Upcycled Decorative Magazine Holders...Part I

As many of you know, I was totally devastated when BOTH of my favorite "Home" magazines, Blueprint and Domino, went out of business within the last year or so. BOOOOO. Well I have kept many of my Domino magazines, and recently bought all 8 issues of Blueprint from ebay (blame the seller for the bad-quality photo above). Since I am working on prettying up our new house, I will be referring to these magazines often, but I don't want them causing an avalance on our coffee tables. They sell pretty magazine boxes like these at Target, Office Depot, and Kmart:

But I can't make myself pay $13 or $17 (respectively) for them when I can decorate the plain ones you can get on the cheap. Here are my inspirations from the blogosphere, and I think they look way cuter than the ones on the rack! Each one has a slightly different tutorial and each one came up with a distinctive look that no doubt captures the owner's personality and style.

(via Southern Hospitality) I think these are the best shape, but unfortunately she got hers for 50 cents at a yard sale so I couldn't find the same ones easily.

(Via Kelly + Olive) These people have the same taste in magazines that I do, you might note! I also like the shape of these because of the pretty sloping sides. Love that hobnail lamp too. They are from Ikea, but the closest Ikea is about an hour from Richmond.

(via Down and Out Chic) These ones are from Target, which she found on sale for $3.50 each. I don't so much like the boxy shape of these, but she covered them in pretty paper.

I thought this would make a great weekend project, and when the Blueprints come in the mail I will have a cute place to store them so they won't languish around the house in the box they came in until Brett asks me what they are for and if they can be recycled! But I couldn't find any that were cheap and cardboard that I liked, so I decided to start from scratch.

Here is what I started with, a cardboard box we had lying around the house from a package we just got in the mail:

I broke the box down and laid it out flat like so, then cut it down the middle:


I found a plastic magazine rack with a great silhouette and used it to gauge the dimensions and trace the slope. I eyed it and figured I could get four magazine racks out of the cardboard. Then I cut each long piece in half to get four of these.

I cut off one of the big pieces and saved it for the second sloping side.

Then, leaving it attached, I folded the lonely long skinny part up to make a right angle and secured it against the remaining big flap. I


I lined up the corners of the cardboard with the corner of the ugly plastic one I got at the office store and traced to get the curve.


I was planning to spray paint the cardboard so it didn't matter if I messed up and had extra pen marks. Then I cut along the line and was left with these two pieces:


I taped the right-angled edge of the leftover piece to the top of the curve and then traced again to finish that side.

I cut along that line, and voila, one finished side!

Then the only thing left to do was trace the second side the same way I did the first one and tape it on! Oh yeah, then repeat the process 3 more times...

Stay tuned for the pretty-fication in Part II...