STUDENT LIFE! The time when you probably will love to cut costs at all cost, the time when things seem to be more expensive back home...the time when cardboard furniture is the best to serve as a short term useful piece of furniture! You can probably forget about going to Ikea for cheap furnishing...especially if it is a shoe rack that you require!
I will show you the joys of cardboard furniture starting with my (one and only) creation - the cardboard shoe rack.

In the case that you want to have a better looking cardboard shoe rack than mine...you can paint it or patch it up nicely...since I don't have much decorative materials, I just left mine as it is.

Before we start, I apologise for the bad quality photos due to my camera's sudden death, I can only use my phone camera with snail's pace shutter speed to take photos for this instrucatble.

Step 1: Gathering Materials

It is quite simple really...or is it?! You need a cardboard box that is in good shape (i.e. not battered) and that has the following 'dimensions':
- Height just taller than your normal shoes.
- Width however many shoes you want (hence 'n shoes' in picture)
- Length approximately 2 shoes (this is for double decker...if you want to make a triple decker, you'll need approximately 3 shoes...quadruble decker 4 shoes, etc...but this is just a crude little shoe rack to put your everyday shoes on, not quite the display cabinet...though if someone made it into a display cabinet, I would be very happy and plesed :D

You will also need some cutting tools and a bit of strong tape. For this job, I recommend crafting knife instead of scissors as crafting knife is easier to handle when cutting boxes than scissors; while tape is something like masking tape or duck tape.

Step 2: Begin!

Firstly tape up the ends of your box so that it is a box, not a flattened box...this is where the tape comes into action...You can tape it all over for decorative purposes, but that's up to you...I didn't do mine since I have limited amounts of tape...

To make your very own cardboard shoe rack, you simply need to cut box open in the right orientation. The 3 general cuts are the following:
- 1 cut on the large side of the box
- 2 cuts on the adjacent long small sides of the box (refer to image)

It is adviced to score the inside of the 4th side that isn't cut such that folding is made easy along that line. There are two (or more) designs that can be used - the slightly fancier slanted face and the standard straight faced design. Note that it would be better to use a slightly longer box for the slanted face design.

TIP: Shoes aside, if you like to eat on the floor and want some elavation, this box is perfect! Also great for storing your snacks for a floor tea party or what not...simply remove snacks from shelving, or keep them there and then unfold box such that the uncut side is facing up...and tada! You have a little snack table for your floor tea party/picnic!

Step 3: Fold!

Fold your two 'sections' along the 'fourth' side...you should get a similar result to the one shown in the picture (if you chose the slanted face design.
(small note here...I didn't think of making a cardboard shoebox originally, so I did cut the 4th side, it's a bit strange looking...but still works!
If you find it hard to fold it over, you can score along the line of fold such that the score is on the outside of the fold...or you can do a cut and stick thh pieces together with tape...I think scoring's better since you will save on tape and it can unfold nicely into it's original shape...no wonky bits.

Step 4: Finished!

After that final fold, you're done! You can put your shoes or snacks on it (if you plan on using it as a snack storing thing)...I haven't made one for my snacks, so I don't have a picture of it. Now that I think about it, it can be a cheap and (temporary) storage thing...since cardboard furnishing is cheap, quick and for temporary usage (unless you are me, who happen to have such strange furnishing taste...).