Crafting Hack: Wine Box Containers

One of my roommates tends to enjoy boxed wine. I can understand the appeal, as it’s inexpensive and easy to store, albeit not the best tasting hooch on the planet. One day when going to throw away an empty box, I noticed just how structurally hardy they were. I pressed on them and tried to warp them, and with my hands that shouldn’t be difficult to do, but they stood the test of strength. So I started collecting them as they came through the house. I have had 5 of them sitting on the floor in my room for a while now. I happened to stumble back across my cache of empty one subject notebooks for college classes, and got an idea.

As you can see here, I had already built one container, as there are only 4 boxes in this picture. I wanted to run you through how to create one of these for yourself, as they are super easy to store, have a handle on them already, and have some cool crafty possibilities. In order to complete this task you will need a precision blade of some sort. I don’t wear safety gear, but if you are not confident with your blade wielding skills, I would suggest at least putting on a pair of gloves. I prefer my trusty Exact-o knife in such cases.

There are two holes in the box. One is the handle hole on top, and the other is the spout hole on the side. I turned the box so the spout was on the left, and then cut 3 sides. First, where the spout side connects to the front of the box. Second, where the spout side connects to the top handle side. Third, where the spout connects to the bottom of the box. Leave the 4 edge of the spout wall attached to the box. When finished with this step, it should look something like this:

Two wing tabs for holding the box together should have come out when you finished these cuts. Remove them from your opening side. Now, if you look inside the box, there will be two tabs inside the box to hold the other narrow side stable. This is one of the reasons I use an Exact-o knife. From the corners of the box, you can use your precision blade to cut out the tabs from the outside of the box. If you are looking to copy my concept for the notebook storage, then you will need to remove them, otherwise the notebooks won’t fit. The tabs on the inside of the box look like this:

When you complete this step, you are ready to store whatever you wish inside of them. I generally add a piece of tape to inside of the spout side to hold it steady, but leave the spout hole open in case you need to stick your finger in there to open it. This is the finished rough product:

I think I am going to decorate them at some point, maybe with some of the Dada collage art that I seem to be so obsessed with. I would suggest adding a latch at some point, because storing them with the handle side out is the best option, and you don’t want your contents tumbling out if you store them resting on their wide. They can be stored on the wide side or narrow side, or they can make awesome drawer organization if you have drawers that deep. I hope they work out for you, and I would enjoy seeing how you use them or decorate them. Have fun with it!

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