February - DIY Upcycled CD Rack

If you've ever had a "fancy" CD rack (e.g. shaped like a mini guitar), you might know that they aren't very well balanced and can create a cascade of CDs with the slightest knock. I'd had enough of having to re-sort my CDs, so I came up with a really simple but very useful (and stable!) CD Rack using only Cardboard and Jumbo Lolly Sticks held together using a glue gun. One of the best parts about this is adjustable shelf heights so you can get your multi-CD boxes in the same rack as your single-CD boxes.

You will need:

Materials:

Cardboard

Jumbo Lolly Sticks

Equipment:

Pencil

Ruler

Knife & Cutting mat

Parcel tape (optional)

Glue gun

For the vertical parts of the rack, I used 3 pieces of cardboard from the 'flaps' of a cardboard box. On 2 of the 'flaps', I used a ruler and pencil to mark 1.5cm intervals along the length and at 2cm, 4cm, 7cm and 9cm across the short side(starting from the straight edge, for a neat finish). Using a pencil, join the 1.5cm marks across the short side and join the 2-4cm and 7-9cm marks along the length of the 'flaps' to create a sort of grid/ladder.

With the 'flap' landscape in front of you, cut the vertical  lines (between 2-4cm and 7-9cm marks) to make slots for the lolly stick shelves. Use a lolly stick to make the slots slightly wider and easier to use when the cardboard is all glued together.

I then cut 4 pieces slightly wider than a CD box for the top and base of the rack. I used a glue gun to stick 2 of these pieces together so that I had a pair of double-thickness cardboard pieces.

Using the glue gun, I attached the top/base and side pieces and then attached the 3rd 'flap' to the back so that the CDs wouldn't fall out. Once the glue had set, I pushed the lolly sticks through the slots so that a little bit poked out each side of the rack. (Note: If you put the back lolly sticks in first, it makes putting the bottom shelves in easier as you don't have to get your hand in a 1.5cm space.) When all the lolly sticks were in place, I used some parcel tape to keep the middle of the back piece from bulging with the weight of the CDs.

Eh Voila! An upcycled CD Rack using cardboard and jumbo lolly sticks with adjustable shelves! Please leave a comment below if you have a go at this DIY - I'd love to hear how you get on...