Do-it-yourself cabinet made from boxes: necessary materials, step-by-step instructions, photos

October 18, 2018
Furniture
Lazko Natalia

Industrially made doll furniture today is, unfortunately, very expensive. Meanwhile, making such toys for your child, if desired, will not be difficult with your own hands from scrap materials. A doll's wardrobe can be made, for example, from ordinary cardboard boxes. There are many simple ways to assemble such toy furniture.

How can I do it?

If you wish, it will be easy to make a cabinet from boxes with your own hands for a doll of absolutely any size, design and design. In any case, making such a toy will not take too much time. For a large doll, of course, you need to make a fairly “oversized” wardrobe; for a small doll, smaller furniture will do. If desired, it will not be difficult to make such a toy of the simplest design with hinged doors. It is also easy to use boxes to glue together a more complex wardrobe, a craft with many shelves and drawers, etc.

At the final stage, such a toy can be decorated, for example, in such a way that it is as similar as possible to adult furniture, that is, it is painted “like wood.” This locker is very suitable for an older girl. A small child, of course, should make a brighter cabinet, decorated with flowers, patterns, cartoon drawings, etc.

The easiest way, of course, would be to make a wardrobe for the doll directly from the box itself. In this case, the main tool when assembling the craft will be ordinary scissors. You can also cut the box into several parts and make a cabinet of a more complex and original design out of cardboard. In this case, of course, you will need more glue.

Shoe rack

To make a rack, several identical rectangles of cardboard are prepared, which are thickened with the help of snake strips. The thicker the future shelves are, the more reliable the entire structure will be.

The sides of the shelves are covered with thick paper, and round holes are cut out on four sides of each of them. Through them, using plastic pipes and glue, the entire structure is connected, turning it into a rack.

For decorative purposes, the shelves are pre-painted, varnished, glued with wallpaper, self-adhesive film, or the decoupage technique is applied to them. The pipes should also be painted in the chosen shade so that the product looks elegant and harmonious.

If desired, the shelves can be made curly, however, processing their edges will be quite difficult. Shelves and cabinets made of cardboard are an ideal solution for home and garden. Making them will not take much time or money, and the result will certainly please the most picky owner.

Box selection

Of course, in order to make a beautiful, strong and durable toy cabinet out of boxes with your own hands for a doll, first of all you need to select a suitable material for it. Corrugated cardboard is best suited for this craft. In this case, the design of the toy will be stable and will not weigh too much. You can make a doll closet from one such box, or from several different sizes.

If desired, you can use, of course, not corrugated cardboard, but ordinary cardboard to make such a doll interior item. This could be, for example, a small shoe box or, say, some kind of gift. Sometimes, when assembling doll furniture, even just matchboxes are used.

Required tools and materials

Actually, the answer to the question of how to make a doll cabinet out of cardboard with your own hands is simple. In addition, the materials and tools for making such a craft will need the simplest. In addition to the box itself, to assemble the toy cabinet you will need to prepare:

sharp scissors;
ruler;
a simple pencil;
high quality glue for paper.

To design such a toy at the final stage you can use:

paints;
colored paper;
napkins;
scraps of fabric or oilcloth, etc.

It is, of course, best to make such a craft on a flat surface - for example, on a table or on the floor.

Mobile rack

The procedure for making a rack is quite simple. If there are several identical boxes, the lids are carefully cut off from them.

Using tape and plastic clips, they make a lightweight storage system from the blocks: the boxes are placed on top of each other with their sides and connected into a single whole. This shelving unit is ideal for arranging a utility room or pantry; moreover, it can be expanded, reduced or disassembled without any problems.

The simplest DIY cabinet made from boxes step by step

To assemble such a toy you will need several boxes of different sizes. The largest of them should be placed bottom down on the table and opened. Next, several more smaller ones should be inserted into this box in random order. Thus, inside the cabinet you will get compartments-shelves. Before installing small boxes into large ones, their walls need to be coated with glue. In this case, the doll's wardrobe will be more solid and durable.

There is no need to cut off the lid of a large box when making this craft. It should be cut in the middle so that you get two doors. At the final stage, the resulting cabinet simply needs to be turned over vertically, placing it on its end.

Compass 3D program tools

Let's look at the interface of one of these programs - Compass 3D (by the way, the portable version is very convenient).

Let's look at the most basic tools you'll need:

Geometry Toolbar
“Segment” is the main tool used to draw lines
“Trim Curve” - eraser for erasing excess segments
“Parallel straight” - parallel guide
“Arc by points” - makes an arc according to given o - rounding corners along a certain radius
Dimensions toolbar
“Auto size” - setting automatic size changes
“Linear size” - setting “your” size

Well, you will also need a binding panel, which is a virtual ruler.

How to make a cabinet with legs

If desired, more substantial furniture of this type can be made for a child, but at the same time a fairly simple design. In this case, you will need boxes to assemble a doll cabinet with your own hands:

narrow long (for example, from shoes);
three small ones, the total width of which should be equal to the length of the large box.

You need to remove the lid from the shoe box and cut off the short sides. Also, this element should be shortened by a third. The long box itself needs to be placed on the table and two small ones glued inside it so that they touch the walls. The remaining part of the lid should be cut in half. The resulting doors need to be glued back into the box above the two compartments made at the previous stage so that 1/3 of the cabinet remains free.

Next, the finished toy should be placed vertically on the table. Then you need to insert the third small box, bottom down, into the bottom of the cabinet, without using glue. The result is a large drawer.

Purpose of the organizer

The organizer was originally intended to be a notebook or notepad for properly organizing your working time. Currently, the concept of organizer refers to the organization of work space with the help of convenient compartments, pockets, and boxes for small items.

Functional work surfaces can be designed in the kitchen, bathroom, children's room, hallway, work, garage, garden. The main purpose of organizers is to create a convenient, comfortable opportunity to properly organize the workplace in the room.

For the office

Organizers are used to store office supplies. Finding a button, a paperclip, an eraser, or even pencils and pens is quite a troublesome task if the office supplies are in one drawer.

You spend a lot of time searching for the little things you need, get nervous, and begin to take your irritation out on other people.

It is convenient to put small items using small boxes or jars into a made organizer and easily find the necessary items.

For storing small items

It's good to store small items using an organizer. There are often small things in the house that you don’t know where to put. Organizers can be made for handicrafts, small household items, jewelry and jewelry, for gardening and many other purposes, depending on hobbies and interests.

For laundry

Convenient to use for storing small items of constant use. Can be used to store hosiery, underwear, handkerchiefs, belts and other small items.

In conveniently organized spaces, you don’t have to worry about things getting lost, wrinkled, or mixed up. You can easily and conveniently take it with you on the road or transfer it to another place. Organizers take up little space on cabinet shelves.

For cosmetics

It is not always convenient to use a cosmetic bag to store cosmetics. Looking for small items in a cosmetic bag causes big problems. Organizing a convenient place to create beauty, comfortable storage conditions, when everything you need is at hand, will lift your spirits.

You can use various boxes, jars, drawers to create an optimally convenient place for creating beauty. All things will be neatly folded, will take up little space and little things will be at hand.

For kitchen

Any housewife in the kitchen loves order and a constant arrangement of things. A well-organized workplace is a guarantee of a tasty and healthy lunch.

Quite often, small items in the kitchen tend to go missing. Conveniently store lids, openers, spoons, seasonings, bags, bags and much more.

Organizers can be placed on a wall, panel, or in a drawer. Many people use fabric organizers for storing bags in the kitchen.

Legs and handles for doors

This technology can be considered a very good answer to the question of how to make a doll cabinet out of a box. However, if desired, such a design can also be improved by attaching additional parts to it.

From one of the short sides of the lid of a long box cut off at the first stage, you can, for example, roll up a tube, glue it and subsequently separate several short sections from it. These elements are subsequently glued to the bottom of the cabinet as legs. Handles for the doors of such a craft will be easy to make from pieces of wire if desired. To do this you need:

cut two short pieces from the wire;
make two holes in the doors at the same height;
insert the wire into the holes so that handles are formed on the front plane and screw it on the back side of the doors.

How to care for such furniture

When the furniture is ready and is already in use by household members, the main question arises: “How to care for such a structure?” After all, standard wet cleaning will definitely not work here; cardboard quickly deteriorates, and in addition, it tends to become covered with mold and mildew. What not to do:

You cannot leave it in a damp room or in the rain - the furniture is definitely not for balconies and cottages.
You cannot jump, press, or increase the load.

Cardboard products can be useful and convenient, and add variety to everyday life.
What you can do:

Cover with strengthening varnish.
Wipe with a dry cloth and use a vacuum cleaner.
Use fabric for decoration, the covers from which can be washed.

It is unlikely that such furniture will last long if it is used as standard. However, for a temporary option and decorating a studio, it is ideal.

The simplicity of the material allows you to realize any idea without much complexity and dilute the interior with unusual elements.

Wardrobe for a doll

If you wish, you can, of course, make such toy furniture with your own hands. To assemble the wardrobe, you need to prepare a fairly large corrugated box. First, it should be cut into pieces so that you get several sheets of cardboard. They will become the material for assembling the craft.

In this case, you can make such a cabinet from a box with your own hands for a doll, for example, according to the diagram presented below. When assembling such a toy, all elements of its design are made double. That is, two pieces of cardboard are glued together at once. At the same time, the elements are additionally “reinforced” by laying wire at the junction. This material will also be used in the future to fasten individual parts of the craft’s structure.

A photo of a cabinet made from boxes, made with your own hands using this technology, can be seen below the list. Actually, the very method of assembling such a toy looks something like this:

Shelves are cut out of cardboard (two squares per square) and glued together using wire. The latter is laid between the squares in two places closer to the edges. At the final stage, the free ends of the wire are not cut.
Cut out parts 2 and 3 and mark the places where the shelves will be located in the future. Make two holes on each mark line.
Attach 3 shelves to the part by threading the wire into the holes made. Glue is first applied to the ends of the shelves. The wire is tightly twisted on the back side of part 3 and glued with tape. The other side of the shelves is fixed to part 2 using the same technology.
Cut out two more parts 2 and 3 and glue them to the outer part of the resulting structure. First, a wire is laid above and below between the elements, on which the bottom and lid of the cabinet will subsequently be attached. They also lay wire to secure the back wall.
Glue together part 4 from two pieces and make a blind hole in this wall at the top. The same hole is pierced in part 2 from the outside. Connect both walls of the cabinet, for example, with a kebab stick 12 cm long.
Cut out the parts of the lid and bottom of the cabinet. Make holes in the resulting elements for the wire. Thread the wire through the holes and secure it. The ends of parts 2,3 and 4 are pre-coated with glue. Glue two reinforcing plates of the lid and bottom.
Attach the back wall of the cabinet to the wire. Cut out the second element of this part and glue it to the first.

At the final stage, a do-it-yourself cabinet made from cardboard boxes, assembled using this technology, is glued inside and out with bright colored paper. Sliding doors for the toy are also cut out of cardboard and made double. They are secured inside the cabinet by gluing a kebab stick on top of them in the front plane from below and from above. Door handles are made of wire or brackets.

Step-by-step instructions for making a paper cabinet

You can make a cabinet with your own hands from paper by first preparing all the necessary components. We have completed the entire process in a few simple steps. Further details in the algorithm below:

We took a square sheet of light green paper (take into account the dimensions yourself, depending on how big the craft is needed). Our square is 15x15 cm.

Fold it in half, clearly combining the edges. Then we unfolded the sheet and did the same with the opposite side.

Next, they unfolded the square, which, thanks to the bends, was divided into four smaller squares. Each corner of the sheet was folded towards the center. At this stage, the accuracy of hems and smoothing is very important. All corners that come to the center must connect at one point.

Now the lower part of the square is bent towards the center, precisely to the point of contact of the corners. It turns out that the lower part is folded in half. We did the same with the opposite side. You should end up with an elongated rectangle.

The next step is to open the last two folds, unfold the square and do the same actions with the other two sides of the sheet. Now unfold the two sides of the square completely until the corners open. They should be on top and bottom. We don't touch the sides.

Next, we took a glue stick, coated the small upper triangle on the inside, and then folded it down along the bend line and glued it together. The same steps were performed for the opposite small triangle.

Afterwards, without unfolding our workpiece, we tucked the two side parts of the product towards the center. We turned the craft around and found the central square along the curves. We turned the craft back over.

Along this line, internal bends were made so that walls began to form, then they took glue and fixed the resulting two triangles on both sides of the workpiece. The edges where the folds occurred should remain free when gluing.

At this stage, it is important to monitor the accuracy of the closures. They should be as close to each other as possible.

Then, on the same part where the fragments were fixed, we find two lower adjacent squares, they are divided in the center by a bending line, and therefore triangles are formed

They were glued together. If the assembly is carried out correctly, you will already have three walls of the future box.

Then exactly the same manipulations were carried out on the opposite side. We also made sure that the gluing is reliable, I recommend that you do this too, since the folds tend to dry out.
Next, the remaining rectangles were carefully folded to form a covered box. The last folds will serve as cabinet doors.
The next step was to make the second part of the cabinet. To do this, take a second square sheet of paper of the same color, fold it in half, closing the outer edges of the sheet as much as possible.
Next, we unfolded the sheet and folded the opposite side of the square in half. The square, similar to the first blank, was divided into four smaller squares. We unfolded the workpiece and folded each corner to the inner center in the same way.
Fold the workpiece in half on the inside on two opposite sides to form a rectangle. We repeated the same with the free sides, having first unfolded the square. Then they unfolded and completely released the two upper sides so that the triangles remained free.
Glued small horizontal triangles that meet in the center (side). We folded the long sides towards the center and unfolded them; in the area of the fold of the glued triangles, we glued two adjacent sides, bending the small triangles. We did the same with the second parallel corner.
The upper free part was coated with glue and wrapped inside the workpiece to the edge of the box. On the opposite side, we glued the two lower triangles on both sides to form a narrow box.

Next, we made the same narrow box using a similar principle, but only from a sheet with sides 1 cm smaller. This blank will serve as a drawer. At the end, we glued the two parts together and decorated them beautifully. You can even come up with interesting pens. To make the product stronger, you can make a cabinet out of cardboard with your own hands. A regular stationery set will do.

More complex hanger

Also, if desired, you can make a more substantial hanger of a modern design for a toy cabinet. To do this, you will need, among other things, a small box that will need to be painted with bright paint. Next, two double narrow strips of hard cardboard should be glued to the resulting box vertically (along the short sides). At the next stage, you need to stretch a thick wire between these posts. Next, pre-made wire hangers should be hung on it. In the future, you can put some doll clothes and shoes in the box of such a hanger.

Beautiful cabinet design: decoupage with napkins

The short master classes presented above, describing the process of making a cabinet from boxes with your own hands, allow you to make, of course, a very interesting toy for a child. To make such a craft, among other things, also beautiful, you can use, for example, a fairly simple technique of decoupage with napkins to decorate it. A cabinet decorated in this way will look no worse than a store-bought one.

This design technique looks something like this:

the cabinet is painted in the background color;
the top paint layer is separated from the napkins;
cut out drawings from napkins;
attach the drawings to the desired places in the cabinet;
Glue the drawings with PVA glue or special decoupage glue.

As a result, the glue will saturate the design and it will be firmly attached to the walls or doors of the cabinet. At the final stage, the toy can also be varnished for fidelity.

What you might need for work

The first step is to start designing a rack or cabinet. You need to decide on its size, shape, appearance and finish so that the finished product fits well into the overall design of the room.

Advice! The easiest way is to build a classic cabinet or a small shelf-rack, because this does not require any skills.

If a dismountable product is needed, plastic clips are prepared to fasten it. For stationary furniture, buy reliable glue, for example, “Moment”. Hot melt glue is also suitable, but it also requires a glue gun. PVA glue is used to glue sheets of cardboard together to thicken them.

Hot melt adhesive for cardboard

The following accessories are useful for making a cardboard rack:

thin cardboard or kraft paper for gluing joints and strengthening corners;
tape for temporary adhesion of parts;
white paper, tracing paper for decorating furniture;
any decorative materials - beads, rhinestones, fabric, foil;
tape measure, ruler, corner, pencil for drawing details;
stationery knife or scissors for cutting cardboard;
sandpaper for sanding edges;
construction hair dryer to speed up the drying process of the product (optional).

Tools for working with cardboard

Matchbox chest of drawers

In addition to the closet, you can make such an interior item for a doll from boxes with your own hands. It will not be difficult to make a toy chest of drawers from matchboxes in just a few minutes. To assemble such furniture you will need:

four matchboxes;
colored thick paper;
glue;
match.

Four boxes for making a chest of drawers will need to be glued in series, placing them one on top of the other. Next, the structure you have learned should be covered around the perimeter with thick colored paper. You also need to cut a rectangle out of this material and secure it to the back of the chest of drawers. The front part of the structure, of course, should be left free. From here the drawers will then slide forward.

At the final stage, you also need to stick a strip of colored paper on the front side of each matchbox of the chest of drawers. If desired, drawer handles can be made, for example, from pieces of matches.

What kind of furniture can be made from cardboard?

There are a huge number of options for what you can do with your own hands in a few weekends. Below are the main ones that will help you design a standard studio or even a full-fledged apartment.

Closet

If after purchasing a large refrigerator there are still some boxes left, then making a cabinet will not be difficult. Below you can find diagrams, instructions and photos of finished products that will definitely inspire you to create your own version. The main nuance is that it is better to choose compressed types of cardboard, as they are particularly durable. After time, the cabinet will not become “slanted” and will be able to fulfill its standard purpose.

Cardboard makes good household items.

Table

When a family buys an apartment in a new building, purchasing furniture for the duration of the renovation is not the best idea. While preparatory work is underway and the move is being made, you can make a dining table with your own hands. For inspiration, you can see a photo of a disassembled and assembled cardboard table.

With the help of this raw material it is easy to diversify the interior of your home.

Children's furniture

All parents know how quickly children grow and how easily they get injured during active play in the room. To save yourself from unnecessary expenses and possible injuries, you can make a crib, a small chest of drawers and small chairs from cardboard. Ready-made plans will help a young family equip the nursery with everything they need.

Cardboard is used to make furniture for children.

Chairs

One of the popular options that may be needed even when decorating an expensive interior. Many products are sold in stores at huge prices, but their cost is much lower. The collected ideas will help you create an original place to relax. By the way, many experts recommend starting with this option.

Properly selected material and technology make it possible to produce quite functional items.

Shelving

A great chance to get rid of boxes after moving. You can assemble the rack using a modular system; such a product will last long enough and withstand the load.

The furniture weighs almost nothing, it can easily be disassembled into its component elements, which greatly simplifies its transportation.

Bookshelves

It is unlikely that it will be possible to make hanging ones, since books weigh quite a lot, but floor ones are not a problem for skilled hands. Below are ready-made options that will help you assemble a decent interior for any home.

Household items made from thick paper are characterized by sufficient strength and can last a long time.

Dresser

The frame is assembled according to a special scheme, after which it can be covered with self-adhesive tape and placed in the most visible place. If you use high-quality, multi-layer cardboard, guests won’t even notice the catch.

You just need to take a responsible approach to the drawing up of the drawing, the quality of the assembly, and the choice of fasteners.