Tinker treasure chest | Treasure chest with instructions for children

If the children's birthday is just around the corner or if the little ones are real pirate fans, a home-made treasure chest is an interesting project. If you want to tinker a treasure chest, you only need the right instructions and the appropriate utensils such as the craft paper or a template. With these, the implementation of the project is possible with little effort and a lot of fun.

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• Tinker treasure chest
  • Materials and utensils
• Tinker treasure chest | manual
• Tinker treasure chest with lock | manual
• Build Egg Carton Treasure Chest | manual

Tinker treasure chest

Best of all, the style of the treasure chests does not depend on the instructions. For this reason, treasure chests can be adapted exactly to your own ideas. In this way, different designs can be implemented. Sunken or buried treasure chests can be made, which are used depending on the role play.

Materials and utensils

When crafting a treasure chest, the right materials and utensils are important. These not only facilitate the implementation of the chest, but also allow exactly the type of presentation that you imagine. The design and the colors are particularly worth mentioning here. Treasure chests do not always have to be the same and can be decorated for different occasions. Fortunately, you don't need any hard-to-work materials for the basic boxes and you can easily create them either from a thick paper or from a cardboard box.

In addition to this, you also need the following craft supplies:

• scissors
• adhesive
• Colors and fiber pens at will
• pencil
• ruler
• compasses
• bonefolder
• alternatively, thin, double-sided adhesive tape
• brown wool for the handles of the treasure chest
• possibly cutter knife (for lock production)

When choosing a color, you can decide whether you want to use water, oil or other color products, for example. It is only important that they stick to the selected paper or cardboard. Alternatively, you can stick the chest on, which is even easier for some children. In addition to the craft supplies, depending on the treasure chest, a printer is required for the template. Together with a computer and a suitable program for opening the template, you can print it out with just a few clicks.

We have prepared Talu handicraft templates for you to download free of charge. With this you can start tinkering with the treasure chest with your children and grandchildren immediately after printing them out.

Free Download: Tinker Treasure Chest | Treasure chest-Talu-craft templates

Optionally, the use of thin paper is possible, which you can use to simply pause the template shapes from the screen. To do this, place a sheet of paper on the screen and carefully trace the shapes. Do not press too hard, as modern screens can be quite sensitive. Afterwards this selected template can also be used.

Tinker treasure chest | manual

When you have all the utensils ready, you can start the project. Making a treasure chest is not difficult with the right template, but you should be careful not to leave the children alone in the room. Even the smallest can injure themselves with childproof scissors. It is also more fun if you all make the treasure chest together . It is possible to hold the little ones under the arms, especially if they have problems with folding or gluing.

The following instructions will help you craft the treasure chest:

Step 1: First print and cut out our template "Small treasure chest". As you can already see, the box is a simple template for folding, which can be designed according to your taste.

When cutting out, you should be careful not to cut into the adhesive tabs. If these are lost, it becomes much more difficult to glue the chest and to stabilize it sufficiently.

Step 2: You can paint and decorate the various treasure chests either before or after cutting them out. If you have selected a complicated pattern or a natural look and want to represent it realistically, it is recommended to paint the template before cutting out. Children can also do this so they don't bend the chest or puncture it with the pens when it's already folded.

If the chest is stuck on, this should only happen at the end. In this way, the individual components can be placed more easily. At the corners of the front of the chest, one of the two tabs must face inwards. These serve to fix the lid. However, apply a little glue to the corner so the chest doesn't fall apart.

Step 3: Start folding all the pages up from the central rectangle.

A chest shape is already recognizable, since it is basically a box. This is exactly what makes up the simple level of difficulty, which is ideal for children.

Glue the four sides together using the corresponding tabs. Let the sides dry well before tinkering with the rest of the treasure chest. We used thin, double-sided tape for gluing. Take our cut out template and roughly shape the treasure chest.

Now start gluing the little treasure chest together. Follow the steps in our pictures. Start gluing together on the bottom of the treasure chest.

Glue the first flap to the inside of the treasure chest.

Now continue with the second tab and glue it back to the inside of the treasure chest.

Glue the small glue tab on the bottom of the treasure chest. It now looks like your result of the first bonds.

The two adhesive tabs on the inside look like the following image.

Now the other side follows, which you now connect to the treasure chest. Start at the side tab.

Then stick the tab to the bottom of the treasure chest.

To close the lid, simply put it behind the front wall of the chest. The tab fixes the lid and ensures that no content gets out of the chest. The little treasure chest is ready.

Finally, decorate your tinkered treasure chest as you wish. With brown wool threads you can alternatively attach handles to the treasure chest.

Glue sticks are best suited for this, since you use them to apply a thin film of glue that allows the pages to dry faster. Alternatively, you can also use thin, double-sided adhesive tape and cut it into the appropriate adhesive flap size.

Tip: The shape can be folded and decorated in a playful way. Our Talu handicraft templates can also be printed on thick paper or construction paper or transferred as a contour and then cut out.

These chests are particularly popular because they can be made quite quickly and with little effort. If you show the children how it works, the treasure chests can be made by the children's hands themselves. The great wood look of the template makes designing the chests a highlight for the little ones.

Every inch of the treasure chests can be decorated with the desired colors, patterns and symbols. So each chest represents its own little treasure . You can also implement the instructions with a variety of other boxes, for example a shoebox.

Note: If you cut two holes of the same size on each of the narrow sides of the box, you can pass a cord through them. These serve as handles by means of which the box can be lifted up and transported.

For the large treasure chest, print out both corresponding Talu handicraft templates and glue them together after cutting out at the locations marked with the letters A and B.

Then glue the large treasure chest in the same way as you did with the small treasure chest.

Your big treasure chest could now look like this.

Tinker treasure chest with lock | manual

If you want to make a treasure chest that can be locked, a special device from another piece of our template paper or from craft cardboard is available. This can be used for practically any treasure chest made of cardboard or paper, the lid of which is longer than the front wall. Similar to a real treasure chest, this device acts as a hinge with a padlock, which is typical of a box with a treasure.

This provides additional security. All you need is our craft template and some craft paper. The lock has an unusual shape and for this reason it is recommended to use our template. Print out our Talu handicraft template “Treasure Chest Castle” and you're ready to go. Alternatively, we have prepared a template with a printed lock for you.

Don't be surprised at the high sides. These ensure the curvature of the lid, which is important for the design of the treasure chest.

Step 1: Start by cutting out the entire shape in one piece.

The two outer rectangles must not be separated from the connection inside, otherwise the lock cannot be implemented. The rectangles are actually the tabs for sticking the handles. For this reason, they must not be removed from the central part that represents the castle.

Step 2: Now cut the shape of the treasure chest with the scissors alongside the high curves on all four sides with the scissors.

Do not cut too far with the scissors, otherwise you will cut into the bottom of the treasure chest.

Cut the small slots on the side walls of the treasure chest with scissors. These are later inserted into each other and fixed to the side walls with adhesive.

Step 3: Now start to fold the cut out treasure chest shape.

Carry out the folds on all visible lines of the treasure chest, the chest lid is omitted.

Now you manufacture the lock. Now fold the two rectangles onto each other so that the middle part has a fold.

Unfold the rectangles again. The crease should be clearly visible. Now you have to fold the rectangles on each side to the middle.

Also fold the other side to the middle.

An M must be created with the rectangles sticking out at the end. It could now be set up with the M, because the rectangles function as feet on a straight surface.

Use the cutter knife to cut a slot in the brown lock.

Then push the "M" -shaped part through the brown lock.

The back squares are glued to the inside of the front chest wall and the two paper ends are then unfolded in front of the lock.

Now use the cutter knife to cut the openings under the lock and at the top of the chest lid for the handle.

Cut the chest lid handle openings with the cutter knife.

Put and glue your treasure chest together using a glue stick or double-sided tape.

Attach the side tabs to the treasure chest.

Attach the day handle to the chest lid and stick it to its adhesive tabs.

Step 4: The finished lock must now be attached to the chest lid. Mark the location for the lock on the chest lid.

5th step: Cut the opening for the lock, ideally with the cutter knife, into the chest lid. This should be a small slot that is not too wide and corresponds to the slot in the brown lock. It should just be so tight that the lock doesn't just slide out of it.

No more is needed for the assembly of the locking device. To close the treasure chest, the opening is passed over the handle. This should now remain the lock in the opening just by the tension. The treasure chest is also opened using this handle. To do this, you need to take the two handles between your fingers, press and lift the lid. The movement is easy to understand and therefore easy to use by children. The little ones can hide their "treasures" thanks to the castle.

Tip: If you have a steady hand, you can even attach miniature locks to the boxes, which can be opened with small keys. Just remember to choose the right size for the treasure chest when crafting and use a stronger crafting box to enable the lock to be used without damage.

Build Egg Carton Treasure Chest | manual

Don't feel like making a treasure chest out of paper or cardboard ">

The closure of an egg carton is already integrated in the lid and for this reason you do not have to tinker yourself. This saves a lot of time and the project is made considerably easier for small children due to the low level of difficulty . You only need paints to paint on or craft paper to stick to the egg cartons. Watercolors are well suited for this, as these can be applied more easily to the material.

The best thing about this alternative is the creative aspect. Children can decide which design and which shades to choose for the implementation. So give the little one enough time to decide whether it should be a pirate treasure chest with skulls or a box with floral patterns.

The egg box treasure chest is designed in the following way:

• Remove labels
• do not damage the egg carton
• possibly draw in pencil design
• paint or paste

• a glue stick is ideal
• Let the glue and paint dry well

This is what your painted result could look like.

The treasure chest made of egg cartons is ready. As you can see, these succeed within a short time and in this way represent a wonderful project for groups of children. The small boxes can easily be filled with coins, candy, Lego bricks or other objects. You can even give the individual treasure chests numbers from 1 to 24, decorate them with a Christmas design and use them as an advent calendar. So you have little ones something from the egg cartons for a very long time.