and swirl
• Black Magic mesh (has an adhesive back)
• 24 inch length each of red and yellow 18-gauge wire
• Clear tape

1. Cover your work surface with a paper grocery bag. (Ask a grown-up for a helping hand with this project.Trace a box pattern onto tracing paper. Cut out the pattern, including the diamond shapes. Adhere the light blue card stock with crafts glue. Place the pattern on the white side and draw around it. Cut out the box with scissors. Carefully cut out the diamonds and use a crafts knife to make a slit in the top flap. Or, use the die-cutting machine and the dies to cut one box with diamond openings from the layered card stock.

2. Trace an ant pattern onto tracing paper. Cut out the pattern. Place the pattern on a piece of foam and draw around it. Cut out the ant. To make a stamp, mount the ant on a heavy piece of cardboard with glue. Or, use the rubber HALO stamping starter set to make the stamp.

3. Place the box shape, blue side up, on your work surface. Ink the ant stamp with black ink and stamp the ant randomly onto the box shape. Ink the leaf stamp with green ink and stamp the leaf onto the box shape. Let the ink dry. Spray the stamped side of the box with fixative.

4. Use 3-d paint to add dimension to the stamped leaves. Paint over the main stems and make lines on each leaf.

5. Paint a Black Onyx circle on each round section of the ants' bodies. While the paint is wet, place two wiggle eyes in the paint on each ant's head. Let the paint dry.

6. Punch swirls out of the red and yellow card stock with the swirl punch. Apply glue to the backs of the swirls. Press them onto the blue box shape.

7. Cut two pieces of mesh larger than the diamond openings. Press the sticky side of the mesh onto the white side of the box over the openings.

8. Fold the box into shape along the dashed lines. Glue the tabs to the box sides.

9. For the handle, wrap the wires around a pencil, leaving 1-1/2 inch straight at the ends. Remove the pencil. Use the 1/8 inch hole punch to make two holes where marked on the pattern. Insert the handle ends into the holes. Tape the wire ends down inside the box. Stretch the handle so you can easily open the box.

10. Fold in the side flaps at the top of the box. Cut a mesh rectangle to fit the box top. Place the mesh over the side flaps. Close the top flaps.