Lined Canvas Diaper Box

You can find almost anything on Pinterest…it’s true. Upon wasting my time searching the other day, I found a fantastic tutorial on upcycling diaper boxes. Hmmm…what could I do with this? Oh, yes – toys scattered all about our living room floor: check, a desire to get said toys put away when not in use: check, cute fabric laying there staring at me: check! I decided to take on this project!

I changed some things from this tutorial I found, but you could use either hers or mine. They are basically the same.

 My pictures are definitely not as good as hers :) And the boxes in the pictures are sometimes different as I have done a few of these.

What you’ll need

Diaper Box

Canvas fabric (1 yard covered two diaper boxes)

Measuring tape

Spray adhesive

Craft glue

Scissors (or rotary cutter and mat)

Here’s how

          Cut the flaps off of your box. Might I suggest using an x-acto knife? Scissors were a big pain to work with! Tape the handles down on the sides of the box, making a little more support and backing for the canvas.

 

 

     Measure the outside width and length of the box. I found that ironing my canvas prior to adhesion worked best. Cut canvas to those measurements.

 Width

 Length

 Cut your fabric

Mine was 25 x 31

              Center your box on the canvas. (Pull up the sides to make sure it’s right in the middle…try both the short and the long sides. You DON’T want to get half glued on only to find out it wasn’t in the center!) 

      Measure out from corner of the box (to the corner of your fabric) 2 inches and mark it with a pin. [The optional tutorial used a disappearing ink marker, but with black fabric…eh, a pin worked just fine.] Then cut a straight line from your pin to both the outsides of your fabric. (You will end up cutting out a fabric square- you won’t need it.) Do this with all the corners and it will be a cross when finished. 

Don’t forget to cut the 2 inches from the pin toward the box.

             Spray your adhesive on the long sides of box and pull up the canvas sides. Smooth out the fabric. Do this on both side of the box. (Unfortunately no picture for this.) Go ahead and spray a small strip of adhesive on the short ends of your box and fold over the extra fabric.

 

 On your short side “flap” apply a line of craft glue as if continuing a line from the box. 

Fold over the extra fabric so it's even with the box and smooth it out. 

        Do this on both sides so that the folded fabric is aligned with your box. Now spray the short side of the box with adhesive and lift fabric onto it and smooth it out. Repeat on the other side.

   If the canvas goes above your box simply cut it off (or leave it!) and if it is a bit too short, don’t worry about it. The liner should cover it!

Semi-finished product

The tutorial for the fabric liner can be found here! Enjoy!






Thank you for all your kind posts!
Questions? Go ahead and ask away. I will try to keep the answers updated on this same post. 


Using wallpaper instead of canvas: I imagine wallpaper would work great since I used a spray adhesive rather than hot glue or regular glue. In fact, any fabric will most likely work. I used canvas as I thought that it would stand up to wear and tear better than others. 


Using canvas on the inside: You could totally continue the canvas on the inside instead of sewing a liner! Just make your "cross" sections longer!


Do you think I could get away with doing the whole thing with liquid glue instead of spray adhesive? Using regular glue or even hot glue would most likely work; however, you may get bubbles and bumps after it dries. The box might also warp a little bit. If you try it, go ahead and let me know! I'd love to hear if it works!