Adjustable Snack Box

This is a snack container that is made out of laminated cardstock/papercraft. It is simple to create, can be adjusted based on size required, and is useful for carrying light snacks. Follow the steps to create your own!

-Two Sheets of Cartstock

-Hole Puncher

-Paper Fasteners

-Laminator Machine

-Laminator Sheets

-Pizza Wheel/Cutter

-Tape

-Scissors

-Ruler/Straightedge

Create dimensions for your snack container. Essentially, any size is alright but keep in mind the following two key guidelines:

1. One piece of cardstock's marked dimensions must be larger than the other. This is because one of the pieces of cardstock will serve as the container, as the other one will serve as the cover.

2. The way in which you adjust the dimensions depends upon the ratio of the height of the prism that you are constructing to the area of the base. Put simply, as you increase the area on the bottom, you are making the height of the prism that you are creating shorter. This is critical because the cover's base area should be larger in order for it to fit onto the actual container.

After you have marked your cardstock paper up as demonstrated in the image, you must cut slits at the sides of the cardstock in order to make it so that the edges fold upward. However, do not actually fold any part of the cardstock yet; this will be completed after the lamination process is completed. Once you have finished with this, move to the next stage.

In this part, you will be laminating the cardstock. This serves three purposes:

1. It increases the overall durability of the container.

2. It makes the container resistant to dirt or stains of other kinds.

3. It enables the container to hold liquids (not recommended, however).

After procuring the laminate sheets and the machine, simply insert each cardstock piece into a laminate sheet. Enter them in one by one into the laminator machine. After they come out, cut off the excess laminate portions till you get cardstock sheets looking like the ones in the picture. From here, move on to the next step.

Once the lamination is complete, it is time for you to fold the cardstock into shape.

Before folding anything, however, at the exact halfway point of each piece of cardstock (length-wise), make a cut across, producing 4 independent parts. These parts will be critical for making the container adjustable.

Now, along the dashed lines (dashed denotes folding lines), you are to fold the figure. You can do this using the pizza cutter and the ruler. Hold the ruler close up to the dashed folding line and repeatedly roll over the dashed line with the pizza cutter. After around 20 seconds, fold the side over, and straighten the fold.

Assuming you have correctly cut slits into the sides of the cardstock in Part 1, you will begin to see the figure take shape.

At this point, you must fold all the sides of each of the four parts upward, creating the prism-like shape. Use tape to connect each of the faces of the rectangular prism together. Once you have completed this stage for each component, move to the final step.

The best part about this design is that the adjustability is decided by you. The initial dimensions of the cardstock that you cut out determines the maximum size of the container. The number of holes that you create to fit in the paper fasteners determines the minimum dimensions of the container. Thus, according to how adjustable you would want the container to be, create an appropriate number of holes with the hole puncher.

Note: Make sure you use a ruler at this stage. If the intervals between each hole are uneven, this may result in the paper fasteners being unable to fit through each of the pieces of cardstock.

Once you are finished punching the appropriate number of holes, fit the two original sets of cardstock inside one another. Then, align the holes of each of the cardstock pieces with each other and put a paper fastener into each one depending on the size of the container required. Bend the pins backwards to make sure that the figure is securely connected.

Once this is completed for both sets of cardstock, you are finished. As long as you make sure that the cover is slightly larger than the bottom container, you will most likely get a perfect fit. You can now use this to hold any snack you want provided that it does not contain too much liquid.

Once you are finished, take a look at this video to understand at how the adjusting process works.