Since I’ve been reorganizing my kitchen, I decided to do something about the myriad cooking magazines that I have. But I didn’t want to buy a ton of those magazine files that I like, because they are expensive!

I bought two of these at The Container Store for my bedroom, and they were $11 each. If I bought the number I needed for the kitchen, I’m out nearly $50. Crazy!

I happened to be at IKEA and I saw this:

That’s the FLYT white magazine file. Wait for it… $1.99 for FIVE. Bargain!

Although these files are self-assembly (hello, IKEA!) and they are simply made from corrugated cardboard. I thought I could gussy them up and make them a little sturdier with contact paper. Especially when I saw this:

It’s contact paper that looks like metal. Awesome.

Here’s how I covered it so it looked like it was a magazine file made from metal.

First, I cut the contact paper to a length that would cover all 4 sides of the file. Then, I laid out the assembled file, leaving about 1″ on the left side and about 2-3″ from the bottom, and traced the top of the first side.

I also traced the short edge, and then the opposite side, and cut out the pattern for the top.

This is all pretty straightforward. It gets tricky when you actually go to put the contact paper on. The easiest way to do it is in parts.

First, peel off about half of the first large side, like so:

Then, holding your contact paper as taut as possible, you will lay the side of the magazine file on the paper. Note that you want to move it down an inch or two from the edge you cut so you will have enough of a margin to fold the top over. Once you’ve laid down the box onto the paper, flip it over.

You’ll notice that it’s pretty lumpy. Here’s where you need to smooth out all the wrinkles before you peel off any more. You can use your hand and fingernails or, if you are fancy like me, a bone folder.

Here’s what it looks like once you’ve smoothed it out. Then, you can fold back the top and start peeling off the rest of the backing for this first side.

You can peel a bit at a time, sticking down as you go. It makes it much easier than peeling everything off at once and trying not to let the paper stick to itself.

Once you’ve peeled that whole side off, placed it down and smoothed it over, it looks like this (above). Now you will go back to that original 1″ flap that sits on the back edge and fold that over and smooth it.

Once you’ve got that little flap secured, it’s time to deal with the bottom. You will cut a small triangle out of the bottom at the corner, and then you can fold the flaps under the bottom of the file. Like so:

Once you’ve folded this one flap down, it’s time to move onto the front, short side. You will follow the same procedure, peeling a small amount of backing off and smoothing it down as you go. Then you can continue on to the second long, curved side.

You will then continue around the back so that all the sides are covered. At this point, you will continue cutting the triangles at each corner and folding flaps under.

Once the sides and bottom are done, you’ll have this:

Now it’s time to fold the top flaps in. Start with the front, short side, using the triangle technique from the bottom.

You’ll fold that front flap down and then move onto the first curved side. In order to fold it down, you will need to cut vertical slits at intervals so the paper can fold down smoothly, from the outside view. Note that while it looks like I cut triangles, I really just cut a slit; the way the paper folds down at different angles because of the curve makes it look like there’s more cut out than there is.

Once you get to the back flap, you can repeat the procedure from the front, then repeat the curved side procedure down the second side.

Put your magazines in and you are done!

Here’s what mine looks like in my new kitchen:

Sitting up there above my cookbooks. I still have three more of these to make, but first things first.

Hope you enjoyed!

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