Cardboard Spice Rack - Simple, Sturdy, Affordable

This past year, one of my favorite activities to destress after a long week and calm my mind has been cooking. I find following a recipe step-by-step, chopping vegetables, and carefully measuring out ingredients to be very mindful and relaxing. However, as I began to cook more Mediterranean and Thai cuisine, I found myself visiting the spice shelf in my pantry more and more frequently. Unfortunately, my current spice-storage method involves piling all of the bottles on top of and next to each other. Every time I need a specific spice, I have to dig through the mess, checking the label on each bottle one at a time to find the spice I am looking for, which is both time-consuming and honestly just annoying. My mom suggested having a spice rack where all of the bottles could be clearly visible and easily accessed, which would make grabbing the spices I need much faster and easier. After looking online, I couldn't find a suitable spice rack for less than 20 bucks, and that wasn't too big and bulky for my pantry. And so I decided, why not make one myself? As I was looking for a material to build the rack out of, I saw the stack of Amazon shipping boxes that had been sitting, waiting to be recycled, and thought that it would be awesome if I could build it out of cardboard.

After some trial and error, a couple of hours of design and cutting cardboard, and refinement, I now have a spice rack that fits my pantry perfectly and makes cooking with spices a ton faster and more enjoyable. In this guide, I will walk you through step-by-step on how you can build your own cardboard spice rack, with detailed instructions and reference diagrams. I challenged myself with this build to use as few different materials and tools as possible, and really stretch the possibilities of cardboard, which I think worked out great. Since a laser cutter isn't in my budget at the moment, and I wanted this project to be easily accessible, the only tools used are a cutting blade and a glue gun. I wrote this guide to have more detailed, smaller steps so that any craft beginner can follow, and so that it would make an awesome first project for kids wanting to try out DIY for the first time. Let's get started!

To build your own cardboard spice rack, you will need only a few simple materials and tools:

1. 5 Square Feet of Decently Thick Cardboard
2. 2 Standard Hot Glue Sticks
3. Exacto Knife
4. Hot Glue Gun
5. Cutting Mat or Work Surface
6. Pencil and Ruler

I wanted the spice rack to have specific dimensions to accommodate the size of the spice bottles I use, as well as fit nicely on my pantry shelf. To carefully plan out the build and make sure everything would fit right, I modeled the spice rack first in CAD. For this project, I used Autodesk Fusion because it is super easy to make sketches, dimensions, and extrude them, which is most of what I needed for the model. Fusion also has a really neat diagram creator, which I'll cover in the next step. If you are unfamiliar with Fusion or CAD in general, feel free to skip to Step 3, where you can just download the template. If you want to customize the one I made, I have included the files down below. If you are new to Fusion and want to learn, this project would make a great start! Just follow along with the steps I outline, and if you need some extra tips and tricks, check out this great tutorial series.

I measured my spice bottles using a set of calipers and modeled them in Fusion for reference. I designed the rack to hold 9 bottles, which I found to be all of the main spices I use on a daily basis. Each bottle is about 1.5 inches on either side, and 4 inches tall.

To make the rack stronger while still using common, flexible cardboard, I decided that I would stack multiple identical pieces together and glue them together to form one solid piece. This achieves the same effect as using very thick, corrugated cardboard. Note: If your cardboard stock is thicker or thinner, you will need to use a different number of layers. I ended up using 2 layers of 0.2-inch-thick cardboard to achieve about 0.4 inches in thickness, which I found to be enough.

I first started by modeling the sides of the rack to serve as the foundation of the design, as the width and height of the side pieces would ultimately determine the size of the spice rack. After a simple sketch and extrusion, I added the top shelf piece to it between the two sides with a "to-face" extrusion. I designed the rack to use a dovetail-inspired joint for the shelf to side pieces, as the dovetail is known for being strong, but I also wanted to see if I could challenge myself to make one out of cardboard. I made a sketch on one side of the rack for support, mirrored the sketch on the other side, and extruded them through. I made the supports to be at a 45° angle, so they would be as strong as possible. I then cut some holes in the sides for easy transport, and added the 1/2-inch-high rim around the top of the shelf piece.

The finished design holds 4 spice bottles on the bottom, and 5 on the top. I wanted there to be some extra tolerance between the bottles, so that I would have room for my fingers to reach around and grab them without knocking things over.

Whenever a project has many specifically-sized parts that need to be made, I always find it helpful to have a reference drawing while measuring and cutting. Luckily, Fusion has a really straightforward way of creating technical diagrams with the Drawing tool. I brought in models of each of the cardboard pieces that would need to be cut out, and added dimensions so I could reference them while I was cutting. I printed it out and kept it next to me during the following steps so I could make sure I was on the right track.

To make the diagram, I opened the Drawing tool in Fusion and used the "Base View" button to bring in all of the pieces. I arranged them evenly on the sheet and used the dimension tool to note the side lengths of each part. I numbered them so I would know how many of each I needed, and then printed out my diagram to use later.

Feel free to start here! Download the template, print it out, and move on to Step 4.

To make cutting faster and easier, draw out the shapes on the stock cardboard before cutting. I used a ruler and a pencil, and while looking at my reference drawing, sketched an outline of each piece on my cardboard stock.

Now it's time to cut out the pieces for the spice rack. I used a generic Exacto knife and one of those green cutting mats to protect the table, but any way that works for you is perfect. For kids or beginners to the Exacto knife, scissors can be used, but be sure that the cuts are clean and accurate. You can freehand the cuts, or use a straight edge as a guide to run the knife along. Be careful!

Remember, you will need to cut out multiple sheets of the same shape to build up that thick layer of cardboard, depending on the thickness of your stock, of about 2-3 sheets. As mentioned above, my cardboard was 0.2 inches thick as it was courregated, and so I doubled up the layers to achieve a final 0.4 inch thickness in total. The best way I have found to cut out very accurate duplicate pieces is to take the piece you have already cut out, and trace it out on fresh cardboard with a pencil, and then go from there. Not only does that save you the time of drawing it out again, but it ensures that the 2 pieces will be identical in case you made small mistakes the first time.

Another important tip: If you are using cardboard with print or labels on one side like I am, you will want to make sure that you cannot see any of it in the final product. When gluing the pieces together in the following steps, ensure that the printed sides face eachother, leaving the clean and unprinted sides facing out.

Apply a few dollops of hot glue to the surface of the cardboard, and firmly press the two pieces together for about 30 seconds. Repeat with the rest of the pieces, being careful not to spill any excess glue on the connection points.

Now that all the pieces are cut, it's time to glue them together! For this project, I went with hot glue to connect all the pieces because it binds well to cardboard, is very accurate, and won't soak the cardboard and make it soggy like Elmer's glue would.

To assemble the spice rack, run a line of hot glue along the side of each piece, being careful to spread the glue evenly so that the pieces aren't tilted. Press the two pieces together and wait 15 minutes for the glue to fully dry.

For the dovetail connection, place small dots of hot glue along the inside of the ridges, and then press the pieces together and hold at a right angle while the glue dries.

Keeping the support at a 45-degree angle, run thick lines of hot glue along each connection point, and hold until it dries.

You're almost done! Now just run a few thin lines of hot glue along the edges of the shelf, and firmly attatch the trim pieces.

And that's it, your spice rack is now complete! Fill it with your favorite spices, and get cooking!

I really love the way this project turned out, and I love that I made it using recycled materials that would have otherwise gone to waste. It really is surprisingly sturdy, and it is the double-stacked layers and the support brackets that really make it strong. I honestly think it could hold bags of flour, even. In the future, I might add another level to the spice rack as I start to use more and more spices, but that's a project for another time.

Thanks for reading, happy building and happy cooking!