Cardboard Caddy Tutorial

I love the shape of caddies like this but they're sometimes hard to find and when I have found them they're either too small or too much money, or just not right. So, I decided to make my own. This project was cheap and green and FUN! Let me show you how to make one!

Supplies:

- corrugated cardboard

- paper towel roll or cardboard tube or wooden dowel

- masking tape

- gesso

- acrylic paint

- mod podge

- patterned paper and solid cardstock

- stamps and ink pads

- embossing ink pad (I used Versa Mark)

- embossing powder

- heat gun

- ribbon, trims and embellishments, puches or dies of your choosing

Start by cutting your cardboard into pieces that will form your caddy. You need 2 sides, a bottom and 2 end pieces that are shaped like a house as shown in the picture below:

Next, tape your pieces together using masking tape as shown in the picture below:

Once you've got your pieces attached to the bottom of your caddy, bring all the sides up to form the caddy and tape all around the side and inside of your caddy as shown in the next picture. Next, using scissors, poke holes into the ends of your caddy where you want the tube to go through.

For my handle, I used a thick cardboard tube. I have no idea what was on this tube, it was just in my stash. You can see from the next pic, that it's a lot thicker than a standard paper towel roll.

If you use a paper towel roll, you can use several layers of paper and modpodge wrapped around the roll to make it sturdy enough to use as a handle. Then cover the whole caddy in gesso before you start decorating it. Once it was covered in gesso, I painted layers of purple, pink and turquoise on the outside of the caddy. I then treated each side as a canvas and created different collages on each side and end.

This pic above is the front of the caddy. I used mod podge to apply the papers to the caddy. These papers are from My Mind's Eye "Totally Girl" paper pad. The scalloped flower was created using the Spellbinders Scalloped Circles Nestabilities die. The quote is a Donna Downey Unity Stamp, the butterfly is cut out from the patterned paper pad that I adhered to the caddy with mod podge.

The above picture is one of the ends. I used Making Memories lace and papers from the same paper pad, canvas butterflies from Donna Downey that I painted and embellished with rsuty wire and ribbon. The pink hearts were white cardstock hearts that came in a Donna Downey grab bag I got a while ago. I simply painted them pink and them stamped the faded "Dream" text.

I created the collage on this end using a Unity dress form stamp embossed with pink embossing powder. I also used a Hero Arts faded text stamp. I finsihed it off with the adorable pink daisy chain trim.

This side was decked out with K&Company dies from a little packet of goodies with all these adorable handcrafted themed paper die cuts.That's where the word create is from and the hand. I created the tulle flower, and added a little felt flower for the center.

And now I have an adorable little caddy to hold my paintbrushes. It coordinates perfectly with all the pink, purple and turquoise in my studio and I had SO much fun creating it. I'd love to know what you think or if you use this tute, send me a link. I'd love to see how you personalize it!