I have been needing a mail organizer for a while but really didn’t feel like spending the money on an expensive one like this- yes they look really nice but for now I just need something that’s functional and low cost. (plus, this way, I’m not stuck to having a certain amount of slots- I can do as many as I want) I have been saving items that we use everyday around our house in the garage for several months now, (items like toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, cereal boxes, strawberry containers, etc…) with the idea I will use them for something. And I have been using them for a lot of other projects, the kids birthday party for one!
Our old house didn’t really have that much wall space close to where you would bring in the mail and easily be able to just slip it into a holder when you come into the house, but since we moved into a larger house, we have plenty of wall space. I found the perfect wall that would just work perfect for one so I started looking through the items I had saved in the garage & found 3 cereal boxes that I decided to use for this.
Here is my finished product:
Want to make one for yourself?
Here’s my tutorial for the mail organizers made from cereal boxes:
Items you will need:
-The number of cereal boxes that you want to cover- I did 3 for my wall. Since my kids like to reach stuff on the walls I had to hang them out of reach of them, otherwise I would have done possibly more boxes and hung them lower!
-Glue gun and glue sticks
-Aleene’s original tacky glue (if you don’t want to use the glue gun on the paper that we will put on the inside of the boxes)
-3/4 yard of fabric for each box
-2 12″x12″ papers of the same color to match the fabric
-Paper scissors
-Fabric scissors
If you want to do the lettering that I’ve done on the front of the box, here’s the materials you need:
-2 more colors of coordinating fabric, one for the squares the letters will go on, and one for the lettering. (if you just do a plain color for covering the box then you would just need one- I chose a busy fabric so I needed two)
-Wonder under
-Ruler
-Fabric pen (or something to mark it, I have used a sharpie many times, I just draw a little outside of where I will cut so it won’t show
-Cricut and cricut matte
-Optional: zig zag scissors (pinking shears)
Here goes:
Here are my 3 cereal boxes. (note- they are not all exactly the same size, but didn’t differ that much so when I cut out the pattern I made, I made sure to use the biggest box to get the pattern off of- the honeycombs box) Find what cereal boxes you want, you can make as many as you want, I made 3:
Take an 8.5″x11″ paper to measure how your mail will fit in the box after it is done. Just make sure it is big enough so that it has about 1/4″ bigger than the paper for a little extra clearance for those bigger pieces of mail and ads you might get:
Make a straight cut line, like I mentioned in photo above:
Cut the whole box down to the cut line from the 8.5″x11″ piece of paper:
Choose a side that will be the front side of the box, (doesn’t matter which is front or back) make diagonal marks down your box from the top corners. It should go down about 3″ down or however low you want the front of the box, and just have a diagonal edge, you will see how it looks on the next few photos:
Cut the top flap off:
Here are all my boxes, with the flaps cut down. I did this so I wouldn’t have to dig down in the boxes to find my mail- I want to just look in and see if there is mail in each box:
Set the box just like this, with about 4″ on the top and side. (which are the edges of the fabric) In this photo, the left and bottom of the fabric are where you will need to make the cuts.
See how far the fabric will come over on the right side to make sure it will be about 1 inch on the front of the box:
Draw with a ruler and pen, a straight mark to the right side of the box. The side line will be about 4″ wide:
Mark 4″ to the left of the box:
Draw a line so you know where you are going to cut:
Tip box straight up, but careful when tilting it to keep it in the same place so you still can cover the back of the box, and have 3-4″ to come up the backside of the box and hang over:
Mark the sides of the box:
Now, tilt the box down with the front facing down & trace it:
These are what the lines should look like after you’re done, if you can see the lines. Next time I will use a plain fabric so they will stand out more for this tutorial! Sorry!
Cut on outside lines with fabric scissors:
This is what the whole pattern looks like, the back piece that will cover the back of the box is the part with the scissors on it, then the bottom of the photo is the front:
Here’s all my 3 pieces of fabric cut out:
To start, place the box, just like this onto the back piece:
Take the glue gun & lay a strip of glue across the right side of the fabric:
Quickly lay the fabric over onto the box:
Do the same on the other side: (note! you should have more fabric at the bottom of the box than I do in this photo- because you will be able to see the seams later if you do it like in the photo)
Next, glue a light strip of glue on the very side of the fabric that will come up onto the front of the box, you are going to fold it over about 1/2″:
Fold over the fabric, like I said above:
This gives you a finished look that will show on the front of the box:
Place a strip of glue on the side so you can put the flap of fabric up onto the front of the box:
Push it down and make sure there’s no big globs of glue because they might be bumpy and show in the finished product:
This was my first attempt and why I said to make sure that the fabric was pulled down further in the photo 6 photos up:
If you end up w/ the seam, just do what you can w the glue gun to press it in & not have it show, like I did here:
Still gluing, won’t be this hard if you do it right the first time:
Just press onto it for a few seconds to make sure it’s going to close right:
This is how it should look on the corners, nice and crisp:
On the top, there’s a piece of fabric that you will need to cut down, like I do below this next photo:
Cut down diagonally, about 1″ to the side of the cardboard box:
Should look like this after cutting a little of the fabric off:
Cut another diagonal line opposite the diagonal lines you just made above:
Fold down the fabric so it’s kind of ready to glue:
This is what it looks like folded down:
Lift up the flap and glue the back flap down:
Press down to make sure it’s holding:
Glue the back corners:
Glue the sides & press down:
Do the other side:
Take the front/top flap and fold down and glue, so the seam doesn’t show:
Same step as above, just folding it down:
Press down:
Fold down the diagonal sides & glue down, you might want to use a stick or something to press the fabric down because this is where you are more likely to burn yourself: (do other side too)
Glue down front flap:
Press down the front flap:
Press down good so it will stay:
All glued & done!
Done:
Measure the coordinating paper you chose for the inside back & sides: (note- the front will not show in most cases, it’s up to you if you want to just go ahead and cover it. I didn’t)
Measure the side papers:
Glue in the papers, I tried using this scrapbook glue & then switched to Aleene’s tacky glue- and it worked SO much better! It’s like using the glue gun w/ out the heat and burning! But you just have to hold it there longer to make sure it holds:
All done covering the box:
Here is the tutorial for cutting out the letters and applying the front fabric:
Take the the fabric you want to make your letters out of and cut out a big enough square (mine was about 8″ x 4″) for them to fit and iron it onto wonder under so that it’s stronger, more like paper: (note- I will later have a tutorial for wonder under but it’s easy to use and comes with directions) (the biggest reason why I used wonder under on the fabric is because the cricut has a problem cutting out the fabric without something on the back of it to stabilize it more. This is the only thing I have ever tried and had it work, doesn’t matter if the wonder under ends up falling off after it’s cut out)
Place fabric square onto your cricut mat:
Place into cricut:
This is how mine came out, for some reason after playing with all the blade settings, and pressure settings, etc… this is the best I could get them to come out and they still came out with some edges not cut:
I didn’t worry about the wonder under staying on because it’s purpose is now done. I just peeled off the letters as I could and used the scissors here & there to get them off:
Cut all the letters:
Peel them up:
Cut the insides that maybe didn’t cut out:
The “P” after I cut it out:
The Sure Cuts a lot software for my cricut:
Place the mat into the cricut:
Haha don’t mind me spelling the word receipts wrong- that one always gets me! So, place the words onto the fabric you want to use to glue to the main box to make sure it’s the right size and not too big:
Mark fabric where you want to cut it with a ruler:
Here are the lines you will cut: (and make sure the blue square of fabric isn’t too big to fit on the cereal box)
I used zig zags so I wouldn’t have to finish off the edges:
The fabric, after cutting with the zig zags:
Lay out the letters again: (I placed my top lines straight across and then messed up the bottom letters just for fun)
Here is the Aleene’s glue I used to glue the letters:
Glue the letters to the back fabric:
When done gluing letters, flip over the back fabric & glue it to the covered cereal box:
Here is one box, all the way done:
Here are all 3 of my boxes, all the way done, I chose a dark brown for the middle box:
Here are my boxes, hung up kind-of asymmetrical on the wall: (later I will probably have some vinyl on the walls by it or something else cute) (fyi- I just used really small nails to hang them up and put 2 in the top back cardboard, one on each side:
Another shot of the wall, all done:
Here are the boxes, all done and in use with our mail inside them! Now I just need to not overuse them and empty them when they get full!
As always- thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this tutorial! Please email me if you make your own and I will post your projects made from this tutorial! Stay tuned for more!
Shalin
CleverMama!
Tags: bazzill, boxes, cereal, Cleaning, cricut, diy, fabric, glue, glue gun, green, home, mail, organize, organizer, re-make, re-use, recycle, repurposing, scissors, scrapbook paper, tags, target, tutorial, upcycle
