How to Make the Perfect Gift Box from an Ice Cream Container

Reuse ice cream containers to make snazzy gift boxes. Like most frozen food containers, ice cream containers are not recyclable. They end up as trash, and add to landfills. But, you can give the environment a bit of help by making a gorgeous and creative ice cream container gift box.

Preparing for this project was a grueling task—I had to eat all the ice cream!! 😄

You’ll need these supplies for your gift box:

• Empty ice cream containers, any size
• Double-sided tape
• Scissors
• Yarn, twine, ribbon, paper, etc. to cover the container

Let’s make a gift box from an ice cream container:

No matter what you are going to cover your container with, first you need to cover it with double-sided tape.

Option One 

You can wrap the tape around the container like this. This works best for containers with straight sides.

If your container is conical (wider at the top than at the bottom) you’ll end up with gaps around the bottom of the container. No problem!!

Cut slits in the tape to accommodate the conical shape, and just overlap the tape. Don’t be concerned about any lumps or bumps in the tape as they will be covered up.

Trim any excess tape along the bottom edge.

Option Two

Rather than wrapping the tape around the container, put it on in strips.

Now, let’s look at some ways to cover your ice cream container:

Here are ways I covered my containers:

• Mica flakes—Mica is not the same as glitter. Glitter is made from tiny specks of metal or plastic that are too small to be screened out during the recycling process, and end up leaching into the water system. Mica is actually a rock formed by nature, and is a great alternative to glitter. To make this gift box, I just pressed the mica flakes into the double-sided tape. To complete the lid, I covered it with double-sided tape and then mica flakes.
• Jute cord and yarn—This is probably one of the easiest ways to cover an ice cream container. Begin at the top of the container, and just wrap a continuous length of yarn or cord around the container. The finer the cord or yarn, the more times you’ll need to go around the container, but just about any thickness will work. Clothesline and mesh tubing would be great options for larger containers. For the yarn covered gift box I topped it with a silk flower. For the jute covered one, I made a scrunchie bow out of used dryer sheets. Learn how I made this dryer sheet scrunchie bow. Crystal, please remove bold and add link to the Bowdabra dryer sheet scrunchie bow.

Jute covered container with dryer sheet scrunchie bow

Yarn covered container with silk flower topper

• Feather garland—This was great fun, and gave wonderful coverage. I’ll be using this concept for winter holiday gift boxes, replacing the feathers with artificial evergreen garland. After covering the lid with double-sided tape, I used a coil of garland to cover it.

Have fun making your own ice cream container gift boxes!!

Learn how I made a  scrunchy bow from used dryer sheet