What to make from a cardboard box. Ideas, tips and DIY master class

What can you make from old empty shoe boxes or candy boxes that are left around the house? Let's use them and make practical storage crafts. We offer you ideas and master classes on how to decorate and decorate boxes with your own hands, how to make an organizer, box, shelves and other necessary things for storing various small items.

Jewelry box

If you still have a beautiful box that you hate to throw away, then put fabric rollers in it and you will get an excellent box for storing jewelry.

TIP: it is better to make rollers from a soft material, like felt or flannel

Picnic box

Using large or medium-sized shoe boxes, you can make a charming and very convenient picnic box that will be a great replacement for a standard basket. Decorate the box with decoupage or simply glue the fabric.

• A shoe box can be decorated with fabric or colored paper using PVA glue ,
• make handles from braid and decorate them at your discretion.

Jewelry organizer

The lid from the box can be as useful as the box itself. For example, it can be used as a jewelry holder. To make such an original thing, you need:

1. cover the lid of a shoe box with burlap,
2. then attach it to the wall,
3. fasten with nails through the cardboard, on which bracelets, chains and other jewelry will be hung.

Sleeping area

People who have a cat as a pet know it when you buy a large sleeping house for it with a scratching post, with platforms at different levels; you arrange the space inside as comfortable and soft as possible, but the cat will still choose a flat cardboard box.

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Many people begin to specifically accustom their pets to their new housing, but this should not be done. Why force a cat to live in warmth and comfort, if you can pleasantly furnish the same box.

You need to put a blanket inside the cardboard so that your pet can sleep softly and comfortably. Also, for your own aesthetic pleasure, you can paint the edges of the box as you wish. For example, sleeping cats, and then this place in the house will definitely become stronger, like a pet’s sleeping place.

Organizer for pens and pencils

As a rule, cardboard toilet paper rolls are a very useless thing and can only be thrown into the trash.

However, using a cardboard box and several of these rolls, you can make a wonderful stand for pencils and pens with your own hands. Such an organizer will become a very convenient thing, and its creation will only take a few minutes.

• To make such an organizer, we will need a small cardboard box, you can take it from shoes and cover it with colored paper or decorate it in every possible way with ribbons, bows, stickers .
• Place cardboard rolls tightly into the box or glue them together for greater convenience, which will allow you to sort pens, pencils and other items according to their intended purpose.

Wine box: decoupage

If you want to give your friend a bottle of good wine for the New Year, a tastefully decorated box using decoupage technique will help complement the gift. You can take a ready-made wooden slatted blank or use a regular box of butt boots to make it.

Decorating wine boxes using decoupage technique step by step:

• We process the box with sandpaper;
• We remove dust from the workpiece and degrease it using a cotton pad soaked in alcohol;
• We cover the outer part of the box with several layers of primer, paying special attention to the lids;
• We treat the inner part with stain;
• Paint the outside of the wine box with a mixture of blue, pink and green paint;
• We separate the top layer of the napkin or decoupage card and tear out the motif we need;
• Soak it on the file in a small amount of liquid and transfer it to the surface of the base;
• Lubricate the picture with glue, straightening it along the box with a hard brush.
• We complete the missing elements;
• We decorate the box with gold leaf;
• We cover the product with several layers of varnish.

All that remains is to put a bottle of wine in the box and the gift in the original style is ready. There is no shame in exhibiting such a product at the crafts fair in Ukraine.

Paintings or panels on the wall

An ordinary lid from a shoe or candy box can be turned into a real work of art that looks like a real artistic canvas or decorative panel.

1. To do this, just cover the lid with decorative paper or white paper and draw a pattern yourself.
2. Then simply hang the lid on a nail in the wall and you can admire this work.

How else can you make paintings for your home - a detailed master class.

Decorative wall shelves

If you want to decorate an empty wall in a room, then a shoe box is perfect for this.

• Its inside can be painted or covered with colored paper and the box can be glued to the wall with Moment glue or liquid nails.
• Install the desired decor inside the box, but it should not be heavy so that it does not pull the box down.

Decoupage spice box using printout method

For this method, it is better to use plywood blanks, since during the implantation process the cardboard base may delaminate. However, if you work very carefully, you can also decorate a shoe box with decoupage and implantation of a printout.

In addition to the technique given here for implanting a printout “with its face into the varnish,” there is another method: transferring the design to the product using a hot iron.

This technique may seem too complicated for beginner decoupage artists, but if you follow all the steps carefully, you will be pleased with the result.

Master class for beginners on decorating a box using the technique of implanting printouts:

1. Sand the box with sandpaper.
2. Apply a thin layer of primer, white acrylic paint or stain to its surface and let it dry.
3. On top of the primer we apply several layers of acrylic paint of the main color. Let the boxes dry thoroughly. This step does not need to be completed if you used stain to decorate the box.
4. We apply several layers of acrylic varnish or special adhesive varnish to the printed motif. We cover the places where the design will be implanted with a thin layer of the same composition and until it dries, we lower the varnished image with its face into the varnish. Leave this structure in this position until completely dry.
5. The next day, generously moisten the printout with water and begin to roll all the paper off the product. When you think there is no more paper on the image, dry it with a hairdryer and you will see a white coating, you need to get rid of that too.
6. When only a bright image remains on the product, fill in the missing details with acrylic paint.
7. Open the box with several layers of varnish and leave it until completely dry.

Despite the apparent complexity of this technique, even a beginner can handle it, the main thing is to follow the described sequence of actions exactly.

Cardboard furniture

Gift and packaging boxes are a great source of cardboard that can be used to create furniture, such as a shoe rack, cabinet or laptop table. We have a separate article devoted to this - 10 ways to make furniture from cardboard.

Drawer divider

Small things like panties, socks, underwear, tights drink a lot of blood from their owners when they feverishly search for what they need in the depths of the closet. Take scissors or a utility knife and quickly zone the space in the drawer. You don't even have to color it.

For perfectionists, of course, here too you can cover the cardboard with cambric or lace.

Charging station for phones

A shoebox makes a great compact phone charging station. To do this you need:

1. just cut holes in one wall of the box and secure them with special metal labels, which can be bought at any hardware store.
2. Place the power supply inside the box and attach the box to the wall.
3. When you need to charge your phone, you just need to pull the cord through the hole. This way, the wires will be in order and at the same time have an aesthetic appearance.

Storage basket

To create an imitation of a real wicker basket, it will be enough to glue the shoe box with a rope turn to turn; you can use ordinary PVA glue for this.

Inside, you can sew a bag of white soft fabric the size of the box, so you can very easily make with your own hands a very cute decorative basket for storing small items, which will be in no way inferior to a real wicker basket.

Master class on basket weaving

Storage box

Shoe boxes are an excellent material for storing various things; in order for them to have an original and attractive appearance on storage shelves, they are quite easy to transform.

• To do this, you just need to cover them with a satin card using PVA glue.
• You can stick a sign on the end of the box with a signature indicating what is stored in this box, this will make it easier to find the right thing.

5 master classes on how to make a storage box with your own hands

How to decorate?

If the desire to master decoupage arises suddenly, and you have a suitable object at hand, anything can serve as a material for coating. Most often these can be paper or fabric images that match the style and color.

Paper

Most often, paper covering is used for decoupage. These can be specially designed decoupage cards, any multi-layer napkins, newspapers, pages of magazines, books or other printed publications. The main difficulties for a beginner are related to thickness and density. There is nothing worse when paper stretches, wrinkles, or tears. On poor quality paper, fibers and other inclusions can be seen in the finished product. If you use separate elements rather than a wide canvas, thick paper will make it difficult to mask the joints and borders.

For decoupage you need the following components:

• shoe box;
• napkins with a pattern;
• PVA glue;
• primer and paints (acrylic);
• brushes (narrow and wide) or sponge;
• varnish

Let's look at the progress of the work.

• First, you need to strengthen all the weak points of the cardboard box. This primarily concerns corners and folds. For this you need pieces of masking tape.
• Then all external sides must be coated with a primer, dried and all irregularities must be sanded well. The number of layers depends on them. As a result, the surface should be perfectly flat.
• After complete drying, you can begin painting. The background color should be in harmony with the selected image. The inside of the box and the lid also need to be painted - to match the external background or any other (can be contrasting).
• Then you need to select a picture or cut out a separate fragment. Only the top layer of the napkin should be separated. The design can cover the entire box, just the lid, one or more sides to choose from.
• Next comes the most important stage - gluing the selected image. We apply it to the box, grease it with glue and smooth it thoroughly to avoid swelling and wrinkles. If you wish, you can make small adjustments. For example, paint details, shade the edges or the remaining space. At the bottom you can lay a proportionate sheet of cardboard, decorated using the same technique.
• Let the drawing dry and secure with several layers of varnish.

You will learn more about decoupage of a box using napkins by watching the following video.

Fabric

In addition to paper, you can use fabric. Moreover, you can make quite unusual combinations with it.

For example, use napkins for the lid, and cover the sides and bottom with fabric.

Let's consider a master class on a fabric design option.

• Prime the box. If the fabric is opaque, the parts to be glued over the primer do not need to be painted.
• Take measurements from the box. Mark the pattern on the canvas. To make the edges look neater, allowances are needed, which should be ironed inward.
• All fabric parts, even if they are small, should be ironed well.
• Then we lay out the workpiece. A layer of glue should be applied to it, as well as to the box.
• Then we start gluing the fabric. It should be smoothed out well, moving from the middle to the edges.

In addition to fabric, you can use lace. Usually they are framed with fragments of a design or edges.

Other decorative elements

Decoupage boxes can be supplemented with ribbons, ropes, twines, as well as all kinds of beads, shells and similar materials.

When choosing decorative elements for a box, it is important to observe moderation. You should not use more than three materials to design one product.

Decoupage goes well with other techniques. The image can be applied not to a smooth surface, but to a textured one. For this, in addition to the items already listed above, you will need an ordinary eggshell. It should be washed and removed from the inner film. You will also need tweezers, a stick and a glue brush.

Step-by-step instructions for implementation include several steps.

• The first stage consists of gluing the shell. It can be glued in small pieces. Or, to save time, take larger pieces. The selected part of the shell must be coated with glue on the inside, and then placed in the desired place and pressed. The cracked pieces must be slightly moved apart to avoid overlapping each other. It is also better to apply glue on top of the shells.
• After the entire box is covered with the shell, it is painted with acrylic paint - white or any other in accordance with your plan. To avoid unpainted areas, there may be several layers.
• Then you can start decoupage. Cut out the required fragment of the napkin, separate the top layer, apply it and lubricate it with glue. The final layer will be a varnish layer.

Mini file

If you have a collection of stickers, stamps, or other small items, a shoe box is a great place to store them.

1. First you need to choose a box of the appropriate size and cover it with colored paper, so it will acquire a beautiful appearance.
2. Cut sheets of paper to the size of the box and sign the names of what will be stored in the box, then place these sheets between the corresponding things.

This way you don't have to go through the entire contents of the box to find the item you need.

Wrap

The easiest and fastest way to turn a shoe box into a gift box is to wrap it in beautiful paper. To do this you will need the following materials:

• wrapping paper (foil, a piece of wallpaper);
• scissors;
• narrow tape.

Step-by-step instruction:

1. Unfold the paper on the table. Place a gift box on it.
2. You should cut the paper so that the side is completely covered on one side and ⅔ on the other. The length of the box should be completely wrapped in paper, plus a margin of 3–4 cm.
3. Turn the box upside down, press the paper as tightly as possible and seal with tape. This way the seam will be at the bottom.
4. Now press the paper against the side, moving from top to bottom. Smooth it down and secure it with tape.
5. Grasp the side tabs and fold them into a triangle (like envelopes). Tape it to the box. Fold the corners of the bottom part in the same way, and then glue it to the center.
6. Do the same on the other side.

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The main secret of this technique is the tension of the wrapper. For gift wrapping to turn out beautiful, the paper should not dangle, but fit tightly around the box.

Chalk board

You can use shoe box lids to make a mini chalkboard very easily. To do this, you need to paint the lids with black acrylic paint and you have mini chalkboards that will be great fun for children.

These boards can also be used as signs at a large event, or they can also be used as large price tags. In order to change the inscription, you just need to erase the chalk and write a new one again.

Detailed master class on how to make a chalk board

Organize your beads

The yokes will find use for the lid, covering it with burlap or velvet. Shiny jewelry looks great against such a background. And the man will attach the hooks or pins - he is always present with the yoke.

Interesting fact. According to an article in Glamor magazine, the average woman will purchase 469 pairs of shoes in her lifetime.