Tutorial Tuesday: easy DY floral wooden crate storage

Hi guys!

I have a super fun and super pretty DIY storage make-over idea for you today. This is a plain wooden crate I covered in patterned paper. I just love these amazing papers from Maggie Holmes' collection by Crate Paper. (paper covered crate covered in Crate Paper paper -- did you see what I did there?)

I've included a step by step tutorial. These are easy to make, they just take a bit of time to get the pieces lined up along the wood "slats" of the crate properly. 

Start by painting your crate, unless you'd prefer to leave it plain! I chose to use white gesso, but any colour of acrylic paint will be just awesome. :) I painted the insides of my boxes, too, but again -- totally a personal decision.

Start with one end of your crate. Place it onto the paper of your choice and trace around the edges. I did this instead of measuring, because it was faster, and I'm notably lazy. If your crate has handle holes in it, trace around those now too. 

Handle hole, traced. I used a utility knife to cut out the handle holes. Regular ol' scissors will work fine for the straight edges.

Line up the cut out paper along the side of the crate. Here, I've pulled the paper down slightly and marked each side slate with a bit of pencil -- you can see it by the pink heart and arrow. Mark the bottom edge in the same way. I found this worked better compared to measuring, because those slats aren't perfectly straight. 

Cut off the two upright side slats first.

Then, place the paper back on to the crate and mark off where the horizontal slats go, and cut the paper apart. The narrow pieces will be discarded.

I used Mod Podge to glue the paper onto the crate. Make sure to gently burnish the paper in place so the edges are nicely adhered, too. You don't want them to pull up and lift off. 

Here is one end covered in paper. It looks pretty sloppy right now, but that's an easy fix! Trim off any excess paper by placing the crate *paper side down* onto a cutting mat, apply firm pressure to hold it in place, and slice off the excess paper with a craft knife.

Then use some sand paper and gently sand the edges of the paper, along the handle holes, and the corners of the box. This neatens up any uneven cuts and also provides just a bit of distressing to add to that vintage, home-y look.

See? Much better.

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