Corral craft supplies effortlessly with this easy-to-make cardboard organizer

Whether you’re a passionate crafter or just an occasional gift wrapper, it’s nice to keep all your supplies in one place. This DIY allows you to save yourself from foraging for things you need the next time you want to create. Office supply stores offer craft supply organizers, but this project lets you customize the craft keeper to fit your unique taste or office color scheme.

This organizer couldn’t be simpler to make. With just a bit of glue and decorative paper, you create a nine-square checkerboard on a piece of plain cardboard. Throw in some skillful X-Acto knife wielding and a dab of hot glue, and you'll have a box with a divider. It's bound to be the ideal home for markers, scissors, glue sticks, beads, stickers and anything else that floats your crafty boat.

Materials
12-by-12-inch piece of plain cardboard
Ruler
Pencil
Scissors
X-Acto knife
Hot glue gun
Glue sticks for the glue gun
Four pieces of wallpaper remnants or contact paper cut into 4-by-4 inch squares
Glue stick for crafts

1. Place the cardboard square on your work surface.

2. Place the ruler so it’s aligned with one side of the cardboard square and mark a pencil dot at the 4-inch- and 8-inch-points.

3. Repeat step 2 on the other three sides of the square.

4. Use the ruler to draw two straight horizontal lines at the 4-inch and 8-inch-points on two opposing sides of the square.

5. Repeat step 4 but draw vertical lines joining the other two sides of the square. The cardboard will now have nine 4-by-4-inch squares drawn on it.

6. Cut a small cardboard square from each of the four corners of the large cardboard square with the scissors. The large piece will now look like an "X" or a "+."

7. Carefully cut into the pencil lines that form the edges of the small center square with the X-Acto knife. Make sure not to cut the pieces completely, but just enough so that when you fold them further, they stand up to form the sides of a box.

8. Glue these vertical edges together with the glue gun to make a box without a top piece. Allow the glue to dry.

9. Take one of the small, cut corner squares and apply glue to two of its opposing edges.

10. Place it in the middle of the box's interior so the glued edges are abutting two of the box's interior surfaces.

11. Using the craft glue stick, apply glue to the outer sides of the box and affix the decorative paper squares to each side.

12. The decorative craft organizer is now ready for use.