"Organized Chaos" Mini Desk Caddies

Stacking system: cartons & drawers

Here's a fun-to-make stackable desktop organizer system of soda-carton-style caddies and matchbox-style drawers. The containers are just the right size to fit the "Pint-Sized Holders & Folders" envelopes made from Hot Off The Press Template 7390 (which I designed). The wonky stacking effect of the boxes reminds me of architect Frank Gehry's amazingly improbable crooked buildings.

I've been reading papercraft guru Paul Jackson's genius new book Structural Packaging: Design Your Own Boxes and 3-D Forms (Laurence King 2012). I thought I'd try out the Crash Lock carton base, which I have used on the caddies. The Crash Lock is a type of interlocking base which is easily assembled - and is also very strong. Very neat indeed, if one is a papercraft nerd : )

 You can use the caddy for storage on its own - or use it in combination with the matchbox-style drawers. The caddy is a one-piece pattern that will fit onto one piece of A4 cardstock. (I used Bazzill Basics Paper for the caddies and slightly thinner paper for the drawers.) Here are the patterns:

To make the caddy, cut out the shape, crease on the foldlines with an embossing stylus, tape the short tab to  make a ring. Then tuck in the bottom tabs like so:

You can tape two caddies back-to-back to make a double-sided unit, which will fit exactly on top of the matchbox drawers.

To make the matchbox-style drawer, fold the drawer, taping sides - and make a sleeve (pieced from two pieces of paper).

 

Caddy and matchbox drawer units.

Leaning tower.

Use this template to make the mini document wallets and envvies.

The mini-soda-carton caddies would be great for gift-giving. Just pop the contents in a cello bag. Or, you can make up a desk-caddy stocked with the Holders and Folders as a gift.