Brainiac Archives - Kathy by Design

Photoplay Brainiac Explosion Box for Make & Take Tuesday

Hello Friends! The yellow school busses are rolling here in North Carolina, so it seems like a good time to share this Photoplay Brainiac Explosion Box project with you. It’s Make & Take Tuesday after a very full, happy and busy weekend with family supper, birthday celebration and baby shower. So I don’t have a tutorial for you today, but I do have a video with tips and ideas. We have one more birthday weekend to get through this month, and then it should be easier to keep things on track here.

Photoplay surprised me a couple weeks ago with this lovely new collection. I’m such a sucker for plaid, and the blue plaid in these papers is really special. They also tucked in one of their new explosion box folios as a special treat. I’ve made several different versions of explosion boxes in the past, and can attest to the fact that they are really fun to make. Photoplay’s Explosion Box comes all pre-cut, pre-scored and ready to put together with directions that are very easy to follow. What a time saver!

Layers of Fun

The inside of the box is a little tricky to photograph, but as you can see here, the box is made from 3 stacked layers, each one a little larger than the first. Photoplay has cut all the slash pockets and such, so you really can just focus on the fun part, which is adding the designer papers. You’re looking at the slash pocket layer, which is the largest, measuring 4×4 inches. I die cut cute tags to stuff in the pockets with room for photos and journaling.

The next layer of pockets easily holds the 3×4 journal cards from the paper collection. I cut these out in twos, then scored between the images to create mini folios for the pockets. By the way, the thumb hole on the explosion box base is already punched, but you will need to punch your designer papers if you want them to match up.

The final layer is the perfect size for more small tags and photo booth sized photos. Although the kit comes with a scored accordion pull out, I wanted mine to be slightly larger, so I changed up the design a bit.

Photoplay Brainiac Explosion Box Video on YouTube

If you’d like to take a closer look at all the fun elements in this project, I hope you’ll enjoy this short video tour with tips and ideas. We’ll also take a closer look at the Brainiac paper collection.