How to make an unusual New Year's fireplace from boxes and cardboard in one evening.

For the New Year and Christmas, everyone strives to decorate their home in such a way as to create a festive mood for the whole family. As an unusual element of New Year's decor, you can make a fireplace with your own hands from boxes. In combination with an elegant Christmas tree, colorful lights and garlands, it will create an atmosphere of celebration, warmth and comfort in the living room.

To realize your idea and create an imitation fireplace, you don’t need to go to the store and buy expensive building materials. In this article we will tell you how to create this unusual decorative item from cardboard boxes in one evening.

Advantages of a fireplace made of cardboard boxes

A fireplace created with your own hands from cardboard boxes will become a real decoration of your home.

A homemade product has a number of advantages over expensive purchased ones. In the list of advantages of a cardboard false fireplace you can see the following:

• ease of creation;
• cheapness;
• aesthetic appearance;
• the ability to make a decorative item in different color variations, give it a different shape and size;
• The cardboard product can be easily disassembled and removed if necessary.

This decorative hearth is not inferior in appearance to that purchased in a store. You can involve the whole family in its creation, including small children. It will be an exciting activity for all household members, regardless of age, and will fill them with a festive mood.

Where to place it in the house?

Even before you and your household start creating a decorative fireplace, try to determine the place where it will be located in your home.

Traditionally, the hearth is located in the living room. This piece of furniture will be harmoniously complemented by 2 deep armchairs located on both sides of it. This design technique will make the living space even more comfortable.

It is appropriate to place a cardboard fireplace in a children's room. It can be decorated for the winter holidays not only with Christmas tree branches and tinsel, but also with special New Year's boots for gifts. Your little one will surely like this decor.

The designers recommend placing this large-sized New Year's craft in its “right place.” This means that the product must fit well not only into the interior, but also, if necessary, disguise a crack in the wall, scuffs in the wallpaper or an unsightly corner in the room.

What will you need to create a false fireplace?

A false fireplace can be made from one large box (for example, from under a TV or washing machine, refrigerator) or from 6-12 medium-sized boxes. The material used for packaging shoes or dishes is perfect for this purpose.

The number of boxes needed to create this unusual craft at home depends on its intended dimensions: width, depth and height.

To make an artificial hearth, in addition to shoe boxes or household appliances, take the following materials and tools:

• scissors;
• cardboard;
• stationery tape;
• PVA glue;
• paper of two colors (white or brown) or wallpaper for decoration;
• various figures, garlands and foam baseboards for decoration.

Work order

To make a false fireplace from cardboard, follow our step-by-step instructions:

1. Form the boxes into a P-shape base.
2. Fasten the parts together using office tape so that you get two symmetrical columns. For work, take wide stationery tape. It is advisable to use 2 identical boxes slightly larger than the racks at the base of the columns. This technique will help to obtain a more stable structure.
3. Make the back wall. To do this, glue a wide sheet of cardboard, covering the hearth from behind.
4. Decorate the resulting portal. Cover its surface with white paper or light-colored wallpaper.
5. Cut out rectangles from colored paper to imitate bricks. Cover the entire surface of the cardboard product with the resulting bricks. You can cut out pebbles from paper.
6. Place a wooden strip on top of the fireplace. This top shelf will serve as a future stand for various decorative elements.
7. Decorate the fireplace. For this purpose, shaped foam baseboards, Christmas tree garlands, figurines, and candles are applicable.

Useful tips

When creating a decorative cardboard false fireplace for the New Year, follow these useful tips to make your work easier:

1. Strengthen the bends of the future fireplace structure. To do this, use glue or tape, or both at the same time. To make the structure stable and not wobble, make it more rigid.
2. If you are too lazy to cut out bricks or pebbles from paper, then do something different. Cover the New Year's craft with colored paper and use a white marker to draw out the cardboard product so that you end up with a pattern that imitates brickwork. Or cover the artificial hearth with wallpaper with a pattern in the form of pebbles.The fireplace can also be decorated with self-adhesive wallpaper. You can prime it and paint it, then paint it using made stencils. It is important to use special paints for interior work. The resulting product can be varnished.
3. Use boxes of the same size to create product racks. This will ensure the design is symmetrical.
4. Do not use a marker to make marks on cardboard. They will appear even through colored paper.
5. Glue a painted fire inside the fireplace and arrange the firewood.
6. Place gifts near the false fireplace.
7. If there is not enough space in the room, then build a corner decorative hearth.

Disadvantages of a false fireplace

Making a fireplace from cardboard will take quite a lot of time, since it is quite difficult to find cardboard boxes in the right quantity. Therefore, start installing it in advance, before the New Year.

Also, the disadvantages of a decorative hearth include its fragility. The cardboard product will please the owners for 1, maximum 2 seasons if handled carefully.

Safety precautions

In order for the finished cardboard product to please the eye and decorate the room, you should adhere to safety precautions when installing and using it:

• do not place a false fireplace near heating electrical appliances;
• do not use burning candles to decorate the decorative hearth;
• do not turn on the electric garlands that decorate the fireplace if there is no one in the room;
• do not leave pets alone in the same room with a decorative fireplace;
• Do not use Chinese garlands of lights powered by electricity to decorate a decorative hearth made of cardboard boxes.

To create a festive atmosphere in your home for the New Year, you can decorate your home not only with a Christmas tree, garlands, tinsel, snowflakes and themed figurines. Create an atmospheric fireplace from ordinary cardboard boxes. It will become a real decoration of the room.