Last September a buyer from Kuala Lumpur sent us a photo of a house-shaped box she had bought from another factory. Her complaint was simple: by the time the boxes reached her customers, the roof had come unglued and the drawer would not slide straight. She wanted the same shape, made properly.

That box is the one on this page. It has been our strongest festive seller for three seasons, and most orders come in two waves — one in September for Christmas, one in December for Chinese New Year.

What holds the roof in place

The roof is a separate panel that folds and locks into the body rather than being glued flat. That is the difference between a box that still looks like a house after a customer opens it and one that has to be taped shut to stay presentable. The body itself is rigid, so the corners hold when the drawer is pulled out.

The drawer runs on a paperboard tray. Cookies and nougat sit in the tray rather than against the printed walls, which keeps oil off the artwork — a small thing that matters when the box is going to be photographed and posted.

One box, two seasons

Red sells in December and again in January. Most of our customers order the same box twice and change only the insert card and the ribbon print. Christmas artwork on one run, New Year botanical or lantern artwork on the next. Same die, same board, no new tooling cost.

If your customers are mostly Chinese-Malaysian or Singaporean Chinese, this matters more than it sounds. A box that reads as Christmas-only gets packed away on 26 December. A box that also reads as a New Year gift box keeps working for another six weeks.

Size, and what actually fits

The standard size is 17.5 x 13.5 x 16 cm. Height is measured to the ridge of the roof, so usable depth inside the drawer is around 11 cm.

In practice that holds:

– 12 to 15 pieces of sliced nougat in a paper tray
– 6 to 8 cookies, depending on diameter
– one small tea caddy, or two 50 g jars
– bakkwa or preserved fruit, if you line the tray

We can change the footprint, but the house shape only reads properly between roughly 12 cm and 22 cm wide. Below that the roof looks like a lid. Above it, freight per unit climbs faster than the perceived value.

Printing and finishing

Four-colour print on the roof and the four walls, with the option of foil on the ridge and the drawer front. Food-grade board is standard, since most of these boxes end up holding something edible.

For the logo, send vector artwork — AI, EPS or a clean PDF. Anything below 0.3 mm in a line will fill in when it is printed over the checkered roof pattern; widen it or move it to the plain red panel. If you are not sure, we send a printed proof before the run.

Ribbon colour is a separate decision. Gold and red satin covers both seasons. White and gold reads Christmas only.

MOQ, samples and lead time

Our minimum is 500 pieces per design, which covers one print run and one die.

A plain sample takes a week. A printed sample with your artwork takes 10 to 12 days, because we print, mount and fold a short run rather than build a one-off mock-up. The point of the sample is to show you the real thing, not a lookalike.

Production runs 15 to 25 days after sample approval, depending on whether the order lands before or after the October rush. Sea freight from Wenzhou to Singapore or Malaysia is 15 to 25 days.

How to order

1. Send us the size you need and what goes inside
2. Tell us which season it is for — Christmas, New Year, or both
3. We confirm board, print and ribbon, and quote with freight
4. Approve the printed sample
5. Production, then shipping

If you already own a die for a similar box, tell us. Reusing an existing die cuts both cost and lead time, and we can often match a shape you are already selling.