I recently had to move my craft room into a craft corner in the living room, so I can no longer just hide my mess by shutting a door.
The new space looks great (post to follow) but my stuff is all stored in a variety of clear containers and a mess of thread in a clear box is SO not sexy. On top of that my puppy jumped on the box and cracked it! NOT SEXY X 2! Instead of throwing it away, I decided to dress it up a bit.
I turned this:
into this:
For this tutorial you will need:*a box to decorate
*pen & paper
*a ruler
*contact paper
*an xacto & cutting surface or scissors
*a photo or photos
I used some left over "leather like" contact paper from a wall decal I made a few years ago and an old photo from my photography class that didn't quite make the cut, but was still interesting.
Step 1: Measure the length & width of your box lid (Mine was 13.5" X8.5").
Measure the height of the sides (mine was 1") and double it (1 x 2 = 2).
Add your doubled height to the length/width (13.5 + 2 = 15.5) & (8.5 + 2 = 10.5)
also add 1" to your length/width as an allowance (15.5 + 1 = 16.5) & (10.5 + 1 = 11.5)
**NOTE** your box may have different measurements than mine, so it is important that you take correct measurements!
Step 2:Trace your length and width onto the back side of your contact paper.
Carefully center your box lid inside of your outline and trace around the lid.
Step 3:Cut your photograph into whatever shapes you have decided on. I numbered mine on the back and added arrows that pointed up and left to right so I wouldn't get confused.
With the image FACE DOWN, trace your layout inside of the small lid outline. Mark with corresponding numbers. If it is directional, double check to make sure the images are oriented the right way.
Once you have made your outlines, trace 1/8th of an inch inside of your original image outline.
Step 4:Cut the inner triangle. Make slits in the corners of the back paper only, lift off of the contact paper, and fold on the line.
Step 5:Place your images inside of the cutout, making sure each of the edges is covered by contact paper.
When you are all finished your contact paper should look like this:
Step 6:Very gently, use your xacto to cut through the BACKING ONLY of the rectangle that is traced on the back. Once I made a small perforation, I put my xacto on its side and sliced the line all the way around.
Remove the backing of the inner rectangle.
Use your fingernail to press the edges of your pictures into the contact paper.
Step 7:Place your lid inside of the exposed contact paper and press gently.
(Since my box was cracked, I used some of the scrap contact paper to hold the two sides in place).
Slice the corners so you can overlap the sides and have no puckers.
Remove the remaining backing and press to the sides, overlapping the corners.
With a hard flat object press out any air pockets and puckers. You can do the top first, if you like but mine was in really nice shape so I started with the sides.
Take your xacto and trim the excess contact paper.
Repeat all steps for the lower half of the box, omitting steps 3-5 if you chose not to add photos to the bottom half.Since the bottom of my box had a large uninterrupted surface, I used my ruler to smooth out the contact paper.
If you have stubborn air bubbles, poke them with a pin and continue to work out the bubbles.
THE END!