DIY Circus Tent Party Favors

Amanda here, from Lace Design Studios! Today I'm showing you how to make 3D circus tent boxes that are sure to be a hit at every party. I’ve done them before in a different color scheme and they were used as centerpieces, but I think these are even more beautiful in the traditional circus colors. Try this fun paper craft treat box and impress your guests with a personalized DIY circus tent party favor.

To access the file to make your own, click the link HERE. I did make an edit to the file on my own, I didn’t want to use the box as it was intended when the designer made it - their version is an explosion box with an additional piece (a clown) inside. Instead, I duplicated one of the panels and added score tabs on each side so that instead of an explosion box, I’d have a favor box. If you’d like to do the same, you can use a trapezoid shape in your design software and just add a tab to each side of one of the panels - and delete the other panel that you wouldn’t need anymore.

How To Assemble A 3D Circus Tent Treat Box

To get started, we’ll work with the main base of the box. There are white strips that will serve as the stripes on the box. The base part of the box has small dashes on the panels that serve as score lines so your stripes are evenly placed. We’ll go ahead and start gluing those onto each of the two panels. Then we’ll attach them together by gluing one of the scored tabs under the panel that doesn’t have any score tabs. After your two pieces are glued together, you can go ahead and fold along the score lines - if you need help figuring out where they are with the stripes on it, it’s every mark where there's a small triangle cutout missing from the bottom tabs.

 

Once all the sides of the box are folded, we’ll go ahead and grab the hexagon cutout and start gluing it onto the bottom of the tabs. You can start gluing from any space, I always like to start gluing from the second tab before I make my way around to sealing the box :)

Now we can set the box aside and start assembling our tent area. You’ll find strips that once glued, will resemble the stripes on our box base. Go ahead and glue the strips lined up to the triangle point on the top, and the scored dashed lines. Once they are all glued, we’ll go ahead and fold along the scores and then place glue on the tabs to create the tent. Once it’s created, you can go ahead and place it on top of the circus box and we’ll go ahead and work with our decorative pieces.

 

You can customize this box as you wish and design as is, or add on your own pieces to make your box unique. You can go ahead and glue the tabs with the circle cutouts on top of the cutout that's solid but matches in shape. This will then get glued directly onto the box, hiding the white lid of the tent.

Next, I decided to add a marquee sign with the birthday boy’s name and added his age for the curtain door. I glued those pieces together and then placed them on my box.

Finally, we’ll be working on the decorative piece for the tent by adding a flag and a curved piece that will hide the bottom of the flag pole. In the photos I added stars to the flag using the cutouts from the yellow piece that were leftover. This is optional. You’ll want to fold your two flags along the dashed score line and add glue to the entire piece above the bottom scored tab. With the decorative piece that has the stars, fold along those scored tabs and add glue to form its shape. Then place the flag inside, splitting the pole ends and gluing them to the yellow piece, before gluing the yellow piece on to the top of the tent.

Look at that texture!! 😍 These boxes are rather large and hold an assortment of toys and snacks. Make sure you try this Circus tent paper craft for your next party!

Follow me at @lacedesignsstudio_ on Instagram and TikTok for more party and paper decor ideas, and share your creations with 12x12 Cardstock by tagging them!

Happy crafting!

Supplies:

• Encore Textured Cardstock in Honolulu Blue, Lemon Twist
• American Crafts Textured Cardstock in Precision White, Precision Crimson
• SVG File: Circus Tent Box
• Cutting Machine
• Bearly Arts Glue
• Foamies Dimensional 

Amanda
@lacedesignsstudio_

Want to make more 3D projects? Try out this fun Mushroom House!