Repurposing an Old Box

Repurposing is all the rage! I’m sure you have stuff that needs a place. You probably have boxes in your basement. Why not make some pretty coordinated boxes for storage?

Here’s what I’ve been putting my recycling into, in the corner of my kitchen. It is a nice box, as boxes go. Sturdy. But its best feature is that it is the PERFECT size to fit in the corner between my great-grandmother’s pie safe and the back door, and the perfect size to hold a few days’ worth of cans, bottles, and junk mail until I empty it into the recycling containers outside.

But I got tired of how it looked, so covered it in fabric (above!) for a fabulous repurposed recycling container.

 

 

First step is to cut off the top flaps, and to tape the “handles” in the closed position.

Then cut fabric to the size you need. You need a piece of fabric that you can sit the box in the middle of, and bring all four edges up to the top of the box. Measure your box both directions and that is the size you’ll need (you might have to sew two pieces together). My box happened to be square but it works with rectangles too. I will post the link to the full directions in a moment.

The directions will show you how to cut the fabric into a large cross shape, which allows you to cover the box perfectly. I used a spray adhesive and then hit the edges with ‘Aleene’s Tacky Glue” for extra hold. The directions have you cover the box with canvas, which would be a little heavier and might hold up better in the long term. I used regular fabric on mine primarily because I wanted to use fabric I already had.

Here you can see that the whole box is covered. No sewing required for this part! I trimmed that edge when I was done but it isn’t necessary because it will be covered by the fabric liner.

Next step is to make the fabric liner. Choose a colorful, fun fabric for this part. It does require sewing for this step!

The piece of fabric needed for the liner is larger than the box size, due to the part hanging over the top. Mine was cut about 8 inches bigger so that after hemming it would hang over about 3 inches. Full directions follow.

Cut the fabric, sew the four corners, hem the top edge, and you have a finished covered box. Now I can recycle in style, in my recycled, repurposed box. The whole thing took just over an hour but the more boxes you do the faster it would be.

 

 

Here it is, in the corner and already filed with recycling. It looks SO much better than the plain box! And the liner can be taken out and washed if necessary.

Find the instructions for the covered box here.

http://designsbymke.blogspot.com/2012/01/lined-canvas-diaper-box.html

And the instructions for the fabric liner  here.

http://designsbymke.blogspot.com/2012/01/fabric-liner.html

 

 

What have you repurposed lately? Tell me in the comments!