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craftgrrlIt's been a while since I had something to post here. Actually, it's been a while since I made this thing, and I finally got around to cropping and shopping the pictures for online sharing. :-)
Background: my 7-year-old son had to do a class presentation about some of the things that interest him, and for that he needed what his teacher called a "Me Box". I'm not sure if he was supposed to decorate it himself, or just practise his presentation for his homework (probably both), but I didn't hear about it until bedtime the night before. And the shoeboxes we had in the house were battered, to put it kindly. And I have a thing about sending my kids' stuff to school in plastic shopping bags, or much-used canvas grocery bags... OK, my ego got in the way. He wasn't going to take his special things in something that looked like it was fished out of the recycling bin.
And I'd had this dino cotton remnant languishing in my stash for years.
How I did it: I "painted" the cardboard surfaces with white glue, and smoothed the cotton on the box like wallpaper. The glue soaked through just a little bit, and hardened clear. I folded all corners like wrapping paper, as I adhered the fabric one side at a time from top and front/side lips of the lid, to back, to bottom, and front side that goes under the lip. I made sure the inside folds stayed put on the corners and didn't bunch up by holding the folded-over crease on its corner with a disposable chopstick. The layers that didn't adhere directly to the side of the box were "painted down" liberally with more white glue.
As with the outer sides of the box, so with the insides. I folded the fabric over the edges, and into the corners, mitring the inside corners and clipping out the excess fabric to reduce bulk, especially in the lid. As you can see, I had barely enough fabric in the middle to go up the sides and over the top edge of the box; I didn't line it with felt or some other "finishing" fabric because my son was going to carry his raw amethyst collection in it, among other things. >_< But lining it is easier than covering it: just cut your fabric in a + shape to cover bottom and sides, painting glue onto the raw edges to keep them from fraying, or folding them under and painting them down. In the case of lining the lid, I recommend folding the outer fabric over the edges and well into the middle of the inside face, and just lining the top. You'll have too much bulk inside the lid to close it properly if you try to line the sides with something different.
I didn't close the box until it had dried for about an hour - it didn't take too long to dry completely because the glue had been spread thinly, instead of globbed and dabbed.
Here's a side view of the closed box: You can see how crisp the folds are, and how they look kind of like gift wrap. You can't even tell I painted over them with an entire capful of white glue to get them to stick down. :-)
And of course, once the box was finished, I printed my son's name on it with glow-in-the-dark puff-paint, making the letters look like they were crawling up the dinosaur's back. (Yes, that first one's the shopped picture, not a big mess of paint.)
You can make a separate lid into a hinged box by cutting off one of the lips on the lid, and taping it to the shoebox with a few overlapping layers of masking tape, both inside and outside the box. Proceed with fabric covering as demonstrated here. I recommend lining it, though, to hide the masking tape.
And look: NOT ONE STITCH SEWN!
And I'd had this dino cotton remnant languishing in my stash for years.
How I did it: I "painted" the cardboard surfaces with white glue, and smoothed the cotton on the box like wallpaper. The glue soaked through just a little bit, and hardened clear. I folded all corners like wrapping paper, as I adhered the fabric one side at a time from top and front/side lips of the lid, to back, to bottom, and front side that goes under the lip. I made sure the inside folds stayed put on the corners and didn't bunch up by holding the folded-over crease on its corner with a disposable chopstick. The layers that didn't adhere directly to the side of the box were "painted down" liberally with more white glue.
As with the outer sides of the box, so with the insides. I folded the fabric over the edges, and into the corners, mitring the inside corners and clipping out the excess fabric to reduce bulk, especially in the lid. As you can see, I had barely enough fabric in the middle to go up the sides and over the top edge of the box; I didn't line it with felt or some other "finishing" fabric because my son was going to carry his raw amethyst collection in it, among other things. >_< But lining it is easier than covering it: just cut your fabric in a + shape to cover bottom and sides, painting glue onto the raw edges to keep them from fraying, or folding them under and painting them down. In the case of lining the lid, I recommend folding the outer fabric over the edges and well into the middle of the inside face, and just lining the top. You'll have too much bulk inside the lid to close it properly if you try to line the sides with something different.
I didn't close the box until it had dried for about an hour - it didn't take too long to dry completely because the glue had been spread thinly, instead of globbed and dabbed.
Here's a side view of the closed box: You can see how crisp the folds are, and how they look kind of like gift wrap. You can't even tell I painted over them with an entire capful of white glue to get them to stick down. :-)
And of course, once the box was finished, I printed my son's name on it with glow-in-the-dark puff-paint, making the letters look like they were crawling up the dinosaur's back. (Yes, that first one's the shopped picture, not a big mess of paint.)
You can make a separate lid into a hinged box by cutting off one of the lips on the lid, and taping it to the shoebox with a few overlapping layers of masking tape, both inside and outside the box. Proceed with fabric covering as demonstrated here. I recommend lining it, though, to hide the masking tape.
And look: NOT ONE STITCH SEWN!
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