Upcycle Soap Box - Desk Organizer

Soap Box Desk Organizer

SOOOO I guess there was a sale on bar soap at our grocery store because the hubby came home with 12 boxes of Irish Spring. Eh... the good thing is, I now have 12 little boxes to work with. I used six of them today and made myself a desk organizer for pencils, brushes, scissors, or what-have-you. It was easy and inexpensive. Here's what you'll need to make yourself one of these:

• six soap boxes
• Mod Podge, or another gluey material
• scrapbook paper
• cork paper (found at my local dollar store, it's made for scrapbooking)
• ruler, scissors, brush

Start by cutting the top flaps off of the boxes.   Then arrange them around until you get the shape you want.  I decided just to have one row or boxes, but the sky's the limit here.  Any shape, as many boxes, you can get creative as you want. 

  Next, glue them together.

I used a pretty liberal amount of glue.  The hardest part is holding them together (clothespins are really helpful here).

When the boxes are all glued together and dry, start adding paper to cover up the inside of the boxes.  Measure the sides and depth and cut the scrapbook paper to fit; apply it with more Mod Podge.  I used a ruler to press the paper flat inside the boxes.

Fold the top of the paper over and glue to the outside of the box. You'll cover this up later, so it doesn't have to be perfect.  Once everything on the inside is covered with paper, the cork paper comes next.

One piece of 12x12 cork paper was just enough for my organizer.  I cut it in half, and pretty wrapped both sides like a present.  Start by gluing one half onto the side...

... and cut up to the bottom corners.  Cut out a triangle on each side (just to make it much easier to fold and glue to the sides and bottom).  You'll need lots of glue for this paper; the cork absorbs quite a bit of it, so a little extra won't hurt anyone.  Hold it down, or weigh it down because this paper likes to pop up.

So with some folding, lots of gluing, and holding, wrap the paper around the boxes. (I didn't get too many pictures of this, my hands were a little busy)...

Let it dry; you can add a layer of Mod Podge on the cork, but it will make it a little darker and not as soft.  Up to you, though, whatever you like.