College Green Magazine – Eco-news From The Ground Up

If you are the typical college student, a bowl of cereal is the nectar of the gods.  Any time day or night all you have to do is reach for a cardboard box in your pantry and your milk in the fridge and a meal is ready to eat.  Pre-exam puffed wheat or post-Ping granola, most of us have a crush on the sugar rush.

While you should be recycling the pounds of cardboard, there is also another way to keep your box from the waste bin – upcycling it into a notebook cover.

This project is easy and your friends are sure to be jealous of your stylish cereal gear.

You will need:

Paper cutter or scissors

Cerel box

3-hole punch

Ruler

Pencil or pen

Hemp cord or twine

Looseleaf or recycled paper

 

1.  Flatten box

Using a pencil, ruler, scissors or carefully by hand loosen the seams of the box on the bottom and side, allowing it to lie flat and open

2.  Cut excess material

Using scissors or a paper cutter, remove the excess flaps so that your only ‘sides’ are the front and back of the box and the information side.  This means remove the nutrition facts and the close tabs on the top/bottom of the box

3.  Make a spine

Measuring across the top, mark the halfway point of your box.  Cut the box in half vertically.  Be precise!  A paper cutter is better for this, but if using a scissors mark the middle point on the top and bottom, then draw a line with your ruler connecting the points to cut with accuracy.

4. Punch!

Punch the front cover, back cover and your paper.  A 3-hole punch device will ensure accuracy, but if a 1-hole puncher is all you have then make sure to measure three points of equal distance from one another on each the cover, paper, and back before proceeding to punch.

5. Assemble and align

Place the back cover down.  Now place the paper.  Finally, top it with the front cover.  Use a pencil/pen head inserted into the holes to align them.

6.  Cut your string

Measure your string to be four times the length of your box when vertical.

7. String it through

Fold your twine/string in half.  Stick the loose ends through the middle, front cover to back.  Then pull the twine through the top hole, back to front.  Now pull those loose ends under the loop created by the middle hole.  Then feed the loose ends through the bottom hole, front to back.  Now pull the loose ends back up the middle hole.  Tie a knot around the string collection above the middle hole.  Cut off any excess string.

 

That’s it!  You have now upcycled paper and a cereal box into a stylish notebook!