I used to work in a translation/printing/publishing house, and it was there I learned the technique of further "recycling" paper (that had already been printed on both sides) by folding paper boxes out of them. This was actually expected and encouraged of the employees when work was slow—we'd be sitting around folding boxes, to use for paper-clips, pencil shavings, work-desk rubbish, or as disposable plates when sharing food at lunch. (We would have surfed the Net, if the broadband connection had been working the last 6 weeks I was there. Why wasn't our connection fixed? Long and stupid story.)

If you're unfamiliar with origami, here are the farther notes to figure out my lame 10-minute pen drawing: Step 1: Fold paper into quarters. Step 2: Take one of the corners and do as shown. Step 3: Turn the piece of paper over and repeat Step 2 till you have a house shape. Step 4: Rearrange the leaves so that the house now folds out flat like so. Step 5: Fold the sides of the house to the center as shown. Step 6: Repeat Step 5 on the reverse so your paper looks like what's shown. Step 7: Fold the bottom of the house "up" as shown, folding and tucking corner a behind triangle b. Fold and tuck corner c behind triangle d. Repeat for the reverse side. Step 8: Your paper should now look like this. Your box can easily be stored flat at this stage before use. Step 9: Grab the "lips" of the box and gently pull them apart. Voila! Paper box.

I felt like an idiot when this was taught to me—it was so simple and useful. But in turn I've been teaching it to aunts, uncles, friends, little cousins, and etc. It can only be done with rectangular office paper or magazine pages, which is in abundance almost everywhere and, more often than not, not quite used to their fullest before disposal. And when you need a little box for your desk/drawer or for your nutshells or as an emergency plate for eating something messy in the office, it's handy as heck.

The above instructions were drawn on the back of a failed picture print, of course.

Currently reading:
Walter Wangerin, Jr.'s The Book of the Dun Cow

Currently working on:
Lament, tattoo, web site.