Making an Altered Art Tool Caddy with Printables

This free digital scrapbooking tutorial was created using Adobe Photoshop CS3 with Windows XP, but should be able to be adapted easily to other systems. If you have questions about how to do this, just ask on our message board!

Here’s an easy way to provide your kids with a fun craft, teach them the value of recycling, and make something useful - all at the same time. It’s perfect for a summertime or rainy day activity and your kids will be really proud of the end result.

 

Start by taking an empty six-pack carton. This is what mine looked like, but anything with separate sections and a handle would work.

 

Using sticker paper, print out at least four sheets of 8.5x11 paper. Since I wanted to reinforce the concept of recycling with my kids, I chose some bright papers and embellishments from the Planet Earth Collection and a fun alpha from the Rock and Roll Collection, but you could use absolutely any digital scrapbooking collection.

Print out any embellishments that you may want to use to decorate your caddy with once it’s finished. You can print out the sheets of embellishments that are included with the digital scrapbooking collection or you can create your own custom sets of embellishments by dragging the ones you want to use onto a new 8.5x11 document and then printing it. We’re teaching the concept of recycling here, so try not to waste paper!

 

Because you’ll be using this caddy to hold art supplies and tools, reinforce the bottom by gluing a piece of cardboard to it like this.

 

Next, cut your papers to approximately the size of the area you want to cover and glue them on. Don’t worry if your edges are hanging off, we’re going to trim them in the next step.

 

Turn the carton so that the side you’re working with is face down. Now, you can see exactly where you need to trim. Using a craft knife, carefully trim around the edges. Be sure to leave enough paper to turn down over the edge when you’re finished. (I actually trimmed these a little too close!)

 

Do this for all sides, plus the handle. When I was finished covering the four sides of our caddy, I had enough paper left over to cover some of the inside walls of the carton, too. It’s certainly not necessary, but it gives the caddy a finished look. Before you know it, your carton will be ready for decorating.

 

As you can see in the photo above, I also decided to add some ribbon to the edges of our carton to add some strength to the box as well as a little more color. Cut out the printed embellishments and let your kids have fun decorating their new art supply caddy!

Digital Scrapbook Layout by Melanie Johnson
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Free hybrid scrapbooking tutorial written by Melanie Johnson.

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