This is a tutorial on how to recycle a cardboard box, some string and some scrap fabric into a cute basket-like box that you can use for keeping for example your sewing supplies.
Table of Contents
Supplies
- Cardboard box
- String – I used jute string which is a great choice if you want your basket to look very natural. You can use any type of string
- Fabric – I used some scrap fabric that I would throw away otherwise but if you chose a rather big box, you won’t be able to use scraps and you’ll have to look for a bigger piece of fabric. As for the material, you can use any although elastic fabric is a bit easier to work with.
- Glue gun
- Scissors
- Spray varnish (optional)
How to make a basket from a box
Attaching Fabric at the Bottom
First, your box needs to be an open one, so if it has any additional cardboard parts for closing, cut them off.
Put the box upside down and place the fabric on it. Cut the fabric you’ll need to cover the bottom – it should be a rectangular shape about 2-3 cm larger than the bottom of your box. Good news is that the shape you cut doesn’t need to be 100% regular, so no need to measure with a ruler. Put some hot glue on the edges of the bottom of the box and glue the fabric to them.
Corners – follow the steps shown in the picture to fold the edges in. Glue them in place.
Now you can cut the fabric to me more or less the same height on every side of the box. The fabric on the sides will be covered with the string so don’t worry too much about it.
Covering the Top and Inside of the Box
Place some fabric over your box and press it a little inside to get the idea of how much fabric you’ll need.Cut it and once again, you don’t need to worry too much about it being a perfectly regular shape, especially if you’ve chosen elastic fabric.
Put some glue on the edges of the box and glue the fabric in place going aproximatelly 2-3 cm over the edges. I don’t glue the fabric on the inside but you can do so if you need it to stay in place.
Attaching the String
If you want to cover the whole box with the string, start from up and work your way down. If you don’t want to cover the bottom of your box, you can start up or down. Glue one end of the string to one corner or your box.
Glue the string in a straight line across one side of the box, then continue with the other three sides. In this first line glue the string along the way everywhere.
Keep adding lines and from the second line on you can just glue the string in the corners of the box. Continue until you have covered all the sides completely. If you don’t wish to cover the bottom, cut the string, you can spray it with some varnish and you’re done.
If you cover the bottom, you have to glue the whole length of the string again in this part. Just keep on adding lines at the bottom of the box.
Little by little the corners should become round.
In the end you’ll be glueing the string in a round shape rather than rectangular. When you’re done, just cut the string and now you can spray it with varnish.
Use;-)
You can use the basket to store dry things like sewing or scrapbooking supplies. Avoid any wet things and don’t place the basket in a humid environment (so no bathroom). Also I don’t recommend keeping any food in it as the basket shouldn’t come in contact with water and it’s very difficult to clean if it gets dirty from food. Dry food like bread or crackers should be ok.
I hope you enjoyed this instructable on this basket from a box and found it useful! Check out also my other ideas!
