What to do with origami paper you no longer want, part 1

I used to be really into origami and have a pretty decent collection of origami paper.  Lately,  I’ve not really be into it, plus I have some paper I never liked for origami that had come as part of a set, so I’ve been looking for alternative uses.

One, which works really well for paper with a pattern you like but that doesn’t look good when folded, is re-covering small boxes.

First, you need to get a box:

I got my hands on a couple of cute little boxes that were from small chocolate sets (bonus: they still smelled like chocolate while I was working on them!).

Next you need some origami paper or any other pretty and fairly thin paper:

I used 4 sheets of double-sided paper for my box (I lined the inside of bottom and lid with one side and covered the outside of both with the other side).

You’ll also need some sort of glue.  I just used some thick white glue and was very careful how I smoothed things out, but anything that won’t wrinkle the paper too much as it dries should work.

Now, you don’t want to just glue the paper on, because that would make the box too thick and the top wouldn’t fit over the bottom anymore.  With my boxes, I could see that the outside was a piece of paper that had been glued down:

Peel that sucker off:

One of mine was significantly easier than the other, so I think it will depend on the brand.  You’ll notice a piece of paper tape holding the box together in the photo above.  If you can, try to preserve those (but don’t sweat it if they break).

Next, you’ll want to carefully peel the tape off the corners and unfold the top and bottom of the box.  Glue them, inside down, to a piece of paper and let them dry (do not glue down the ends of the paper tape):

Once dry, cut around the cardboard, crease the paper where the box naturally creases, and fold the edges up.  If you managed to preserve the paper tape, you can re-glue it to attach the sides together.  Otherwise just tape it yourself.

Next, glue the reassembled box in the center of a piece of paper, so that there’s plenty of room on all sides to cover the sides of the box:

Then cut the paper down so that it’s big enough to cover the sides of the box and wrap over a quarter to half inch inside.  I opted to do my corners all fancy, by folding them upward point first, then tucking the edges underneath the paper that would cover the side and trimming the excess point off (hard to describe, sorry!):

You can do yours however you want, though — like wrapping the ends of a present would probably look great.  Anyway, glue the paper up the sides of the boxes, dealing with the corners along the way, and let it dry.

Finally, fold the overlapping paper down into the box and glue it in place to create a lip inside:

Let it dry and you’re done!  You have a cute box and, if you’re like me, found a use for extraneous paper that was never going to get used otherwise!