Tutorial - Fabric Covered Boxes with Ribbon Ties - Part 3

Hope you all had a nice weekend!

I'm back with the third part of our fabric covered box tutorial. I hope it's been easy to follow so far. Please feel free to leave a comment or send me an e-mail if anything is unclear or if you have any questions.

We should have our box forms made, our fabric cut and our inside fabric glue-hemmed.  The next step is to apply the fabric to the cardboard with some mod podge.

Start with the exterior piece of fabric for your largest box. Flip it so that the wrong side is up on your work surface.

Now flip your box over and paint a layer of mod podge on just the center (bottom) section.

Working pretty quickly, flip the box onto the fabric and smooth out with your hands (or a burnishing tool if you have one).

Now your bottom piece is glued. Flip back over and we're essentially going to wrap the fabric all around like a present.

The first step is to notch those corners like we did with our interior pieces. Just cut a diagonal line that meets up with your box corners.

Flip one of your sides up and apply a layer of mod podge as shown.

Gently lay that flap onto the fabric and paint a small bit of mod podge around the interior edges.

Smooth the fabric against the cardboard and pull it up and over onto the interior of the cardboard.

Now for the corners. We'll do them the same way we did on our interior fabric pieces.

The corners will be a bit bulky. Use clothespins to hold them in place while your mod podge dries.

Repeat this process all the way around until you have something that looks like this:

Set aside and allow to dry for 20 - 30 minutes.

Remove the clothespins and paint a thin layer of mod podge to your center (bottom) cardboard.

Making sure that corners and flaps match up, place your interior fabric piece wrong-side-down on the portion you've just mod-podged.

Again - burnish or smooth with your hands.

Cut 8 lengths of grosgrain ribbon. I cut mine 8" but you can make them shorter or longer depending on your desired size. If you would prefer to make ties instead of bows (like on my smallest polka dot box - see bottom of post for photo), you can get away with a shorter length (maybe 4" or so).

Working with one flap at a time, apply mod podge, place your ribbons toward the top (maybe 1" down) and burnish the fabric against the cardboard.

I used two clothespins in each corner to hold my box together during drying time.

Repeat this process with the three remaining flaps.

Prop up each side of the box with household items and allow to dry overnight.

Almost done!

If you have a sewing machine and want to go the extra mile, you can actually put a few stitches into the cardboard to hold your ribbon. If you've applied enough mod podge and allowed your boxes to dry really well, this may not be necessary. But I did it on mine. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to sew through cardboard. Just take it VERY slow and don't backstitch or you might break a needle.

The only thing left to do is tie your bows or ties. I sort of hold the box between my knees while I do this to get a nice tight knot.

Now trim your ends and apply a small bit of fray check.

That's it! Repeat with your two smaller boxes and you've got a set of three coordinating storage boxes made from an ugly old shipping box. 

I'd love to get your thoughts on this project. I know it's a bit involved but once you get the hang of it, you'll be whipping these up in no time flat.

* This project featured on Mod Podge Rocks here.

** Linked up to Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog here.

Tutorial - Fabric Covered Boxes with Ribbon Ties - Part 2

Hi friends. Hope you're all having a great day.

I'm back with Part 2 of the Fabric Covered Box Tutorial. We're ready to start working with our fabric to make the outer and inner portions of the largest box.

A couple of thoughts on fabric selection...

I recommend using a geometric print or some other design that does not have a direction. You'll see that I used a sort of toile for my largest box here which means that my pattern is upside-down from some views. I don't mind but if you'd like your box to look more uniform, go with a directionless fabric.

I thought I'd throw out a plug for one of my favorite manufacturers of home decor fabric - Premier Prints. The fabric is incredibly reasonable and the weight is perfect for a project like this. You can find Premier Prints at many online retailers or directly through them. All three of the fabrics chosen for my first set of boxes were Premier Prints.

Here are the fabrics I chose for this next set. Two were purchased at Joann (I think they're Waverly) and the third was a Premier Print.

OK. Enough about that.

Take your fabric and fold it in half with right sides facing. Smooth it out on your work surface and place your cardboard cross on top. Trace a tight line all the way around your cross form using a pen or pencil. Then draw a second line about one inch out all the way around. I just eyeballed this. The measurement doesn't have to be exact.

I drew a little line in the corners connecting the outer line with the inner line. We're going to notch that line later.

Now remove the cardboard and cut through both pieces of fabric following the outer line.

Once you're done, separate your two pieces of fabric. One will wrap around the outside of your box and the other will cover the inside of the box. We're going to work with the inside piece first. It doesn't matter which is which.

Cut those notches on your interior fabric.

We're going to draw four more lines on this inside piece... about 1/8 of an inch to the inside on the four flaps as shown in the picture below. This is to account for the thickness of your cardboard. You'll see what I mean when we start mod-podging.

I like to use my iron and ironing board for this next step. We're going to glue a "hem" all the way around. I used a glue stick but you could use any kind of fabric glue or probably even white craft glue. I say use what you have on hand.

Starting with one of the flaps, apply glue all the way across then fold over onto your innermost line. I like to work from left to right.

After each fold, just run your hot iron over the hem. 

When you come to a corner, apply a bit of glue and fold the corner over as shown.

Now apply some glue to the top of that fold and continue down to the notch. Fold over and iron. 

Repeat this process all the way around.

When you get to your last flap, you'll need to do the corner on the right before you glue your flap down as shown in the photo below.

And that's it for your interior piece. It should look something like this.

Repeat this process of cutting fabric and glue hemming your interior pieces for the two smaller boxes.

That's it for today. 

I'll be back on Monday for the third and final part of this tutorial - attaching the fabric and ribbon.

Have a wonderful weekend!

* This project featured on Mod Podge Rocks here.

** Linked up to Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog here.

Tutorial - Fabric Covered Boxes with Ribbon Ties - Part 1

I've been working on the tutorial for the fabric covered boxes and it's kind of involved. I originally planned to show you how to make one box but decided it would be more fun to show you how to make all three out of a regular old shipping box. I'm going to be posting the instructions in three parts. Here's part 1...

Fabric Covered Boxes with Ribbon Ties

Materials Needed:

• One shipping box (corrugated cardboard type... size doesn't really matter but I would imagine it would be tough to make these if your box is really small. The one I'm using for this tutorial measures 11 1/4"x 8 3/4" x 4")
• Mid to heavy weight home decor fabric to cover boxes (yardage kind of depends on the size of your original box. For mine, 1/2 yard for the big box and 1/4 yard each for the two smaller boxes seemed to be the right amount)
• One small jar of Mod Podge
• Paintbrush (I used a small foam one)
• Fabric scissors
• Regular scissors 
• Fray Check
• One small tube of Fabri-Tac or a regular old glue stick
• One spool of coordinating grosgrain ribbon
• Iron and ironing board
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Clothespins (16 if you have them, but you can get away with using as few as 8)
• Masking tape (I used blue painters tape but any kind will do)
• Sewing machine and matching thread (optional)

First, find one of these... (I've been known to dig them out of the neighbors' trash) :-)

Now we're going to disassemble our shipping box to make the insides of our three fabric covered boxes.

Box #1 (largest box)

Cut off the four top flaps and set them aside.

Now cut the sides of each flap as shown.

So you have something that looks like this.

Now cut off those extra flaps on the bottom of the box and set them aside as well.

Depending on how well the box was taped up to begin with, you may be done here. I felt that my box was a little flimsy so I added some masking tape to two sides.

Your box should now resemble a cross shape when lying flat. You're done with box #1. Set it aside and let's make the inside of box #2.

Box #2 (medium-sized box)

You should now have four small rectangles and two large rectangles. We'll make box #2 with the four smaller rectangles.

One rectangle will be the bottom of your box, two rectangles will be the long sides and you'll cut the last rectangle to make the two short sides.

I measured the short side of the rectangles and determined that they were 4 1/4" long (exactly half the length of one of the long rectangles). I drew a line at the 4 1/4" mark and cut. 

Now lay out all of your pieces and attach them with masking tape as shown.

When I pulled my box sides up, they were not all the same height. The two longer sides were about 1/4" too tall, so I drew a line and cut them to the height of the two smaller sides.

You're done with box #2. Set aside and grab your two long rectangles to make box #3.

Box #3 (the littlest box)

We'll make the small box out of the last two (longer) rectangles. 

Start by measuring the length. Mine was just slightly longer than 11". I thought it would be easier to work with a whole number so I drew a line at the 11" mark and cut that piece off.

I then measured two inches on each end, drew lines, then cut those pieces.

To make the sides, take your other rectangle and mark lines delineating two 2" pieces as shown.

Cut those pieces and assemble all four into the cross shape. Apply masking tape as you did with the two larger boxes.

That's it. You're done with the interior pieces of all three boxes.

I'll be back soon with Part 2 of the tutorial which involves cutting your fabric and maybe even a little mod podging.

As always - if you have any questions, leave me a comment or send me an e-mail.

* This project featured on Mod Podge Rocks here.

** Linked up to Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog here.

Introducing the Littlest Member of the Box Family

I finished this little box yesterday.

These boxes were so much fun to make and I've already put them to good use holding some of my office supplies.

I still can't believe that these were all made with the cardboard from one medium-sized shipping box. I didn't measure before the makeover but the original box was the size of the largest of the three fabric boxes... maybe 12" x 16" x 3"? The other two boxes were constructed from the top and inside flaps of the shipping box. Crazy. I'll explain more with the tutorial. I'm thinking I'll be able to post it by the end of the week. 

It feels really good to be resourceful and get creative with the items I have lying around my house. I'm already skulking around looking for my next victim. Ha. Insert villainous laugh here. 

Hope you're having a great day!

Meet My New Best Friends

Every January, I get the organization bug. I pore over those gorgeous January magazine covers showcasing pristine, organized spaces. I soooooo badly want to be an organized person who keeps an organized home. I long for a place for everything and everything in it's place. But alas, my closets and drawers are usually crammed with junk and we can never find what we need when we need it. I often throw up my hands and say "This is what it's like when you're a creative person with two kids and a lot of hobbies." But I know in my heart that I can learn to be more organized and that if I work at it, life will be easier for everyone in my family.

In the past, I've roamed the aisles of The Container Store and Target searching for the miracle cubby, shelf or system that will change my life. At times, I've spent a fair amount of money on these items... only to have the system fail and the plastic wind up in a landfill.

But now that I'm exercising my creative muscles, I'm finding that I am capable of CREATING the system that works for me. I can actually design something to fit my needs and then make it. And you can do it too!

My theme for the month of January is get organized and do it with what you already own.

We live in a rowhome in the city of Chicago. Our space is very vertical. We have three living levels but they are quite narrow and storage is almost nonexistent. In the past, I've used my home's layout as an excuse to stay disorganized. But I'm leaving that mindset in 2010 and am embracing the possibilities of storage in unexpected places. Like behind the doors... and in the pantry... and on the walls. 

Yesterday, I was looking at a small pile of shipping boxes, waiting to be taken out to our recycling bin. I studied the cardboard and thought... "What if I added a little mod podge and fabric? What could I come up with?"

And that's when these little guys were born.

Believe it or not, I actually have enough cardboard to make a third small box and will share photos of that one soon.

I am planning to make a bunch of these and use them in drawers, under cabinets and in my pantry to separate items and make them easier to find. These boxes are not hard to make and are quite economical if you use shipping boxes you'd otherwise throw away or recycle. You can make them whatever size you want and can cover them with any fabric you like. Custom storage is a beautiful thing. I'm working on a tutorial to share with you in the next few days. 

Isn't storage sexy?  :-)

What are you doing to get organized in the New Year?

Birthday Wrap Up

It's been a very busy time in my house. Christmas, houseguests, New Year's, my daughter's birthday, my birthday... and now a few days of quiet before my in-laws arrive. We've had such a blast, though, and there are lots more good times on the horizon.

Just wanted to share a few shots from Maddy's birthday. It was a very small and casual party but I think my little girl had a ton of fun.

Here are the cupcakes complete with toppers...

They were so yummy! I'm not much of a frosting gal, but I used this recipe and I think I licked the entire bowl. This will be my go-to recipe from now on. Yum, yum, yum.

Of course, no first birthday (especially one on 1-1-11) would be complete without a "1" t-shirt.

And to close, here's a shot of my two favorite small people...

Happy Birthday Madalyn! What a great year it's been.

I'm off to do some of my favorite January tasks... cleaning closets and organizing drawers. More on that later. 

Hope your new year is off to a great start!