How to make a box into a different box

Once upon a time, I was trying to organize my craft supplies and realized I had a problem.  The problem of too much stuff, and nowhere to go with it.

My favorite way of cleaning up (or at least what I find most effective... I hate cleaning up) is putting everything all in one place and then putting it away.  So I did this on my crafting table.  Then I realized I had all my pens, scissors, rulers, various other tools crammed into one tiny little kitty planter (see upper right hand corner of photo) and still needed to cram more stuff into it to get it put away.  Yeah, not gonna happen...  Also, all of this stuff has gotten back to it's proper home now.

I decided what I needed was a special box just for "crafting tools" so the kitty could be dedicated to pencils and pens.  And you pretty much have to keep your crafting tools in a box you crafted yourself, right?  It just so happens I had the perfect box in mind!

(Pretend I took the picture before I cut the top off...)

I have a bad habit of keeping every "good sized" box I get, "just in case" and I remembered I had this one, I think from a candle fundraiser.  I guess sometimes my hoarding comes in handy!  Don't turn me in to TLC though,  I do throw stuff away occasionally!!!

After I had located the perfect box I chopped off the top and side flaps, plus the little "closure tabby"

I saved the top to make a divider for my box.  I wanted it to have two compartments so my paintbrushes and such didn't fall over and get lost in the bottom.  So I sliced the top to the right height with my most beautiful box cutter.

Tools don't have to be ugly!

Voila - perfect height!  I also used the piece I'd cut off to act as extra support for my center wall. 

Originally I had planned on covering my box with scrapbook paper, quick and easy, stick it to my box with double sided tape. However, none of my pretty papers were speaking to me.  That's when I remembered I had this box...

Which, I'm sure you can tell is full of...

Book Pages!! (leftover from this project - hoarder alert)  All the sudden this had turned into a mod podge project! 

Hooray for Mod Podge!

I prepared my workspace (Ikea cutting board) for the impending mess. I also tore up a bunch of my book pages.  I like that rough look, plus it's a boring book so no one would want to read whole pages off of my box anyways...

R-E-C-Y-C-L-E Recycle!

First thing I did was coat the bottom of my box with Podge. 

Then I realized this was a dumb idea and coated each individual piece of paper before I stuck it on.

Next I got messy and splattered some Mod Podge on my shirt, so I took a break to change into something I didn't plan on wearing to work again.  You can skip this step if you aren't a major slob.

I continued covering the inside of the box, and over the top edge like so.  I also covered my inside walls and left them to dry.  I didn't do the whole thing the first night because I didn't want the box to glue itself to my cutting board (although the walls did that a little bit anyways...)

Next morning it was looking good!!

The next night I set to work on the rest of the box.  My husband decided to take a few action shots.  Probably a good idea, because then I didn't get Mod Podge all over his camera. 

I also wore an apron this time.

Then I left that to dry overnight. I also glued the two wall pieces together in preparation for wall installation the next day.    Once I got to this point I realized I'd done a lot of extraneous gluing and podging, since I was going to end up re-covering the whole wall piece once I'd put it in the box.

A totally unnecessary step...

especially since I dropped it glue side down on the floor...

But check out that lovely wall!

I podged more paper over all the edges of the wall, and then gave most of the inside another good coating of the stuff.

Then I just let that dry and voila!  I'm done!!

It was everything I ever imagined it could be, and it looks great on the corner of my crafting table!

I think the kitty is happy about it too!