Make a magazine holder out of a cereal box

You can make your own magazine holder at home for a fraction of the cost of the ones at office supply stores. It’s a really fun, easy project, and the end result works well.

You know those tall magazine holders you can get at office supply stores? The ones with one side slanted so you can easily pull the periodicals out?

The one in the photo is something I made years ago, and it’s held up surprisingly well. It’s even a project you could get kids to help you with.

You’ll need a cereal box, possibly some additional thin cardboard, scissors or a blade to cut through cardboard, a ruler and (optionally) some kind of paper to wrap it in.

Make your own magazine holder

Sketch where you’ll cut

You don’t need to measure this carefully. In fact, you can decide your own dimensions. The first step is for you to draw lines with a ruler where you’re going to cut the box.

First, take a box cutter or X-acto blade – good, sharp scissors can work, but they’re harder to use – and cut the top flaps off the cereal box.

On one narrow side of the box, measure about 3-5 inches from the bottom (about a third of the way up) and draw a straight line across it, using a ruler or straight edge.

Now take your ruler and put it against one of the wide sides, holding it diagonally, and draw a line from the line on the narrow side up to the opposite top corner of the box.

Repeat the diagonal line on the other side. Easy peasy!

Cut

Now, using either your scissors or a box cutter or X-acto blade, cut along the lines. At this point, you’ve got your basic box.

Optionally Reinforce

This step is totally optional. You absolutely don’t have to do this at all. If you want to reinforce it, you can cut additional pieces of thin cardboard, like the thickness of cardboard from a shirt gift box.

Attach them to the box using homemade glue or tape. You’re going to cover them, so it isn’t important for it to look nice yet).

Decorate

Now comes the decorating. Contact Paper is ideal: it’s tough and it adds a little more reinforcement. But you can glue on any paper you want to reycle.

In this case, I used some old repurposed wrapping paper. You could even do a collage with postcards, stationary, etc. If you use a thin or delicate paper, you may want to brush over it with some clear-drying liquid gesso or a similar finishing agent to lock it in.

That’s it! You can get really creative by putting together a collage for the covering – bits from magazines are perfect, since it’s a magazine holder. You could wrap it in newspaper, too, and by the time you’ve covered it with the clear gesso, you won’t need to worry about ink transferring from it.