Upcycling Cereal Boxes

When my imaginative daughter asks me to do a craft project, I often hesitate and think of all the chores I need to finish. But this year during our Christmas break I was full of creative energy. She clearly hit me during one of my more creative moments, when she asked me to make her a laptop. And how wonderful that my daughter thought so highly of my skills, to even ask, right? So here we go...

laptops, closed

A small priority mail box and a cereal box are perfect size for a laptop. The priority mail box even has a perfect closure already. With a cereal box, I just use an exacto knife to slice one cover leaving one edge in tact. I wrapped duct tape around all the cut edges. I also used it to tape white paper inside the cover as the screen. My children enjoyed drawing their "desktop icons" on the screen.

laptops, opened

I keep miscellaneous pieces of cardboard around, and this was one of those days when I had a use. You'll need to tape something across the open cereal box, to lay the keyboard on top of.

Now, to add the keyboard. You can find numerous templates on the internet to print. The one I used was  http://typingforchildren.com/printable-keyboard.html. Printing about 70% gives about the right size for the boxes I used.

If you look closely below the keyboard, you'll see my mousepad created from a square of duct tape. But if your child wants a traditional mouse and you can find a spare one in your house, you can easily create a USB hole on the side of your laptop to "plug in" the mouse.

The funnest part was after these were finished and my girls sat across the room from each other typing and sending emails to each other. Adorable!