Upcycled Magazine Boxes - Tutorial



I began this upcycleing project as a way to help me organize some of my art supplies. I have a bunch of old magazines that I use for various projects. I also have these gorgeous (well they have character) red shelves that are mostly empty. My projects have not been keeping up with my magazine stash, my art supplies were a mess, and the shelves were nearly empty...so I decided to make these cute boxes that would fit perfectly in the shelves.  Keep reading for a tutorial.

This would be a fun project to do with a group of girls.  It would work well if i ever worked at a residential treatment facility again.  : )



13 rolls of magazine paper



Supplies:

Old magazines

An old box (I’m using boxes from the restaurant below our apartment, a shoe box would also work well)

If you want the boxes to fit in a shelf when they are finished make sure the shelf is between an inch and two inches wider.  (If you make large tubes, you will need more extra width).  You can also cut the box and/or tubes shorter to fit.  You could make these higher but I am not going to worry about height.

School Glue

Hot Glue



The first step is to cover the box with magazine pages. You really just need to focus on the corners and edges, places that might show through later. I used school glue for this. Hot glue will add funky texture.

Take a full page and roll it up. 

Keep in mind that the tube will only show about the last inch. 

If the page has a white border all you will see is white. Roll a bunch of these.

Then use hot glue to attach to the box, and to each other. 

The hot glue makes the box pretty strong.

Here is a box that is finished on the front.

 

I am not sure whether to do the sides or not.  It could make it nice but it could be obnoxious.  I am also not sure if I want one two or three boxes like this.  The crates below could be used along with my others for clothes and I like the idea of having a magazine box on the top and bottom with the red in the middle.

I will post again when I finish or decide exactly what I want. What do you think?

Add links to your art supply storage solutions in the comments section.  I want to see.