Thinking inside the cube

I am really enjoying the creativity involved in planning Patrick's party!  Yesterday Shaun picked up a LOT of gold coins to include in the loot bags.  My original plan was just to toss them in... but then I started thinking about it and wouldn't it be neat if I could put them in a ? box - just like in the games?

I started searching the net for a pattern... all I could find was blank box ones.  I thought I could print it out, trace it on yellow cardstock or bristol board, cut them out, paint on the white ? ....it felt like it was going to be a LOT of work.

So then I thought, certainly I am not the first one to think of this.  I'll be there are people who have made this pattern and will sell it.  I checked ebay and found one for $15 - just for the downloadable pattern!  NO WAY.  I found another on etsy for $6 with free personalization.  But still.  Thats a lot of $$ for something to hold some chocolate coins, regardless of how 'perfect' it would be.

Then I was on facebook and talking to my awesome sister in law and she said she would design something for me if I could show her what I was after.  So I did a quick search for the mario cube and TADA found a free pattern!!

I printed them out last night, added some 'wings' so I had somewhere to glue them together, cut them out and assembled them.  The 7 of them took me about an hour and a half - adding the wings to each one was time consuming.  Cutting and gluing was quick.  I'm very happy with them and Patrick thought they were awesome this morning when he saw them.

I don't know why blogger decided to flip my picture.  Anyway, the pattern is on the bottom.. you can see my pencil marks for 'wings'.  Above it is a cut out sample and above that is the finished cube.