27 Creative DIY Ideas With Old Shoe Boxes

Shoe box phone projector with a magnifying lens beside a patterned box threading ribbons through its side

A shoe box phone projector and a ribbon dispenser box, two DIY ideas with shoe boxes. (Image credit: Photojojo and Delicate Construction)

I am a clear boxes with no lids person. If I cannot see it, I cannot find it, so most of my supplies live in open bins in three sizes and a lid is usually the enemy. Shoe boxes are the exception I make, because a lid is exactly what you want on the things you only need twice a year, and because they are free and they keep arriving. These DIY ideas with shoe boxes cover both halves of that: storage that earns a spot on an open shelf, wrapped in paper or burlap or finished with leather pulls, and the playful end of the box, which is where the foosball table, the light up puppet theater, the marble maze and the play post office live. There are jewelry trays, sewing kits, wall shelves and a cord box that finally ends the drawer of mystery cables. Perfect for a craft room, a kid’s floor, a closet overhaul or a rainy Saturday.

1. Upcycled Shoe Boxes

Three stacked shoe boxes covered in black and white striped paper, each lid closed with a wooden button and cord

Three boxes wrapped in a black and white stripe, each one closed with a wooden button and a loop of cord, and the pile that used to live at the back of the closet now looks like it came from a shop. The eyelets are what make it last. Wrap the box and the lid in gift paper, punch two holes about two centimeters apart in the lid with an eyelet tool and set an eyelet in each, then sew the button on and run the cord from the eyelets over it. Stack them where the storage has to be seen.

Get the full tutorial at Mormorsglamour.

2. Recycled Shoe Box

Three shoe boxes covered in patterned paper with leather strap pulls, labeled blocks, small toys and craft supplies

Handmade Charlotte covers the box in decorative paper, cutting a slit at each corner so the paper folds around cleanly, then glues one side at a time and wraps the tails around the corners, which is the step that forgives a box that is slightly out of square. A leather strap goes on the front as a pull, held with metal brads pushed through holes made with a reamer, and a label maker finishes it. Blocks, small toys, craft supplies. Whatever the floor keeps filling up with.

Get the full tutorial at Handmade Charlotte.

3. Shoe Box Storage

Plain kraft shoe box above the same box covered in navy and white polka dot paper, titled shoe box storage

Sara D wrapped shoe boxes for her sons’ Lego, and her notes are the practical kind. Mod Podge the outside of the box, lay the wrapping paper on and work fast, because it grabs quickly. Cut the excess away, then brush a second coat of Mod Podge over the paper for durability, which matters when the boxes are going to be dragged off a closet shelf daily. She did not bother covering the inside. Labels go on last so they can change as the Lego sets change.

Get the full tutorial at Sincerely Sara D.

4. Shoe Box Picnic Basket

Shoe box covered in gingham and floral paper with red ribbon handles and a bow, sitting on a wooden railing

Jen Goode turns a shoe box into a picnic basket, and the whole charm of it is that it looks like something from a French film rather than something from a recycling bin. The box gets covered in gingham and floral paper, then two lengths of ribbon arch over the top as handles with a bow tied at the middle. It carries a sandwich lunch to the park, or it holds a homemade gift full of treats, which is arguably the better use.

Get the full tutorial at 100 Directions.

5. Chalkboard Painted Box Tops

Chalkboard painted shoe box lids lettered in white chalk with fall words, titled chalkboard painted box tops

Amy paints shoe box lids with a few coats of chalkboard paint and they become signs you can rewrite whenever you feel like it. A length of twine hot glued to the inside of both short ends turns one into a hanging sign. Her honest note is worth repeating: one of her lids was too flimsy to hang well, so check the cardboard first, and brush a few coats of decoupage on the inside if you want to stiffen it up. Plain white chalk, then wipe and change it next season.

Get the full tutorial at Stow and Tell U.

6. Jewelry Organizer Out Of Shoe Box

Boot box lid covered in burlap, hung on a wall and holding rows of necklaces on small tacks and nails

This one is a boot box lid and burlap left over from an old tablecloth, stuck down with heavy duty spray adhesive, sprayed on the edges and the inside as well as the face. Then clear thumbtacks and a few small nails go straight into the cardboard, and the necklaces hang off those. It is not a showpiece and the maker says so. It is the thing you can grab from quietly in the dark while somebody is still asleep, and it cost nothing.

Get the full tutorial at Home Awaits.

7. DIY Sewing Box

Hands folding a paper strip beside rows of small green and pink cardboard compartments made for a sewing box

Bought sewing boxes are expensive and rarely have as many compartments as you want, which is the case this project makes and then answers. A shoe box gets divided and fitted out with individual holders for spools, needles, pins and scissors, so everything has a slot rather than a shared corner. The compartment building is the part that photographs badly and films well, so watch it rather than reading about it. Knowing where the needle is turns a ten minute repair into a ten minute repair.

Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.

8. DIY Earring Organizer

Two upright cardboard panels lined with hooked earrings, standing in a shallow box on a white fur surface

Stud earrings vanish. This fixes that with a pushpin and nothing else: you stand a box bottom on its end and push holes through it, then hook the studs through the holes so every pair is upright and visible. The maker staggered her holes rather than lining them up, which leaves room for the larger studs, and stood two columns inside a box top to make a stand. It took her about thirty minutes including hanging the earrings, and the finished stand holds three columns.

Get the full tutorial at Smart n Snazzy.

9. Shoe Box Wall Decor

Seven square panels covered in blue, green and cream chevron paper, hung in an offset cluster on a wall

Cut the sides down, cover them in chevron paper in three or four shades that agree with each other, and hang them in an offset cluster so they read as a set of small canvases rather than a set of boxes. The maker made this for a challenge where nothing could be bought, using a stack of shoe boxes she had been hoarding in the basement for years. Blank wall, zero budget, and the shallow depth gives it more presence than flat paper would.

Get the full tutorial at Spunky Junky.

10. DIY Make Up Storage

Pink and white drawer unit made from stacked boxes with black bow handles, shown with drawers open and closed

Four boxes of the same size become a little chest of drawers, and the cutting plan is the whole project. Two lids lose their long sides, which become the walls. One box loses its base, which becomes the frame. Another lid is trimmed down to make the back. The last lid caps the top, and the remaining boxes slide inside as the drawers. Hot glue holds it together and a ribbon glued across each drawer front works as both a handle and a way to hide a rough edge.

Get the full tutorial at All Day Chic.

11. DIY Suitcase Out Of Shoe Box

Shoe box painted distressed white with brown paper straps, corner protectors, a handle and a luggage tag

A shoe box painted in a distressed off white, with brown paper straps running over the lid, corner protectors on all eight corners, a handle on one long side and a little luggage tag hanging off it. The source posts the photograph without written steps, so treat it as a picture to copy rather than a tutorial to follow. It works as a gift box, a keepsake box or a prop for a play suitcase, and it looks nothing like the box it started as.

Get the full tutorial at The Idea King.

12. Modified Shoe Box

Two white shoe boxes stacked with clear plastic windows cut into the fronts showing the shoes stored inside

Juditu’s hack is one cut and one strip of tape. Cut a rectangular hole in the wide side of the box, cover it from the inside with a sheet of PET plastic held on with double sided tape, then assemble the box. Now you can see which shoes are in which box without lifting a single lid. Her second suggestion, if you would rather not cut anything, is simply to write the shoe name on the end and cover the box in shoe patterned paper.

Get the full tutorial at IKEA Hackers.

13. Boxy Shelves

Shoe boxes mounted as wall shelves in orange, blue and gold holding white vases, titled DIY from shoe boxes

Pick a box with thick walls, because the thicker it is the sturdier the shelf. Spray paint the inside and the outside to bury the logos, screw it to the wall with two screws for stability, then glue the decorative paper to the inside back wall afterwards so the paper hides the screw heads. That order is the clever bit and it is easy to get backwards. Hang the box vertically rather than on its side and the ledge will not sag under whatever you put on it.

Get the full tutorial at Creme de la Craft.

14. Upcycle a Shoe Box for this Swanky Jewelry Tray

Shallow box covered in green and white geometric paper holding perfume bottles, a watch and white daisies

A shallow box covered in a green and white geometric print, sitting on a dresser holding perfume bottles, a watch, a small dish of rings and a jar of daisies. The value of a tray like this is that it draws a border: everything inside it is tidy by definition, and everything outside it is clutter. A bold graphic pattern is what makes it read as a deliberate object rather than a box with things in it.

Get the full tutorial at Clinton Kelly.

15. Simple Organizer

Box filed with upright labeled dividers holding sticker sheets, topped with a cup of markers and paper flowers

A teacher inherited a sticker collection that had outgrown a bursting binder, so she trimmed every oversized sheet down to 5 by 8 inches to match her Highlights sheets, slid them into page protectors and filed the lot upright in a men’s shoe box with labeled dividers. The uniform size is the whole system. Once everything is one size, dividers work, labels line up and finding anything takes a second. The box got covered to match her classroom, which is why it looks nothing like a men’s shoe box.

Get the full tutorial at Kinder Craze.

16. Cords And Cables Organizer

Box divided into labeled compartments holding coiled white cables, marked kindle, apple, chargers and phone

Every cable in the house in one box, each one coiled in a labeled bay. The bays are cut from heavy cardboard salvaged from a shipping box, so the dividers are stiff enough to hold shape. The maker’s warning is the useful part: wrapping this box is harder than wrapping a present, because you have to cover the inside as well as the outside, and the inside is where the paper wants to bubble. Label every bay. Kindle, phone, chargers, and you will never guess again.

Get the full tutorial at Darkroom and Dearly.

17. DIY Nail Polish Box

Covered shoe box holding upright nail polish bottles above six step photos, titled do it yourself nail polish box

Kristin Ess covers a shoe box in patterned paper and calls it a nail polish box, and the clever half is not the box at all. You paint a white sticker label with each color you own, let it dry, then punch a circle out of it with a standard hole punch and stick that circle on top of the matching bottle. Now the whole collection reads like a paint chart from above, with the lid on. Keep the bottles lined up in the same order as the labels while you paint them, or the wrong dot ends up on the wrong cap.

Get the full tutorial at The Beauty Department.

18. Pretty Organization Box

Shoe box wrapped in cream burlap with a wide ribbon band and three rolled fabric rosettes on the lid

This one came out of a house move, when the maker found herself with a stack of empty boxes and a rule that storage did not have to be ugly. The box is wrapped in a loose weave burlap, banded with a wide cream ribbon, and finished with three rolled fabric rosettes clustered where the ribbon crosses. It is a gift box and a keepsake box at the same time, and the texture is what sells it. Burlap on cardboard reads expensive in a way paper never quite does.

Get the full tutorial at Two Shades of Pink.

19. Kid Sized Foosball Table

Chevron shoe box foosball table with clothespin players, titled kid sized foosball table, two children playing

This is the best thing on the list and it is made of clothespins. Wooden dowels run across a shoe box, clothespins clip onto them as the players, two goalies on each end rod and three in the middle, and a ping pong ball drops in as the ball. Cut the slots about a quarter inch above where the dowel sits so the rods spin freely. The maker built it because her daughters kept trying to reach a full sized table while standing on paint buckets.

Get the full tutorial at U Create Crafts.

20. DIY Mini Wall Art From Shoe Box

Four small square canvases covered in black and white and floral paper, hung in a row above a white shelf

A direct sequel to the wall shelves, made from the lids left over. Cut two 4 inch squares from the corner of a lid so each one keeps two walls, slide the pair together to form a shallow box with four sides, tape the corners, then decoupage decorative paper over the whole thing. The maker cut hers from old magazines and catalogs. A gloss decoupage coat on top finishes it and thumb tacks hang it. One lid gives you two pieces of art.

Get the full tutorial at Creme de la Craft.

21. Light Up Shoe Box Theater

Shoe box puppet theater with a cut out stage, paper arctic scenery and small puppets on skewers, lit inside

Natalie Kramer builds a puppet theater with working lights, and the engineering is better than it looks. A frame gets cut out of the bottom of the box for the stage opening, slots are cut along one long side wider than the wooden skewers so the puppets slide, and a cardboard platform inside lines up with the bottom of the frame. Wooden beads glued to the skewers hold the puppets. A strand of ten LED Christmas lights runs behind the scenery. Best for ages three and up, with an adult doing the cutting.

Get the full tutorial at Handmade Charlotte.

22. Mail Box Out Of Shoe Box

Stand a shoe box on its end, cut a slit near the top, and you have a mailbox. This one got a panel of red paper taped over the front and a printed Canada Post logo from the postal service’s own website, which is what makes it convincing. Three children and a rainy afternoon produced a post office that kept them busy for two hours using magazine subscription cards, old postcards and envelopes as the mail. The maker sewed a felt carrier bag to go with it.

Get the full tutorial at Flower Bubbles.

23. DIY Marble Maze

Shoe box lid lined with pink paper and yellow cut straws glued into a maze path, with a marble in one corner

A box lid, a handful of drinking straws and a marble. Cut the straws into lengths and glue them down inside the lid in a twisting path, then cut a marble sized hole at two opposite corners so the ball can fall through at the end. The maker’s tested note is the one to keep: glue dots did not hold and tacky glue did, and she avoided hot glue because it melts straws and she wanted her daughter to be able to help. Glue a sheet of bright paper down first.

Get the full tutorial at Meaningful Mama.

24. Portable Doll House

Purple felt covered shoe box decorated as a small bakery with windows and a door, held in a child's hands

Somebody wanted a dollhouse light enough to take to a barbecue, so they took a clog shoe box and built a bakery in it out of felt, cardboard and glue. Decorative windows are glued flat onto the two short sides; the front has real openings cut out with clear plastic glued behind them, salvaged from a Staples presentation cover. Ric rac and ribbon trim hide every rough corner and edge, which is the tip worth stealing. A loop of embroidery floss catches on a button to latch it shut.

Get the full tutorial at Small World Land.

25. Yarn Organizer

Open navy shoe box with cardboard dividers holding balls of yarn, strands threaded up through holes in the lid

An old shoe box, dividers cut from scrap cardboard, and a hole poked through the lid above each compartment. One ball of yarn per compartment, the loose end threaded up through its own hole, lid on. The maker crochets with the box on her lap, which stops the balls rolling across the floor and, in her words, makes them easy to hide from a one year old who considers yarn the best toy ever invented. She never covered hers in nice paper and says so.

Get the full tutorial at Sol y Sombra.

26. Two Tiered Sewing Kit

Floral covered shoe box with a hinged lid and a white button, shown closed and open with sewing supplies inside

The hinged lid is the clever part. Slice down two adjacent corners along one long side with a retractable cutter, then shave a few slivers of cardboard off either side of the cut edge so it slides down inside the box, and hot glue it in place. Now the lid pivots instead of lifting off. The box gets covered in offcut wallpaper with watered down PVA glue, a button is glued on the front, and salvaged juice boxes, cookie trays and fruit containers make the trays inside.

Get the full tutorial at Mimi's Crafty World.

27. DIY Shoe Box Upcycle

Three shoe boxes covered in striped, floral and polka dot scrapbook paper under the words DIY shoebox upcycle

Hannah had leftover scrapbook paper from a finished album and three shoe boxes she could not bring herself to throw out, and she was furnishing a guest room on nothing. Cut the paper into pieces sized to each side of the box, Mod Podge one section at a time and smooth the paper down, because Mod Podge dries fast and trying to do the whole box at once will beat you. Three matching boxes, zero dollars, and a shelf that finally looks finished.

Get the full tutorial at Lovely Little Life.

DIY Ideas With Shoe Boxes - Shoe Box Crafts and Organizers for Storage - How To Make A Shelf, Makeup Organizer, Kids Room Decoration, Storage Ideas Projects - Cheap Home Decor DIY Ideas for Kids, Adults and Teens Rooms