Star box maker
Star box template
A five-pointed star for a floor, a strip of ten walls glued into a ring and a lid that is a bigger star. Type the width from point to point and the height; the length follows.
How to fold it
Print on the largest sheet your printer takes. The long wall strip is the reason: on Letter the biggest star is about 2.3 in wide.
Cut out the long wall strip, the shallow lid strip, the floor star and the lid top.
Score the wall strip at each of its ten corners with a ruler, then fold each corner back and forth once.
Bend the strip into a star-shaped ring, glue its end tab inside the first wall, and fold every tooth inward.
Stand the ring on the star floor and glue the floor under the teeth, lining each point up with a wall.
Make the lid the same way from its shallow strip, glue its star over that ring's teeth, and lower it onto the box.
How the template is drawn
Points and notches
Each point is a 36° angle and each notch is 252° on the inside. The inside point radius is 53.4 mm (2.1 in) at 4 × 1.75 in, and the width point to point is 1.902 times that.
Length follows the width
The star is 0.951 times as long as it is wide, so at the starting size it measures 96.6 mm (3.8 in) from the top point to the bottom edge.
One strip of ten walls
The wall strip is 391 mm (15.39 in) long. Its outline sits half a board outside the inside star, with mitred corners, so each wall stands on its own line.
Teeth
The teeth are 7 mm (0.28 in) deep and about 12 mm wide. At each point they are cut back so the two walls' teeth meet along the bisector, and a tooth too narrow for that is made shallower.
Glue tab
The end tab is 12 mm (0.47 in) wide, at most 80% of the first wall, and is glued inside the first wall to close the ring.
Lid
The lid is 15.6 mm (0.61 in) deep at the starting size: 35% of the height, kept between 10 and 30 mm. Its inside is the floor's outside plus 0.8 mm (0.03 in) all round, so it drops on without sticking.
Holidays, teacher gifts and toppers
A star box suits Christmas, the Fourth of July and a teacher's thank-you. Print it on gold card, or on plain card with a name, and tie a ribbon round the lid. The height can run from 0.15 to 1.2 times the width, so the same star works as a flat topper or a deep box.
For a gift card, try the pillow box; a small holiday house is the house box. A heart box suits Valentine's, and a hexagonal pyramid box gives a pointed gift tied with ribbon.
The points are the tricky folds. Crease each point line twice, once each way, so the strip turns sharply there; the notch lines bend the other way, inward, which is why the flat strip zigzags before it closes. Glue the floor in starting at the top point and work round clockwise, pressing each tooth from inside with the end of a pencil. Before the lid's glue sets, check that it slides over the box, and turn it a fifth of a turn if its points do not line up with the walls.
