Recycled Calender Gift Box Craft

Why, oh why did I never think of this cool craft? All those years of putting beautiful calenders into the recycling bin when I could have turned them into something really beautiful and useful: Gift boxes. This is another really wonderful craft we found in Ecology Crafts for Kids by Bobbe Needham. Don’t throw away your old Calenders!

All you need is:

old calenders pages, the bigger the better or other beautiful square pieces of paper

scissors

a bit of tape

How it’s done:

Fold your rectangular calender page over from one corner to the other side to create a square. Cut off the access paper from your rectangular shaped calender page to create a square sheet. Basically this box is based on Origami techniques

Fold the other corner over and create a diagonal crease from corner to corner.

Open the square again and fold the corner towards the center of the diagonal line you made. You created another crease. Take the corner once more and fold towards the center of this crease. Now you will have three creases.

Repeat this process for each corner of your square. Make nice deep creases.

Once you open the paper you will see little square shaped creases all over it

Then take scissors and cut into the paper along the creased lines. Cut two squares deep.

Repeat this process for the opposite side of this corner!

Make the sides of the box by lifting up the long uncut sides and folding in the corners towards the center. Next lift up the cut corners and fold them over the sides of the box. Now you have one part of your box.

Take a second calender sheet and make a slightly smaller square out of it. The crafting book didn’t say that but we found that if you use squares of the same size your boxes will not go together easily. You have to squeeze the sides to make it fit together.

Repeat the folding process on that smaller square sheet. You will end up with two halves of a box that can be put together as one box. We taped down the corners in the center so they wouldn’t pop up.

I know this sounds very complicated, but once you get the hang of it, it’s really easy to do.

My daughter was so intrigued by this project that she turned page after page of calenders and magazines into little boxes. Then she decided to peddle them for a few cents to the neighbors who surely needed boxes for their Christmas gifts…

Ulla Seckler is a dollmaker who was born and raised in Germany. She lives in beautiful Colorado with her husband and two kids. You can find her Notes by a German Dollmaker on her blog where she shares some great German recipes, pictures of her sweet dolls, and life lessons learned. Don’t forget to stop by her Etsyshop and take a peek at her wonderful doll creations.