Get organized and save the planet with this super easy DIY desk organizer made with recycled boxes. It’s fun and functional!

If your kid’s desk, or even yours, is a cluttered mess, don’t worry. You don’t have to spend a ton of money on supplies.

As a professional organizer, I know lots of people struggle with keeping their desks clutter-free. And having a desk caddy to organize your supplies will keep everything neat and tidy.

But as a frugal mom, I also know desk organizers can be pretty expensive.

I call my organizing business “The Economical Organizer” for a reason!

Here is a quick and easy tutorial. You can make your own desk organizer using items you already have. This is just like the one I made for my girls!

The desk organizer I made is for my college daughters’ room. They share a room for part of the year, when the one comes home from college. They have one desk and it can get pretty cluttered with papers, folders, drawing supplies and office supplies. Making enough room on the desk for a laptop is challenging. It is also difficult to find a place to write in their notebook.

Our organizer solves that with places for notebooks, loose papers, composition books and pens and pencils.

(Just so you know, this page contains some affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). As an Amazon Associate, for example, I earn from qualifying purchases. However, I only ever mention products I love and would recommend whether I was being compensated or not. Click here to see my full disclosure policy.)

DIY desk organizer supplies:

• Assorted boxes – including cereal and cracker boxes
• Toilet paper or paper towel tubes
• Wrapping paper
• Scotch tape
• Paper fasteners (brads)
• Sharp tool (like an awl or knitting needle)
• Packing tape
• Scissors

Ready to get organized? Get your free guide of 10 fast and easy ways to get organized. All for under $10. And this guide is created by a professional organizer (me 😊).

DIY desk organizer tutorial

First things first.

Begin collecting cardboard boxes and other items from your recycling bin.

After I gathered up boxes for several weeks, I had quite an assortment to choose from.

I recommend one large (family-size) cereal box. The large boxes are the only ones wide enough to hold notebook and art paper, as well as folders.

The other boxes I used were a smaller cereal box, a brownie mix box, and a 1-lb. pasta box.

I had 4 toilet paper tubes. I cut down a paper towel tube to make 2 other tubes the same size as the toilet paper tubes.

How to assemble your desk caddy

The pen and pencil organizer.

First, I measured the height of the toilet paper tubes. Then, I cut down the pasta box to the same size.

The pasta box snugly held 6 tubes. It was just the right size!

Make a paper organizer next.

Make it easy to get your papers out of the cereal box. Cut down the sides at an angle to achieve this. It will look like a magazine file box.

Use a ruler to make a straight line on the back of the box. Do this from the upper corner down to about 6″ from the bottom. Repeat on the front. (The photo below shows the back of the box)

This cardboard is pretty thin, so to make your box more sturdy, leave the skinny side piece intact.

So you’ll only be cutting a triangle off the front and back.

I know it sounds confusing, but it really isn’t! Here is a diagram on how to do your cuts.

This is what it should look like when you cut the triangles off. You’ll have this weird tall piece sticking up.

Now, just fold that skinny piece down to form a nice thick edge to your box. (I taped mine so it stayed down.)

The big cereal box was good just as it was. The brownie box also didn’t require any cutting. They were made of thicker cardboard.

So, here are all my boxes cut down to size.

By the way, are your craft supplies a jumbled mess? Get a FREE copy of my top ways to organize them below. 👇

Wrapping (the Pinterest-worthy part).

Since you will be attaching all of the boxes together, you want to wrap them individually first.

Mix and match, or keep them all the same. It’s all up to you!

Now, you could use Contact paper, like this pretty floral design. Or use duct tape, like this fun 6-pack of colors. Both of these would be super durable. You could even use aluminum foil to cover them. As I mentioned, this is for my daughters’ room. They have nice bright colors. So I chose a cheery robin’s egg blue, hot pink, and left-over My Little Pony wrapping paper.

Here are the wrapped boxes.

I must admit, I am a horrible wrapper… I can’t keep my corners nice and taut. Grrr…..

My husband, however, is a master wrapper.

So, I bribed him with brownies (hence the empty brownie mix box :)). He did all the wrapping for me, except for the silver pencil box. I wrapped that one because the paper is very strong and I could pull it nice and tight!

Here he is, working his wrapping magic…

How to fasten your desk organizer together.

Once all the boxes are wrapped, it’s time to stick them all together into one unit.

You can simply tape or glue them to each other, but I was afraid that would rip the wrapping paper.

So, here is what I did instead to keep them securely attached.

Use an awl and paper fasteners to secure the boxes to one another.

Poke a small hole through the boxes with a sharp point. Use an awl, knitting needle, nail, or screw.

Then attach the boxes together using a paper fastener brad. (The kind that pokes through, and then you bend the 2 arms apart to hold it securely.)

I used 5 brads to hold my organizer together.

Here is where I placed them.

Then, for extra security, flip the organizer on its side. Use a few pieces of packing tape on the bottom to hold everything together.

(And see how neat my hubby’s wrapping job is – even on the bottom!)

Now fill up your DIY desk caddy with all your supplies!

Store notebooks in the big compartment. Smaller composition books or coloring books and loose papers fit neatly in the middle box. The side box is great for rulers, a calculator, craft tools, and other things. And get those pens, colored pencils, glue sticks, and other smaller items organized in the toilet paper tubes.

Note: The girls’ glue stick and small scissors were too short for the toilet paper tube. I wadded up a leftover piece of wrapping paper and placed it at the bottom of the tube. This gave it a bit of height. Now the glue stick is easier to reach.

Here’s the finished caddy sitting right next to the girls’ desk. Their desktop is now decluttered and clean! They can actually put both their laptop and a notebook on their desk now for when they are doing homework. And now, all their supplies are right within reach. Woot!

This customized DIY desk organizer is super easy (and fun) to make, and you can choose any colors you want. With recycled boxes and items you already have, it’s also very affordable! Score!

Looking for other ways to recycle your cardboard boxes?

Check out my post: Awesome ways to recycle cereal boxes

And for ways of recycling other items into beautiful and fun crafts, check out this post: Easy ways to recycle trash into treasure

Enjoy your new DIY desk organizer. Leave me a comment and tell me how you plan to use yours!

Happy organizing!