DIY Fabric Storage Boxes

Who doesn't need more storage? Nobody! But it's just not something I enjoy spending money on. In fact it's a little painful. I would much rather buy fabric, paint or furniture. I challenged myself to make something with supplies already on hand to solve the problem.

The area above the basement fridge was empty and more storage was needed for toys. A few Pull Up boxes were used to fix the problem.

The top flaps were cut off with scissors. Leftover duck cloth was used to block the manufacture's colors from peeking through. It was cut into one strip long enough to wrap around the entire perimeter. I determined the width of the fabric by measuring the height of the box and added a 5" allowance to create a 1" overhang for the top and 4" overhang for the bottom.

The first box was taken outside and a long exterior side was sprayed with adhesive. After waiting 1 minute for tackiness I slowly smoothed the fabric onto the box using a credit card to eliminate bubbles. Each side was repeated with spraying then smoothing until the box was covered. A little fabric overlap was folded under to create a clean seam.

The exterior bottom of the box was then sprayed and the extra 4 inches of fabric were folded in like wrapping a present. At this point the entire outside box was covered. After carefully spraying the top part of the interior, the rest of the 1" overhang was folded in. A few small wrinkles were created in the interior corners because of fabric bunching, no biggie.

I then started on the second box and realized the fabric was short a few inches to fully wrap around plus it wasn't wide enough to fold in and cover the exterior bottom. After playing around I decided to glue a piece of scrap fabric to bridge the gap where the ends would have met and glue a rectangular scrap to cover the bottom. The second box was a little more time consuming but it was going to sit on a fridge and cost nothing so I wasn't picky.

They looked a little bland when finished so of course I had to add ribbon trim to the top. I used iron on hemming tape almost the same width as the ribbon since other types of glue would have shown through.

A little glue settled into the box which left a slight stickiness. This could have been avoided by lining the interior with a small plastic bag before spraying. The glue was definitley strong enough to keep the fabric in place but little hands would have no problem peeling it off so these are best kept up high in our house.

If I had to purchase the supplies it would have come in around $8 for fabric and $2 for ribbon. Since everything was already on hand it was free. Who loves free? Everybody!