cotton feet and woolen ears: Make Your Own Toy Box

“Necessity is the mother of all invention”. This toy box was born exactly along those lines.

Once you have a baby your house will be taken over with your child’s stuff whether you like it or not. In our case my dining table started disappearing under all the baby stuff.

From my waitressing years, thanks to my inner hoarder, we have a few wooden wine boxes around the place. Lately I moved one of them permanently to the kitchen so I can just drop all of Rian’s bit and bobs in when I wanted to tidy up the table. It’s a great size box but it gets quiet heavy when full of stuff so I ended up kicking it around the floor for weeks.

Then one day I looked at the box and thought wouldn’t it be great if it had wheels. And so my next project was born.

My husband had a great involvement in the design also, so the result is a real family effort. I love it. I think Rián loves it too; however it’s a bit early to tell.

I must warn you, this is not a naptime project!!! But this should not put you off as it is easy enough to do. It is time-consuming however because the paint has to dry between phases so all an all it took me the whole week to complete. (well a week in mom time, so 5 min here and half an hour there..).

Here’s what I used:

- A wooden box

- Paint (I used a small sample pot of wall paint and still have some left)

- Paintbrush

- Spray paint

- Masking tape

- Stencils - homemade

- Craft blade

- Varnish (I used quick dry, water based floor varnish)

- About half a meter of rope

- 4 castors

- Lining paper for the inside (newspaper, magazines, wrapping paper or wallpaper are all good options, I used some comics for a fun, childish touch)

- Decoupage glue

- Dog who will not move out of the shot: optional

Sourcing:

Any wooden box can be upscaled, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a wine box. Most of the other stuff can be found in any local hardware shop however the spray paint I got in O’Sullivan Graphics on Camden St, Dublin and the castors are from Ikea.

Cost:

It's a bit tricky depending what do you have already. A small sample paint is around €3 depending on the brand. Montana spray paint is around €5. A packet of 4 castors are €10 in IKEA. Masking tape and a good brush will cost you about €10.

Method:

1) At the outset I had decided on my design. A combination of stars and stripes in complimenting colours.

2) I started by painting my base colour. This box is painted with wall paint. Wall paint on untreated wood gives you an unusual really smooth and matt finish and takes the spray paint perfect without any primer. It took two coats for a respectable finish. The only drawback is you must handle with care before applying a sealing coat of varnish because the wall paint is sensitive to finger prints

3) I cut out my stencil for the star and the ‘pull’ sign and sprayed them on with spray paint.

4) Next I used masking tape to outline the areas for the stripes along the sides of my box and gave them a blast of spray paint too.

5) After all the painting was done I started on the inside. Take whatever lining paper you wish to use, make sure its cut in small manageable pieces not in whole sheets as smaller pieces are much easier to glue down.

6) Using the decoupage glue and a brush, apply a small area of glue directly onto the box. Quickly cover with your lining paper and smooth out any air bubbles. Continue until the entire inside of the box is covered. Use your craft blade to trim back any undesired overlaps

7) Give the whole box, inside and out, a good couple of layers of clear varnish to seal

8) Drill holes for your pull rope handle and fix castors to the base and you’re good to go!