Created
3 June 2003, last updated 3 March 2005
Making cubes out of business cards is easy, and will impress
your friends!
What you will need
Everything you need is already at hand:
- Six business cards, and
- About five minutes.
In the figures here, the cards are pictured as having a white
side and a gray side, and the cube ends up white on the outside.
You'll have to decide how you'll use your own cards to determine
the look of your cube.
I'll describe white as the "outside", and gray as the "inside".
Creating the pieces
The first step is to fold the cards into pieces suitable
for assembling into a cube:
- Take two cards, and place them across each other, with the
inside faces together. Try to make the 90-degree angle between
them as accurate as possible, because
each card serves as a guide for the folds in the other.
Getting the two cards to cross precisely in the center is not
important, since the tab lengths can vary without affecting the
final cube.
- Fold the ends of the bottom card up over the top card.
Make the folds nice and crisp: the crisper the fold, the
snugger the final cube will be.
- Flip the pair over so that the bottom folded card becomes
the top card.
- Fold the other card's ends up.
- Pull the two cards apart: you've made two cube pieces.
If you've made the folds tight, the pieces will be more
"closed up" than shown here, that's good.
- Do steps 1 through 5 two more times.
Now you have six cube pieces.
You are ready to begin assembly.
Assembling the pieces
Now that you have six cube pieces, you can assemble them into
a cube. This requires a little bit of dexterity, but is not
as hard as it might seem.
At each step, make sure that the new card you're adding to the
cube is hugging the existing cards with its folded tabs.
Again, the pictures show the tabs flared out a bit so you can see
the structure, but if you have made sharp folds, the tabs will
lie flat against the other cards, making a nice clean cube.
At the last step, you will need to carefully pry open the remaining
tabs to get the last card in properly (under the other cards' tabs,
but with its tabs over its neighbors).
What next?
Now that you've made your cube, there are other things you can do:
- You can make more cubes.
- You can make six more cube pieces, and carefully attach them
over the six sides of your cube to get a nice tab-less look.
The tabs of the new piece are folded completely under the tabs
beneath it.
- You can interlock the tabs from two cubes to attach them,
and build from there.
- You can get 66,048 cards together, and make a
depth 3 Menger's sponge.
- You can make a movie
starring your cubes.
- You can try
fancier shapes!
- You can try another five-minute project: How to make coffee stirrer stars.
- You can read the New York Times article featuring this page.
- You can read my blog, where other similar topics are discussed.
![[*]](/all/20050706081138im_/http://www.nedbatchelder.com/dodeca3_100.gif)
Comments
Would you like to exchange diagrams?
I only have this diagram. If you have others, send them along!
Neat!
Neat way to use unwanted business cards. However, we would hate to see that done with good ones!
The International Business Card Collector
IBCCsite.com
WOW! I'm hooked, off to the shops tomorrow to get some card. Took some time to figure out a level 1 but it's all clear now.
Level 3 here I come!
your "fancier shapes" links don't work.
This drawing is so easy
I fixed one of the "fancier shapes" links. The other seems to be gone for good.
I like this unit very much.
I've made this cube and it looks good. Thanks for the diagram.
Fun idea! I'll be sure to tell subscribers to my free newsletter, the BizCard Bulletin. Thanks!
We gave someone 20,000 "extra" business cards last month. They were in the process of building one huge business card cube by creating each one individually and then linking all of them together. Seems like a neat project...
que bellisimo!!!
i want you to be my father!
I put your link up on my site for aspiring business card sculptors to learn from the Master of the Cube - RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!
hi im making a card for school and i would like to make one
You have to be the worst employee ever to come up with these little wastes of time...too bad I am gonna totally do this tomorrow at work.
I will tell everyone I know about this. Rock On!
Werty smells like cheese.
This is the worstest idea someone has came up with.. although it works well in my offices...
Hello the business card cubes are nice. Do anybody have other diagrams using business card. Can you send me a few ones. Thank You---helbert412@bellsouth.net
woohoo, need more silly stuff, people give wierd looks..im proud
Cool trick, I am thinking about making some new business cards with a target on the back, this way I could make some of these cubes, with targets, and let the people shoot them with airsoft guns. It would be a really cheap way to have a promotional item at a trade show/convention. Thanks for the idea!
Very Nice. Enjoyed Blogger Con and
Harvard. Weiner Rules.
wow. amazing. You are famous, Ned,
- Jerilyn's mom
This is going to really get big on you Ned. Prepare for bandwidth crunch.
Nicely done. You might want to give credit to the creator of the cube: Jeannine Mosely. You already link to her Menger Sponge page.
Interesting stuff! When you have no other business do you can indulge in this pastime. Moral is: Do not throw away unwanted business cards, they will come in handy to fill your leisure time. Woh!
Can I design some business cards and print them
I was traveling last week, and made cubes for businesses I stayed at or visited (with permission). The Dick Tracy Museum cards looked really nice with the 12 card version of tab-less cube. The 12 card tab-less way is much stronger, and looks great. It is the second suggestion under what's next.
Ned,
This is the coolest thing since sliced bread. You can use these things for x-mas decorations, desk decorations, or a good waste of 30 minutes to 1 hour at the office while everyone makes business card cubes!
kool send me more businuss card oragami
i tried it and it worx
Hi ya! Whats cookin'? These cubeish things look SO cool, but I dont have ANY buisnuss cards, what should I do?
Fab. I first learned this as a kid, using old playing cards. But there was a reason to make the box: if you then cut out a hole the size of a nickel in one of the sides, you can use the cube/box to make perfect smoke rings! (Course, finding a smoker in this day and age...)
However, have the smoker take a puff and then gently blow smoke into the box thru the hole you've cut out. Then, gently tap the side of the box with a finger, and a perfect smoke ring will issue from the hole. Sometimes you can get several from one fill of the box.
Have you also considered the Origami jumping frog? Another use for a rectangular card. (3x5 index cards work great, but business cards can work too.) Cheers!
Anyone know how I can find a custom shaped business cards printing company. I have this business partner that wants to have car shaped business cards for this auto business.
Next to our creative way to use business cards, the cube is a perfect way to entertain my 14 year old for those cards I used to throw away because of being outdated or errors. BusinessCard NoteCards however make more business cents. Thanks for sharing.
These Are Kool send me more buisness card creations.
It is a cool I never saw how to make cube...
I just can say it's great
this sucks totally!!! i would rather make 2000 pencils then this! i am corey taylors cuzin
Awesome!
Hiya! this is fun to try. I think I can do more than this though...
Wow! I just linked up two cubes! These things can get you hooked..
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