DIY Minecraft TNT – Birthday Decorations

Minecraft is all I have been hearing about. With a birthday party looming, I went crazy on the Minecraft Birthday Decorations. I already made the Minecraft Birthday Banner, and the Minecraft Creepers, so next on the list was some DIY Minecraft TNT to add some explosions to the party! So, let’s get started making these awesome Minecraft TNT boxes for our party!

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Supplies Needed For A DIY Minecraft Creeper

Ok, this is mostly a simple craft, but it requires supplies we don’t always use, so let’s get started compiling our supplies:

  1. Cardboard boxes – You will need 1 box for each TNT. You want the box to be square but it does not need to be perfect. The boxes I used were 9″ x 9.5″ x 9″ (HxWxD) and 6″ x 8″ x 9″ (HxWxD).
  2. Construction or craft paper – You will need red, white and black paper. I used craft paper as it costs less and looks great for kids’ events. However, if you want to use cardstock, you are more than welcome to.
  3. Glue – any craft glue will work. You do not need to use your expensive quick dry, clear dry stuff, but again, you can. But remember, you get what you pay for, so cheaper glue will result in a cheaper final product.
  4. Scissors or a paper cutter – For this project, I am not using my Cricut as I can cut squares faster with my paper cutter than I can with my Cricut.
  5. Tape – scotch tape.
  6. 15 minutes of time.

Let’s Start Making Our DIY Minecraft TNT!

Wrap the box in Red

If you are into Minecraft, you know that the TNT box is red and white, so we need to wrap our cardboard box with red paper.

I used craft paper for this, using 2 pieces of red paper for the top and 2 pieces for the bottom.

I aligned the paper so that the first piece passed the center of the box. Taped it down. Then, I folded the sides down and taped them in place. I then repeated this with the second red sheet, however, I folded the tape over itself and made a loop and placed it on the underside of the paper. This is so that the tape would not be visible. Then, again, folding the paper at the edges of the box and taping them down.

DIY Minecraft TNT - red

You don’t need to be too worried about the uneven edges of the red paper at the sides of the box. This will be covered up with the white paper later. However, if it does not come down just over 1 inch on the side, you can cut a strip of red paper and tape it on the sides, as needed.

DIY Minecraft TNT
DIY Minecraft TNT - fixing exposed cardboard

Now that one side of the box is red, it is time to repeat the above on the opposite side of the box.

Apply the White Stripe around the TNT Box.

For the white portion of the TNT box, I used white printer paper, but you can use white construction paper or craft paper, or any other white paper you have in your house.

You want to cut the white paper into long strips. Measure your box to figure out the exact width you want these strips to be. You want about 1 inch of red visible on both the top and bottom of the TNT box.

My box was 9 inches in height. So, leaving a 1-inch clearance on top and bottom made my white strips 7 inches wide.

Depending on the size of your box, you will need 4-5 strips of white to go around the box fully.

Starting with the first side, you can apply tape to the top of the white paper and stick it to the center of the box. Work your way around the box by applying the white paper. You will need to fold the tape over and tape it on the underside of all the subsequent pieces of white paper so that they are not visible on the outside.

DIY Minecraft TNT - white stripe

Apply the Pixels letters for TNT

This is the last step! We are almost done making our TNT box.

Now, it is time to cut out the pixels for our letters.

I used my paper cutter and cut out strips that were 0.75″ long, and then cut them into 0.75″ square.

I found that using 0.75″ was ideal for my cardboard boxes. You may need to go smaller if your box is smaller, or you can go larger if you are using a large box. You may need to experiment with pixel sizes before you commit to cutting out all the pixels.

For this, I needed a total of 22 pixels for each TNT.

The breakdown of each letter:

  • T = 6 pixels
  • N = 10 pixels
  • T = 6 pixels

I cut enough pixels to glue on TNT on all 4 sides of the box, but you can do only 2 if you prefer. So, you will need either 44 pixels for 2 sides of the box or 88 pixels for 4 sides of the box.

Once you are done cutting the black pixels, it is best to place them on the box loosely to see how they fit. Once you are happy with the placement and size, you can glue them on.

Then, pixel by pixel, glue each one onto the white strip to say TNT.

DIY Minecraft TNT

And that’s it! Your DIY Minecraft TNT is complete!

DIY Minecraft TNT

Things I Learned Along the way making this Minecraft TNT Birthday Decoration

This was a fun project, and I’m glad I was able to make it work for the birthday party, but like with all crafts I do, I fumbled in a few spots, so here’s what I learned:

  1. The red construction paper worked great, but I needed to add a bit extra along the edges of the larger box. It might have been easier to just wrap the whole box in red wrapping paper, but I didn’t have any around, and I couldn’t find any in a pinch.
  2. The pixels for the TNT – This took some trial and error. I had a bunch of 1″ and 1.5″ pixels from the Creepers and birthday banner that I made, but they were too big. I tried cutting 1/2″ squares, but they were too small to manage comfortably with the paper cutter and were just a bit too small. The nice thing with the TNT is that you don’t need many pixels, so cutting out a few squares only requires 1-2 strips off of paper, so it is not a huge waste of material.

Would I do this again? Absolutely! This was a great hit at the house and the birthday party, and they are still being used as bombs in play at the house, so it was completely worth it!

Did you enjoy this tutorial on making a DIY Minecraft TNT?

Did you enjoy this Tutorial on Making a DIY Minecraft TNT? Let me know in the comments below, Also, let me know how it turned out if you tried it.

If you like this Minecraft tutorial, be sure to check out my other Minecraft decorations:

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