Fabric Covered Boxes

I showed our lovely shelves yesterday. Once they were made, I realized we didn’t have enough boxes to make it look how I wanted pattern wise. Our Walmart didn’t sell orange ones, and I didn’t want to wait to purchase them on Amazon.

So after consulting Pinterest, I got the idea to just make my own fabric box.

We had so much of the elephant print left over, so I figured it would tie everything around the room together a little more. And diaper boxes make the perfect cubbies.

So really, I didn’t feel like I spent any money on these since the funds were allotted initially elsewhere. Plus these diapers were a gift, so really it’s even better!

Also this was a project to keep my bed rest behind preoccupied but still sitting.

Here is how I made them.

Supplies:  box, fabric of choice, hot glue gun

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First you need a box. Diaper boxes are the perfect size, but I am sure we all have gotten packages that hold equally perfect status.

I did not cut off the top flaps which others may do. We decided that it would make it a little sturdier to just fold and glue the flaps down inside the box. It’s not like they can be seen anyway.

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Then you want to cut out 4 squares of your fabric that fit the sides of the boxes. You will want to leave a little overlap on all sides so make them slightly bigger than each side you are measuring.

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I started with gluing the bottom first. See how the fabric hangs over the sides?

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Once the glue on the bottom is set, you flip the box and pull the fabric tight to glue it over the inside of the box. Be careful to make sure that the fabric is smooth before you start gluing, so it is really important to work fast with the hot glue gun.

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Then you will glue the overlap on the sides. I cut the fabric diagonally at the corners so it would lay more flat and you don’t have a lot of extra bunching happening. You will do this on the inside flaps as well. Basically just make sure all the edges of this square is glued down before you move to the next square.

You want to do the two parallel sides in a row:  example front and back first.

Once you have those two sides done, the next two are a little different.

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You will fold the extra fabric over first before you glue it on the box. This make it have smooth lines and make sure everything is covered neatly. It just makes for more even seams instead of jagged cut fabric, because we all know you can’t cut fabric perfectly straight or without frays. I just lined it up to the box and then glued anything that was extra over.

Once you do this, you will start from gluing the bottom down and then pulling it over the top just like the first two sides.

I then hot glued down the seams to make sure they stayed down.

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Hopefully you can see what I mean about the seams being flat. Since these are the sides, I wasn’t too anal about making the fabric line up perfectly pattern wise. I did try to make them as close as possible. Knowing that they will not be seen as much, it was not much of a priority.

One other thing to note, you could see the Pampers logo through the fabric where the elephants were. So I first glued down some off-white card-stock to cover the logos so it wouldn’t show through the completed project. You may want to check for this before you start gluing things down to make sure you don’t have the same problem with your fabric of choice.

Let me know if you have questions. Because you have to work fast with the hot glue, some of these pictures aren’t the best with explaining. Sorry!

It is a really easy project, and I finished two boxes in a half hour.

No thanks to the dogs enthusiasm…

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While doing my research on how to make these, I saw that other people added straps, bows, and whatnots to theirs. I wasn’t going to go that in depth on it. But now that I know how easy this is to do, I may just save diaper boxes that have yet to be opened to try more elaborate coverings.

For now, I think they are perfect for the nursery!

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Have you tried covering boxes like this? How much do you use Pinterest to decorate your house?

Top Shelf Pick

Finding baby furniture can be somewhat depressing when you start looking at the price tags. Why does something so little need things that cost so much?

We had wanted to find a dresser that we could redo into a changing table. After going to most of the thrift stores in town and looking online at various options, we kept coming up empty. Even at thrift stores, dressers were costing up in the 300 to 400 range.

So we settled on making shelving units ourselves to fit our need, which we saved so much. We were able to spend about $200 for two full shelving units that were exactly what we wanted.

Plus then we get to have these handmade items to pass on to our kids. I still have the bookshelf my dad made for me when I was a kid, so I love the fact that we will have personal touches to add to our kid’s lives.

I am just going to let the pictures do most of the talking.

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We splurged on the paint to make sure it was a little higher quality knowing it was going in a kid’s room.

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We stained the tops of the shelves and then used the gloss to make them smooth and easier for cleaning (which should be a consideration for something we will be changing dirty diapers on).

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These were the tops.

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All of the wood.

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Frame for unit one

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frame for unit 2

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They are pretty similar, but these legs are just one little touch that makes them different.

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Tom sanded the tops to make them extra smooth. Then he used a router to make a rounded smooth edge.

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I helped with the painting, but you don’t need pictures of the big ol belly struggling to reach corners.

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Here is the changing table. The boxes hold everything from clothes to diapers and bath stuff. We got the solid fabric boxes off of Amazon with our registry, but they also sell them at Walmart. The elephant print box I made. I will have a tutorial here soon!

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This is the extra bookshelf for all the knick knacks.

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I love that Tom is so handy and can make these things happen.

The nice thing is that these can change easily to change for whatever the need is. So if we get more books for example, we can change the arrangement of things. I tried several dozen variations of things before I settled on where things are now. With the boxes you can change the patterns up easily!

We were a little nervous about all the white, but I love how clean and simple it looks.

Now we just need to hang things on the wall and put a rug down, and I think this nursery is complete! The goal is to have everything in place by this weekend, so hopefully we can make that happen considering my bed rest limitations.

Also, I am guest posting for my friend Tiffany today! Check it out here!