Step One: Cut a hole in the box

How to make a charger station for your equipment - from shoeboxes.

I have a fair amount of electronics. Some I stash away in a drawer until I need to use them, but others I use frequently. I don't like having cords everywhere that fall down behind the desk or get tangled up, so I figured out a way to make a charging station from cardboard boxes. This particular one took two boxes, but I could have of course added more (or less) if I needed to. 

 For this, I needed:

Two shoeboxes

Boxcutter

1 file folder/piece of cardboard

packing tape, paper, glue, and decorating materials (optional)

Step one: cut a hole in the box. (two actually, one for the power cord from behind the desk, and one for the USB cable to go out to the computer). Step two: Put your junk in that box (in this case...just my backup drive)

 

Step three: Cut a sheet of card stock/cardboard to cover the box. I used half of a file folder. This is so you can stack another box on top. 

 

Step four: cut more holes in the back of the 2nd box. One was from my printer, the other was from my cell phone charger.

 

Step five: Take the lid of the 2nd box and cut holes in the top. This is so your equipment (like cell phone or wireless mouse) can rest on top.

Step six: Nest the lid inside the second box and place the box on top of the first box. If you like, you can use tape to stabilize the shoeboxes (they're not always the most well-glued things), and cover the boxes in paper, stickers, or other kinds of decoration. 

And that's the way you do it!