How to make a folder holder.

My bookshelves are no where near big enough to store folders on. This means I don’t really have anywhere to put them and they normally just end up on a pile on the floor – but not anymore. I was about to throw out the box my Converse sneakers came in when I discovered it could hold three folders up right – the exact number of folders I use! To make your own folder holder you will need:

• One Converse sneaker box with the lid cut off.
• A big sheet of wrapping paper (mine was £1.60ish from Tescos. 1mx1.7m)
• Scissor
• Sellotape
• A gluestick.
• A pencil.

Before you start cutting out your wrapping paper, sellotape up all the raw edges of the box and any joints or weak spots. This just makes the box a wee bit stronger and gives you smoother edges to work against.

Begin by placing the box in the middle of the paper and drawing around it. Then tip it on all of it’s various sides and draw around it there too. You’re aiming to create a net which you can wrap around your box. Here’s a badly drawn example of what I did:

This is where I make everything much more complicated than it needs to be. The black square is the base; the red ones are the sides (and yes there should be two on each side); the blue squares the ends and the pink lines are tabs. You just wrap this cut out shape around the box, sellotaping and gluing the various tabs down to hold the paper to the box. I started with the sides, bringing them up and wrapping them inside the box – the two sides on each half line the inside of the box for you! I did the ends after all the side’s tabs were secure. The more technical amongst us would probably have doubled up the ends as well, leaving only the inside bottom of the box to line with a single rectangle of paper glued down… but I didn’t have a big enough piece of paper for that and had to do the inside ends and bottom separately.

Still, I think it came out fantastically for a spur of the moment piece of crafting. Tell me what you think!