School Cardboard Briefcase

We have made a school briefcase from cardboard box originally from Nordica ski boots box. We decided to use their logo as part of the briefcase design. There is only one large compartment that fits A4 size notebooks.

What you need is a sharp knife, pair of scissors, acrylic glue (any wood glue would go), ruler, piece of narrow metal sheet to cut parts, rivets, washers, rope, owl, needle. We have not used hot melt glue gun as originally planned.

After making a simple sketch of what we wanted, we have taken the box apart, measured the main dimensions and cut all the pieces. Our briefcase can hold A4 size notebook thus the internal size is 33cm width (13 inches), height 27cm (10,5 inches - just the compartment) and depth of the briefcase is about 7,5 cm (3 inches). You can resize the briefcase if needed. I can imagine doing for example a lunchbox that would have the same design, but obviously different dimensions.

Sides of the briefcase, top part and the handle are all rolled over the edge of the table to have round shape. We have made a hole in the middle of the front side to accommodate simple closing mechanism. We added small white square piece with the same hole that acts as reinforcement as well as a design item.

Handle is made of two rolled parts glued up together, small square to cover the hole is glued up with regular wood glue to the front piece.

There are 2 slots cut in the front part of the briefcase. We have folded a band of ductape to one third of its original width and passed it through the slots. It acts as a belt for the locking mechanism. Ducktape is riveted to the front part of the briefcase using rivets and washers. The tape goes through the top square hole in the front part of the briefcase and it is secured by a wooden stick.

We made pilot holes in the handle with an owl and sewed it to the briefcase on the top of the main part. Make sure you make necessary space for your hand and measure from both sides to have it in the center. The rope has small knot on the back side of the paper which we glued up to prevent loosening it.

Final assembly is simply gluing up the sides and bottom to the back part and gluing front part to sides and bottom forming a simple box. We have used minute glue which works well on cardboard. Pay attention and align the tape lock to the square hole in the front of the case.

We have used some weights during the glue up to keep everything fixed.

Last point was to make a wooden stick that keeps the briefcase closed.

I hope you have enjoyed this instructable and bring up some ideas for improvement and maybe build your own! Good luck with that.

Our project took just a couple of hours and it was a great fun. We are looking forward to see what the kids and teachers will say on Monday :-).