Learn to make Kentucky Derby Party Favors that you can cut on your Cricut (or by hand) and fill with treats!
For those of you who follow my blog, you know that I love making paper boxes. After I made a Kentucky Derby Hat for the Derby Watch-Party we are attending, I just had to make some party favors to take with us. These horseshoe-shaped paper boxes turned out to be so adorable made from floral card stock and adorned with silver glitter horseshoes!
Materials and Supplies for the Kentucky Derby Party Favors
(This post contains affiliate links to one or more of the items I used in this project – which means, if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission. There is no added cost to you!)
- Cut files (or hand-cut pattern) in my Resource Library
- 12″ x 12″ medium-to-heavy card stock for the main part of the box
- Acetate or an accent color for the cutout – I used Cricut’s Foil Acetate
- Glitter card stock or something equivalent for the horseshoe cutouts to adorn the face of the boxes
- Tacky Glue – This is what I use for most of my card stock projects
- Optional: Stickers or Washi tape to seal the boxes (useful for transporting the boxes to your party)
- Ideally: a craft machine to cut your boxes, such as the Cricut.
How to Make the Kentucky Derby Party Favor Boxes
The design for the boxes has three pieces:
- Main portion of the box: Needs to be cut from a piece of 12″ x 12″ medium to heavy card stock. The phrase Run for the Roses is a nickname for the Kentucky Derby. The card stock I used is covered with small flowers of various types and some are roses. You could use solid colored card stock and run a strip of rose washi tape around the walls – like the roses wreath for the Derby winner.
- Insert: This piece gets glued to the inside of the boxes. I like using Cricut’s foil acetate so people can see what is inside the boxes. You can use anything for the inserts. This is a good opportunity to use up your scraps by adding inserts of complementary colors. You can also take advantage of periodic sales on the Cricut website to stock up on your favorite supplies, such as the foil acetate.
- The Horseshoe: For my boxes, I had a sheet of silver Cricut glitter card stock left over from some previous projects. I love the fine glitter in these papers as compared to most glitter card stocks.
Cutting the Party Favor Boxes by Machine
I cut my boxes on my Cricut. You can do this on Cricut Air, Explore, and Maker. To do this, upload the .SVG file to Cricut Design Space or the design application for your craft machine. If you do not have a scoring tool for your machine then you will need to hide the layer that contains the score lines and manually score those lines after you cut the boxes. In Cricut Design Space, to hide the layer, click the eye on that layer.
When I made my boxes, I uploaded the .SVG file to Cricut Design Space and added it to my canvas. I hid the insert and the horseshoe layers so I could cut all my card stock boxes first.
To use your scoring tool, select the layer that has the score lines and change them from cut lines to score lines. In the screenshot below, I show you which part of the design contains the score lines. After changing the scoring layer from cut to score, remember to select the whole design (after hiding the insert and horseshoe layers) and click “Attach” so the scores happen where they are supposed to happen.
If you are using card stock that is different on each side, remember to place the design for the outside of the box against the mat.
The horseshoes and the inserts have nothing special to do to them. Unhide the insert layer and hide the box and score layers. After you select Make It you can choose how many you will cut. If you are using up scraps, this will vary. I made 9 boxes so I selected 9 and Design Space arranged all 9 of them for me onto a single sheet of the foil acetate. If you use Cricut’s foil acetate, remember to put the sheet onto your mat foil side down and remove the protective layer.
After the inserts were cut, I cut the horseshoes. Hide the insert layer and unhide the horseshoe layer. I was able to cut all 9 of my horseshoes from a single sheet of glitter card stock.
Cutting the Party Favor Boxes by Hand
If you do not have a craft machine, you can still make these boxes. The PDF file in my Resource Library has full-size patterns you can use for cutting and scoring by hand. You can print the pages directly to your card stock.
Assembling the Kentucky Derby Party Favor Boxes
The following are step-by-step instructions and pictures on how to put together the Kentucky Derby party favor boxes. I put them together “assembly line” style which saved lots time.
Step 1: Folding the Score Lines
Fold each score line toward the inside of the box.
Gentle Creases: The vertical scores along the long horizontal piece that makes up the walls of the box do not need crisp folds. The “teeth/tab” pieces also can be gentle creases.
Crisp Creases: The score lines where the front and back meet the box should be crisp creases.
Again, I worked on my boxes like an assembly line. My boxes now have all the score lines folded and are ready for glue.
Step 2: Glue the Walls to the Face of the Box
The Kentucky Derby party favor boxes have a “wall” section on either side of the horseshoe-shaped front and back sections.
Starting with the wall tabs on the front edge of the wall, dab some tacky glue on 4 to 5 of the teeth.
Curve this section of the wall around and hold those glued tabs to the inside of the front of the box. Add glue to the remaining tabs on this side of the box and affix those tabs to the inside of the front of the box.
You can see that I now have all my boxes with the wall attached to one side of the front of the box.
Attach the other wall section to the front part of the boxes.
Step 3: Glue the Insert
Apply a little bit of glue onto the interior side of the front portion of the box. It will not take too much glue to hold the insert in place.
Set the insert into the box and press it into the glue.
Step 4: Glue the Walls to the Back of the Box
To glue the wall tabs to the back section of the boxes, I do all of the tabs at once.
Make sure the tabs are all tipped up (outside) of the box, not pushed inside the box. If the tabs are pushed into the box, they will not meet up with the back of the box. Apply a dab of glue to each tab.
Lower the back of the box onto the tabs and line up the walls to the perimeter of the back of the box. Hold in place for a few seconds so the glue starts to set.
Step 5: Glue the Horseshoe
I designed the horseshoe shape to fit perfectly to the box so you will not have any alignment issues. Add a little glue to the back of the horseshoe and affix it to the front of the box.
Shift it around until the outside edges of the horseshoe lines up with the outside edges of the box.
To close the box, tuck the narrow end through the slots.
Complete!
Your Kentucky Derby Party Favor Box is now complete!
If you made a whole set of them, your assembly line is also complete.
Time to fill them with treats and take them to your Kentucky Derby Watch Party.
You can get the patterns to this and all my DIY and craft projects in my Resource Library by signing up for my weekly newsletter.
Select From All My DIY Boxes
I enjoy making little handmade boxes for gifts and treats. You can try some from this list of all the DIY boxes I have made:
- Square Paper Boxes
- Paper Treasure Chests
- Cupcake Boxes
- Heart Boxes (one of my most popular!)
- Shamrock Boxes
- Woven Paper Baskets
- Easter Bunny Boxes
- Kentucky Derby Party Favor Boxes
- Cinco de Mayo Mini Piñatas
I hope you have fun making more of these adorable gift boxes!
Remember to pin this to your favorite DIY and/or crafting board on Pinterest!
The horseshoe boxes are clever, but a horseshoe should be turned upright to let the good luck come in. My Irish grandpa always hung the horseshoes in the barn and elsewhere with the opening at the top.
Yes, I am familiar with that tradition and thought about it when I designed the boxes. I kinda figured more than one person would point that out to me. 🙂 I thought about designing a “foot” at the base of the curved end so it could sit on that base but they would take longer for people to construct and require two separate pieces for the “wall” of the boxes, so I left that out. Instead of sitting them up on the flat end, just let them lie on the table. Maybe one at each place setting of a table with the flat end facing the party guest and the open end of the horseshoe pointing away from the guest. I still hope you like the boxes, though.
I added a new photo to the post showing the boxes with the horseshoes turned up. 🙂