Any tips to make a box mix taste more homemade?

There are several doctored cake mix recipes in the recipe forum. There are also a couple of great books from "The Cake Doctor" The recipes are terrific and the books are available everywhere.

Add a pudding mix and an extra egg. Also sub milk for the water and butter for the oil.

There are lots of other additions you can make to get good flavors and such, but these are the old stand bys that I come back to time and time again.