DIY Magazine Storage & Organization

Hey guys! I’ve got a new organization DIY for you this week.

This is a great upcycled or recycled project from a cereal box. I used a family size box of Lucky Charms because I’m a high functioning adult who eats a nutritious breakfast on a daily basis, but you can use whatever you’ve got around.


Besides the box, you need duct tape, scissors and a marker. A ruler and X-acto knife will help, but aren’t really needed. As an aside, I like to use two different tapes for this- something plain for the sides and then a pattern or print on the front, but that’s just my personal preference. Also, I don’t label mine because I’m always cutting up and destroying magazines, but you can add labels onto yours if you want.

To start with, use your magazine to determine how high the back should be. You want it to be just a tad bit bigger than the biggest magazine you plan to keep in the box. You also need to decide how high you want the front to come up. I make all of mine about 4 inches so that I can read the name of the magazine, but you can play around and see what works for you.

Then, take your ruler and connect the two lines along the sides of the box. You'll be drawing the diagonal lines that make up the major shape of the box.

 

Using your scissors or an X-acto knife, cut around the lines you drew on all four sides. Please be careful. Do not cut yourself. Seriously. When you’re done, you have a shape that looks startlingly like a magazine holder.

 

Once your shape is cut out, it’s time to add some stability to the box, as well as covering up the box to make it a bit prettier. Like I said, I like to cover the two sides with a solid color, so I used blue on this one.

Cut out strips and overlap them just a tiny bit to cover the entire thing. Wrap the tape down onto the bottom and also tuck the end into the top cut edge. It’s kind of ugly inside but once it’s full of magazines, you won’t be able to tell and it’s really not worth the hassle to cover the inside too.

After both sides are done, I recommend adding a strip along the bottom as well to both cover all of the ends of tape and to also add just a little bit more stability and keep the box from opening if you lift it.

Then, using a contrasting patterned tape, cover up the front and back. You’ll need two strips of tape for this, and since this is the part that’ll be seen, I like to lay out the two strips and line up the pattern first, so that it looks as nice as possible on the shelf.



Once your pattern is lined up, go ahead and stick it on the front and back of the box. Make sure that you trim up your corners so that you can fold the sides down and in easily without and lumps or bubbles.



Then, fill it with magazines and stick it on your shelf! As you can see, I have quite a few of these because I love magazines so much. Like I said, I don’t label mine because I’m always cutting up magazines for different projects so my collection isn’t consistent, but it would be cute to print out little miniature copies of the covers and glue them on to identify what’s in each one.

If you don’t have duct tape or want to try something else, two suggestions I have are to either paint your box, or to collage onto it.

If you do this, I definitely want to see it, so send me a picture on twitter or instagram @techni_moments!

Stay crafty!

PS: Of course, there’s a video here!