Fabric-Covered Boxes

This is one of several belated posts about a few Christmas gifts I made this year. Granted, I couldn't post them before Christmas because these certain gifts were for family members who read this blog. But, finally, after the family have left and Christmas celebrations have quieted down, I'm finding time to blog a little more consistently.

For some time, Mommy has been wanting to cover those cardboard boxes that pineapple chunks from Costco come in with pretty fabric and use them around the home for storage. After making sure that it was close enough to Christmas that she wouldn't have time to do it before then, I spirited away the boxes she had saved and, while at the fabric store, had her pick out some fabric she really loved and would like to see around the house.

Once I got the best method down for covering them, making the four went quickly. Though it should be fairly self-explanatory by the pictures, I'll explain, in an informal tutorial below, how I made them.

I started out with the four boxes, all the same size.

For the first fabric strip, I measured the length of the box, including the bottom, up the sides, and back down the sides into the box, leaving an extra inch for gluing it down.

Here's the finished piece so you can see what I mean.

After I glued down the ends of the first strip (you can see that in the box in this picture), I cut out another strip for the width, measuring the same way I did before. On this second strip, I had to fold all the raw edges under, gluing as I went.

Here's a close-up of how I glued the edges down inside.

After covering the box, I cut a rectangle out of cardboard just slightly smaller than the inside of the box for covering the bottom. I picked a coordinating fabric and cut out a piece to cover the cardboard rectangle, leaving about an inch on each side for gluing it down. Here is a close-up of folding in the corner of the fabric on the longer sides to make a neat corner. Once I had the fabric-covered cardboard done, I just glued it down to the base of the box's inside to add a neat finishing touch.

Here are the four boxes...

And Mommy after she opened her present! They are already employed around the house in holding various small articles that we accumulate, and I do have to admit they're quite pretty. I have more boxes...