Give a Valentine Candy Box a DIY ‘Wednesday’-Inspired Makeover

With Tim Burton’s Wednesday streaming in late 2022—and M3GAN hitting theaters in 2023—this could be the Valentine’s Day for the creepy, cool girls.

Let’s celebrate them, in all their eeriness, over the next two weeks by turning some ordinary and inexpensive heart-shaped boxes into darker, spookier gifts for whatever you want to celebrate this February: Valentine’s, Palentine’s, Galentine’s, or, my favorite, Valoween!

This week, we’ll start by giving a plain candy box a makeover inspired by the dorm room of reluctant BFFs Wednesday and Enid from the Netflix series Wednesday.

Enid loves all things bright and sparkly, while Wednesday, well, she’s allergic to color. As a result, their dorm room became the fan-favorite mismatched “Burtonesque” set piece that was practically a character of its own.

First, purchase one of these little cardboard candy valentine boxes found in nearly every corner dollar store, supermarket, or pharmacy. These usually cost only about $1.25, so you won’t feel bad giving it a new look.

Remove the lid and trace a large circle in the middle with a glass or bowl. Cut it out. There will be a thin plastic layer to cut through, as well.

Use the cut-out circle as a template, and trace it on a black piece of construction paper. Use the remainder of the construction paper to cover the front of the candy lid so it is solid black.

Draw another circle around it about a half inch bigger. Cut it out this circle along the larger circle’s edge. This black circle will be a simple version of the spider web window in the big Nevermore Academy dorm room that shows off the contrast of the two roommates’ personalities and styles.

To make the spider web, fold the circle in half. Now, fold the half-circle in half. Then fold it in half one more time (as shown below).

On the side where the folds are, draw some half-crescent shapes all down the edge. Cut them out, and open up the web. Make sure the cuts stay within the smaller circle of the cutout.

The result is a simple spider web design. You might have made something similar for Halloween or for winter/Christmas snowflakes.

To make it similar to the big window in Enid’s and Wednesday’s dorm, paste white tissue paper over the back of the web. Leave one half of the web plain, and on the other, use markers to color it in with blues, pinks, purples, or other bright colors. There are the two halves of the girls’ dorm.

If you want brighter colors, you can use individual colored tissue paper pieces for Enid’s side, but that depends on how much time and paper you want to use.

Paste the completed spider web window design, facing out, on the inside of the lid. You can add some more designs around the edge or leave it plain black. Now, your candy container isn’t just like everyone else’s.

Want to make it even more fun? Remove the chocolate that came with the box. (Aw darn, I guess we’ll have to go ahead and eat that discarded chocolate.) Now, fill the right half of the box with some dark chocolate pieces or black licorice and the left half with bright-colored candies like Skittles or neon-colored gummy candies.

One cool bonus is, once the candy is gone, you can place some tiny battery-operated fairy lights inside for a little lighted room decoration. 

Friends and loved ones don’t always have to have everything in common to get along, and sometimes colorful and creepy can make ideal companions.