Upcycled paper and cardboard examples

Since a couple of weeks I started to collect examples of upcycled paper and cardboard. Many people are actually appreciate the beauty of cardboard and paper!

I collect these examples on Pinterest, which is a nice platform for collecting your own interests and combining them with the findings of other people. Check-out my Pinboard!

Tetra pack makes beautiful tag

Ever counted how many tetra packs go through your hands every day? They have the purpose to protect your purchases from any damage during transportation and to make the consumption of your food easier (they help to easilly poor and store your milk, for example). But in a couple of days or even hours you throw them in the garbage can.

Some of those tetra packs have beautiful graphic designs printed on them: besides the brand logo, the name of the product and many product details, they show fruit, grass or even baby's! On the inside tetra has this enchanting silver gleam, that is never seen by the consumer. Tetra is also very thick. It is much thicker than most of the paper or cardboard sheets that you can buy in the DIY store.

I layed aside a couple of tetra packs, to see what I could do with this material. Of course I had to wash it properly. And I found out that the tetra from the tomato soup had become completely red on the inside, which makes it useless. From the tetra packs for milk and juice, I was able to make some pretty nice tags. Using cutting tools for cardboard, I made pieces of 3,5 x 4,5 cm with a star cut-out and a small hole for a ribbon. If you haven't got those punchers to cut a shape out of the tetra, you could also use a sharp knife for detailed cardboard cutting, to create a cut-out.

The juice packs give the tags this extra exotic touch: on the backside they have lovely prints of pineapples, oranges and banana's. Decorating a gift or a treat with these tags is perfect for a birthday, a summer barbecue or even for christmas (although this is still far away :D)

Cardboard upcycling Tutorial

Every two weeks the city services pick up boxes full of old paper and cardboard in our street. Each household collects a box or two, full of old papers, packaging boxes, magazines, old postcards and tickets. 


I became more aware of the old paper in my home, when I went to print an invitation card at a copyshop in our neighborhood. I had to pay almost 5 euro's for one sheet of 200 gram's A4 with a full-colour print on only one side! That is really a costly business. I thought that printing my own designs would make me poor, and I started to think how I could overcome this... Next time I dumped a cereal box in the bin, I noticed what a brilliant colours were printed on this box, and how thick this cardboard actually was. I could use this cardboard to create some special postcards. Eureka!

1. The first step was to collect a couple of discarded boxes, some old christmas cards, two perfume boxes with nice colours and even some with golden prints. 
2. I cut out the nicest pieces of cardboard in squares of 3 x 3 cm. 
3. When I had a big pile of squares, I started to combine the squares in mosaics of 3 x 3 matrixes, using colours that were quite similar. 
4. I  created 12 postcards by applying each mosaic to a blue folded postcard of 10,5 x 14,8 cm. I used adhesive foam (for 3D cards) to lift up the squares a bit from the card. 
5. This is really fun to do, especially making the mosaics just right and  sending the postcards to my friends and family, who like to get those at their birthday! 


Perhaps a good idea for your easter weekend? These cards are also available in my Etsy shop, as a ready made set, or as a DIY kit.