Do you have any memories of boxes?

My cat used to love to get into them. She really loved them when they were full of styrofoam popcorn.

We used wooden packing boxes, as big a 3 foot by 3 foot by 4 foot, for forts put; on there side. Maybe three with a sheet for roof.

This is such a sweet and touching question :)
Boxes have played a big part in my life. They have always been around, no matter where I was, which home I lived in.
At first, cardboard boxes were used as toyboxes and a place to keep all my books. Then they became places to store all my things, including clothes, whilst construction work of the house we were living in at the time was going on. This was when I was about 5. After that, they were used to pack all my belongings as we moved to Dubai for a year. They were always there, for me to sit in, keep my stuff in, sometimes used as little tables when turned upside down.
We moved a lot. We’ve moved house 7 times already, and each time cardboard boxes have been used more by me than ordinary pieces of furniture such as bedsite tables and wardrobes. Even now, I have a long cardboard box in which I keep some of my clothes (I have a wardrobe, but I use it to keep some not-so-often-used clothes separate).
To be honest, I’ve lived on building sites for most of my life, and so cardboard boxes have played a vital part in my life… I’ve never had a proper home, so to speak, but I could always pretend to have a home made out of a cardboard box when I was younger.

My grandmother had a black lacquer musical box. When you lifted the lid it played Fur Elise.

The box factory.

We moved a fair bit. We reused a lot of the same boxes, and added new ones, so there’s something of a history of our moves. And if ever you need a box, or a pad, or cardboard for your project, just head on down to the basement…

I also work with boxes. They ship dead animal in them, which we rearrange before collecting the empty boxes and disposing of them. Sometimes that works out to elaborate stacking. Or somebody will have neglected to get a cart, and now their arms are full of beef and books, and they ring our bell asking if we could spare them a box. Most of our boxes are dirty, so it’s not usually feasible.

Like @Tropical_Willie, I made them into instant forts. My grampa and I would open up the flaps and tape several together in the house or the yard. We’d make tunnels leading to one big enough to sit up and eat a picnic in, we’d cut holes for windows and sometimes we’d glue pages from magazines as “artwork”.

I would fashion a robot suit out of them when I was a little kid, one for the head, another for the torso & so on.

Funny, now that I think about it, who doesn’t have a box of some sort (usually cardboard) in their home? Usually when I think of boxes I think of the time Hubby missed the box (as the story goes) while jumping off the roof of a garage when he was a little boy. A shattered ankle that eventually fused together has been a bitch to live with all these years (his parents didn’t take him to the hospital).

These days my fascination with boxes is to find unique wooden boxes that I give to my children. Tokens of some sort are put into the box in hope that they will cherish the box in rememberance.
I still have the carved wooden box full of vintage jewelry my grandmother gave to me over 30 years ago.

The boxes that my presents came in as a child often were just as much fun if not more than the toys that had come in them. You just have to use your imagination to see what is actually there, what that box really is.

I remember my pencil box at school. It was made of wood with panels that slid open in a really neat way to reveal compartments for pens, pencils, sharpeners and ink and pencil rubbers.

My dad has this neat old wooden cigar box that he keeps small mementos in.

Yes, funny enough. In 1980 I was 19 years old and my female dog who was scheduled to be spayed was raped by the neighbors German Shepherd who scaled a 6 foot redwood fence to get to her. I couldn’t go through with a doggy abortion so I ended up with 8 adorable Shepherd/Spitz mix puppies.
I made a whelping box out of a huge cardboard stove box and “wallpapered” it with a wrapping paper that had an apple tree theme. lol

I lined it with newspapers and blankets and it was the worlds largest puppy playpen.
My dog was only 18 lbs. and she gave birth to 8 giant shepherd pups that were as big as she was at 8 weeks old. They all went to good homes and she was spayed ASAP after the puppies left the nest.

* The metal treasure chests (old Whitman chocolate boxes) that Grammy filled with jewels (old costume jewelry) and initially hid in her large, three-story house. The boy grandchildren ‘owned’ one box and the girls the other. Each time we children went to visit, we’d spend hours looking for the opposing team’s treasure in order to capture it and hide it from them.

* Daddy’s little metal coin box from Czechoslovakia that he kept in his top dresser drawer. When he came home from a business trip, he’d drop his pocket change into the slit in the top while I lounged on their bed listening to stories about his travels and anxiously await to see if he brought a present (usually a small bar of soap from the motel where he stayed.) When the bank was full, I was allowed to put the coins in those paper rolls, and Mom would take them to the bank.

* The large cardboard box in the attic filled with costumes for playing dress-up. Years later, we discovered that the black dress was the one one Mom wore on her first date with Dad, and the white slinky dress with huge shoulder pads was her wedding dress.

* When Gram died, Mom brought home a beautiful beveled glass box filled with sea shells from their trips. I had never been to the seashore before, so the contents seemed foreign and exotic.

* The mysterious wooden box on the floor of my brother’s bedroom closet. It had a combination lock on it, so I didn’t find out what treasures it held until a couple of years ago. When the family was gathered for a holiday, I brought it out, and the brother and his son cut the lock off. Mystery solved.

* Dad’s army box that the oldest sister had packed with clothes to take with her to Vienna for a college semester. She somehow left it behind, and when Dad found out, he was so furious about having to pay to have it shipped, he kicked it across the kitchen floor. It’s the only time I recall him being angry.

* The miniature Lane Furniture wooden ‘hope chest’ that was given to each female graduating from high school. (Does this tradition still exist?) Mine recently got donated to charity.

A few years ago on my birthday, I opened a present from Mom. It was Dad’s little metal money bank. I looked up at her in shock and asked, “Is this alright with the others (siblings)?” They all nodded yes, despite each of us saying that we would like to have it some day when Dad passed away. It’s the most precious gift I’ve ever received.

Watching my kids have more fun with boxes rather than the gifts that were inside. And the year we got a new fridge was the year we had the fridge box in our music room taking up mucho space while the kids imagined various scenarios with it.

LOL Yes, Pink ones. ;)

^lol

Not really any memories, but I remember playing in some when I was little, and drawing on them. My cats sure love empty cardboard boxes though…

I remember playing outside in an empty refrigerator box. We’d lay the box on its side and run as fast as we could into it. Just befroe hitting the wall, (actually the bottom), we’d jump a little bit and the box wold sloooowwly stand up, trapping us inside. Think how small we had to be! 4 years old? I can still feel it.
Thanks!

One year we build an entire miniature city with appliance boxes in our back yard. I remember spending hours drawing, sawing and folding the windows and doors. We thought we were so smart when we cut the tops out of the lower boxes and stack boxes on top so we could stand up in them.

Yes. They taught me that big doesn’t always mean better.

Packing and storing memories.

I love this question.

- The old colorful tins that my mom kept her sewing knick-knacks in. I used to be obsessed with her little tomato pin cushion.

- My older sister’s jewelry box. Shaped like a grand piano and filled with an endlessly fascinating array of stuff.

- My other sister had a Fisher Price box shaped like a farm. Though it might have been intended as a lunch box. Either way, she filled it with lots of random things. Like she would meticulously cut out the characters from Otter Pop wrappers.

- I was really sad to have missed Picture Day in kindergarten, so my mom bought me a little tin of candy. The candy was delicious, I’m sure. But the memory that sticks with me is the tin itself. I’d keep little treasures in there.

- My sister and I both had pencil collections. (Twenty-five cents for two pencils at the public library.) We kept them in these identical tall tea tins. But you could tell which one was mine because it smelled yummy from the scented erasers.

- There was this cardboard box that the typewriter came in. It had a plastic handle and was the perfect size for a makeshift suitcase. I dragged that thing around with me everywhere.

- My brother had a metal box. It had a ball and chain attached to the lid so that it wouldn’t fall all the way back. I can still recall the sound as you opened it. It was covered in stickers. And filled will a collection of Archie comics and Tiger Beat magazines.

- In high school, my sister gave me these cool clear acrylic chests. I kept these wreaths that I had made for my friends one day at the park. I rediscovered them after college and they were still pretty well preserved.

- My mom had a lock box under her bed. There were diamonds inside that she had brought over with her during the war. And a diamond pendant she wore on her wedding day. She said we would each get one on our wedding day. I think my brother broke into it when we were older and pawned them for drug money. Sad.

There’s probably more. But that’s what I remember right now.