School Note Inbox Project

Hi everyone! If your house is anything like mine, it quickly becomes filled with notes from school about field trips, picture days, and other events. I don’t like having anything on my fridge, and my kitchen island ended up being the dumping ground for all these papers. I needed a cute and simple system to corral all the papers that would keep them in plain sight but off of my cooking surfaces. So I came up with this adorable School Note Inbox Project, made from a recycled food box! Here’s what you’ll need to make it.

Make a coordinating folded paper organizing box while you’re crafting today!

School Note Inbox Project

Supplies:

• Cereal or cracker box
• Wrapping paper
• Black paper
• Letter stickers
• Ruler
• Adhesive roller (or modpodge if you prefer)
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Craft knife

Start by taking your box and marking three inches down from the top. Draw a line straight across the front at this mark. Then on the sides, angle your ruler fro the 3 inch mark on the front to the top back corner of the box. Now you’re going to take your craft knife and cut all along the front and side lines, and then cut the flap off at the back of the box.

This is what it should look like when you’re all done! Now roll out your wrapping paper and make sure you have enough to cover your box completely. Then trim it off of the roll to make it easier to work with. Next you’re going to stand your box up in the middle of the paper, and trace around the base of it. If you’re using a paper with a directional pattern, make sure it’s set so that when you pull the paper up around the box that pattern is where you want it to be.

This next part is a bit tricky, but once you learn how to do it you can cover just about anything. You’re going to set your box to the side, and you’ll see the rectangle outline we traced on the paper. Now from each corner of the rectangle, you’re going to draw a 1 inch line coming out from the corner at a 45 degree angle. Look at the picture, it explains better than I do. Then from the end of each of these lines, you’re going to draw a line straight down and a line straight out.

It should look like this. If it reminds you of a diagram you filled out in middle school you’re doing it right. Go ahead and cut along the straight lines, and cut up along the diagonal line we drew. You’ll end up with this big plus sign shape with little angled in cuts. Now go ahead and put adhesive in the center rectangle, and place your box down in the center.

We’re going to start with the thin sides of the box. Put adhesive all over your strip of paper, and then smooth it up with side of the box. Wrap the little flaps around the side and smooth them down as well. Go ahead and trim your paper as needed.

And wrap it down inside the box. Do the same thing with the other side. Now let’s work on the front. You’re going to fold the little side flaps make by that diagonal cut inwards. Check to make sure the folds are straight by holding it up against the box. Then use your adhesive to glue the flaps down to the paper, and then cover the paper with adhesive and smooth it up against the front of the box.

Next you’re going to fold it over the edge and smooth it inside of the box. Then just do the same thing for the back of the box!

If you have any gaps or your paper doesn’t come far enough down the inside to the box to cover the visible cardboard, you can easily cut an extra piece of paper and glue it in place. See how cute?! Now let’s make a sign for the front. Cut a piece of construction paper to fit the front of your box.

Use your letter stickers to label the sign. I kept it simple and just wrote “school notes” but you can label it however you’d like. Then just put some adhesive on the back and attach it on to your box!

And you’re all done! The great thing about this School Note Inbox Project is that you can make it whatever size you need it to be. I made mine a medium size, but you can make it large or tiny, depending on your needs and where you want to have it live. Thanks so much for doing this project with me!