Custom cigar box as a birthday gift.

[CBL]

Three days ago was the birthday of one of my best friends and smoking partner in crime, and I decided to make something with a personal touch.

A couple of years ago I was attending a product design class and our teacher told us a story about designing a honey jar logo and gifting the honey to friends, so I started thinking about what packages I'd like to gift friends and cigars came to mind directly. My dad had recently bought a great photo printer and I thought that'd be an easy way to print my designs.

I decided to use a Petit Corona sized box as it's big enough to fit most types of cigars and small enough to make designing less challenging.

I threw away all of my empty old boxes last year so in order to find an empty one I first had to dump some cigars into another box in order to re-purpose the box, my Diplomaticos No. 4 were the unlucky ones (I wasn't blown away by this box anyway).

I then proceeded to strip away ALL the paper with a blowdryer, a wet sponge, and a sharp knife.

The problem with dress boxes is that they don't have hinges, and the lid of the box is glued to the box itself with a piece of thin cardboard..... I stupidly cut that piece away as well, which meant I had a hard time finding a way to attach the lid to the box again when reassembling.

I used Illustrator to design a cover, an inside cover, a inlay sheet, sides, and strips. I used some vectors but it was mostly my own design. The cover is a picture of my friend I turned into a vector and all the countries/cities on the strips are places that are important to him.

I made the glue by cooking 11 grams of cornflour with 500ml water until a thick paste was left over, this to ensure that the box wouldn't smell like chemical glue and ruin whatever cigar would be inside.

Here are the results, hopefully it'll give you some inspiration like the honey jars did to me.

I wanted to stamp my initials and the date, but I couldn't find a stamp on time, so I just wrote it.

The Habano sticker and tax stamp were leftover from a box of fakes we naively got talked into buying when we were in Cuba that had the stickers INSIDE the box..... so many red flags we didn't pick up on, we were pretty easily convinced back then

I filled the box with some significantly meaningful cigars.

[rckymtn22]

Fantastic job, looks great.

[PaulP]

A very thoughtful and unique gift. I am sure your friend will treasure it. Well done.

[finecigar]

That's really cool! How creative! What cigars did you fill it with?

[Rye]

Most excellent idea! Bravo!

[polarbear]

The box date and HSA sticker were a nice touch

[Bartolomeo]

Pretty cool bro

[Knvb]

Very cool!

[maverickdrinker]

That is amazing work. You are very talented. What an amazing gift. Well done. Thanks for sharing...

[CanuckSARTech]

Well done. A great gift, some amazing artistry there, and an absolutely wonderful gesture as well! Kudos on a job well done. Thanks for sharing.

[Nino]

A beautiful and very personal present - great job !!

[Perla]

You are indeed a very good friend

[vanbellc]

Very cool!

[laficion]

FANTASTIC job ,Well done , It looks wonderful.

[canadianbeaver]

Beautiful! Your friend is going to love it!

[Hubba]

That's great, very creative!

[Puros Y Vino]

Great project. Can you post additional details on how you made the glue? 11 grams and 500ml of water. What else? How long did you boil it for? Constant stirring? Etc. I'm thinking of doing something similar and haven't figured out the glue part yet.

[CBL]

Yeah just boil it and stir constantly with a balloon whisk. boil it till it's about 1/3 of the original amount of water then let it cool a little bit (keep stirring) till it thickens. Apply to wood AND paper, let dry overnight.

[maduro]

You are very talented.

This looks like a very nice and impressive gift.

Thanks for sharing. Very cool indeed.

[AndrewNR]

Very, Very cool

[samreddevilz]

Wow !! Just awesome idea. also looks great. I will definitely try it in near future.....

[OZCUBAN]

Great stuff it looks amazing

A big congrats ( there could be a little side business in it for you )

Cheers

[Strada]

Thats well done and an awesome idea for a gift. Thanks for the pics and process brother

[Mr.T]

very cool!

[Stanislaw]

i am actually quite envious of your friend... what a lucky guy and you did an awesome job, shows how much you care that you took the time to do that... fortunately none of my friends know this thread exists....