A magic explosion box is an explosion box with design pieces that seem to float over the opened box. If you look closely you can see the acetate strips holding up the white butterflies. They slide through slits in the corners of the center (green) square.
For design inspiration, take a look at the unbelievably gorgeous boxes on Elaine's site.
I referred to Elaine's tutorial to make this 16th birthday explosion box, but designed mine as a 3" cube, which allowed me to fit both box and lid on one piece of 12" x 12" card stock.
All of the papers came from Joann Fabrics, as did the butterflies. They are a white (wedding) version of these:
One source for instructions for the tealight cake is Splitcoast Stampers. Do a Google image search on "tealight cake" to see many, many variations.
Extreme Cards and Papercrafting: pop up cards, movable and mechanical cards, digital crafts and unusual papercrafts.