Sturdy Little Origami Box

In this Instructable I'm going to show you how to make a little origami box.

I like this design because it can be made from any size sheet of paper – it doesn’t matter if the sheet is square or rectangular.

Made from thin card it becomes strong enough to hold craft supplies, or as a box for gifts.

For these photos I’ve used a sheet of square origami paper, which is blue on one side and white on the other. I’ve done this just to make it clearer where the folds are going.

Start by simply folding the paper from the bottom to the top. Unfold again to leave a crease in the middle.

Now fold the top to the crease which you made in the last step.

Repeat with the bottom, folding it up to the middle crease.

Unfold both and lay it out flat. The paper should be folded into four equal parts.

Take the bottom left corner and fold up diagonally up, so it lines up with the bottom crease.

Do the same with the bottom right corner.

Flip the paper over. Fold the left side across. The bottom of the fold line should be the corner you folded in the last step.

Do the same for the right side. If your paper is square they will meet in the middle. If it is rectangular they won't.

Unfold both of these folds and lay the paper flat.

This is easy to do but hard to explain.

Look at the two squares you have made at the top of the sheet. You are going to make a fold from the top corner of the sheet, diagonally down to the corner of the square. The easiest way to do this is to pick the paper up and pinch the sides together.

Do this for both corners. Lay the paper flat.

Fold the paper in half, lifting the bottom to the top.

Take the bottom left corner and fold it up diagonally to the middle along the dotted line.

Do the same for the bottom right corner.

Back to the top. Take the nearest flap of paper only, and fold it down to the bottom along the crease in the middle.

We are now going to pull this into a 3D box!

Slide your hand from the top of the paper into the pocket created by the last fold. Lift it up so that it is vertical.

You will probably want to run your fingers along the folds to make them stay in place.

We now fold the right side up along the existing crease. The two ends should naturally start to point outwards as triangles.

The two triangles need tucking in, they fit under the triangular flap which you can see on the box.

And you are done! The tuck makes the ends of the box quite sturdy, and the bottom is clean of any folds or edges.

I find these boxes great for small items like craft supplies. They are easy to make from coloured craft card and sturdy enough to keep things together. The blue box is made from 180GSM card and keeps my paints together.

If you need a quick box for small items (screws say) these are easy to make from any piece of junk mail nearby.

With nicely coloured card they can also make nice boxes for gifts.

The two white boxes are both folded from A4 paper. The long one was done with the initial fold along the long edge, the square tall one with the initial fold along the short edge.

Thanks for reading, and have fun with them!