5 Smart Ways to Reuse Old Shoeboxes Around Your House

Professional organizers are experts at thinking of clever ways to reuse common household items, and when it comes to empty shoeboxes, they have lots of thoughts. By no means should you toss these into the recycling bin when they can serve a number of useful purposes all throughout the home, pros say.

Here, three organizers share five creative, practical ways to reuse shoeboxes to increase your home’s storage capabilities. You might be surprised at what an impact a shoebox can have in almost any room of the home.

Use Shoeboxes As Drawer Organizers

There’s no need to go out and spend money on drawer organizers when shoeboxes can be just as effective. If you have deep drawers, shoeboxes can make for ideal organizers to sort items by category, Catie Kelly, the founder of Sistamatic Organizing, explains.

For example, if you’re organizing a dresser drawer, you could use one shoebox to hold everyday gym socks, another to hold taller socks, and another to hold tights. In a desk drawer, you could fill one shoebox with electronic chargers and another with everyday office supplies, including small notepads, pens and pencils, and the like.

If you wish, you can even cut up the shoebox lids to create dividers to place inside of each individual box, Kelly adds. This solution is helpful if you’re sorting smaller items like jewelry or makeup and wish to categorize these things by color or purpose.

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Use Shoeboxes to Hold Craft Supplies

If someone in your household enjoys arts and crafts, shoeboxes make it easy to store all kinds of craft supplies, Dana Reder, who suggests using them for markers, glitter, glue, and paints, says.

Just affix labels to the outside of each box so that you’ll immediately know what’s inside, adds the founder of Winnow & Bloom.

“This makes it easy to grab a box or two to tackle any project or activity that might come up on a rainy day,” the organizer says.

This sort of system also makes cleanup a breeze as well; there’s no more wondering where each type of supplies belongs.

Use Shoeboxes As Memory Boxes

Rather than purchasing decorative boxes, which can be pricey, to hold items on your shelves, consider repurposing shoeboxes for the job. They can be extremely useful for corralling things that you would put into any other type of memory box, like letters from loved ones or printed photos.

“It’s rare to see printed photos these days, but if they are piling up and you don’t have the time to place them in an album, a shoebox is a great idea to keep the photos secure,” Reder says.

For extra safekeeping, she suggests placing your filled shoebox within a larger, waterproof bin.

If you’re looking to make your shoeboxes appear a bit more aesthetically pleasing, Kelly suggests covering them in gift wrap or contact paper. Perhaps you even have leftover fabric or wallpaper from a past project that would work for the job!

Use Shoeboxes to Hold Stationery

Along similar lines, you can make use of shoeboxes to house other paper goods, such as an extensive stationery collection.

Caroline Dockery, the founder of Categorically Caroline, recommends adding sticky notes inside of the shoebox to help you divide your greeting cards by type (ex: wedding cards, birthday cards, and the like). This system makes it easy to keep track of how many cards of a given nature you have on hand at any time.

Use Shoeboxes in the Kitchen

Shoeboxes in the kitchen? By all means, go for it, Dockery says, explaining that shoeboxes can be great for housing food storage container lids, as long as they’re fully dry. No more wondering where you’ve placed that piece of Tupperware!