Recycled Burlap & Boxes Make Useful Storage Solutions

This has been a very long summer. I finally got out to the cottage and I really wanted to keep busy but not of the more active projects were a good possibility for keeping me out of trouble. No painting the outside of the cottage? No helping with the new Dock? Sigh.  I do love crafting though and did a few projects with the grandkids one weekend and I began working on crocheting an afghan.

I have a wire rack behind the door of the washroom at the cottage. Storage is at a bit of a premium in there. Every time someone slammed a door the little sample shampoos, and extra lotions and insect repellant slid out of the side and onto the floor. My craft starved brain went wait! We can solve this!

I do like projects made from recycled material.

First, I hate to spend more money than I must and second, I am always working with groups that have few resources, so I am always stretching to find cheap, or better yet, free projects! I always look to find projects that are good looking and if possible useful.  My little question when deciding about projects for Girl Guides/ Scouts was always would the family keep this around for a couple months or does it go straight in the garbage. I also wondered "how much stuff can one family attach to a fridge?"
I thought I would try for a solution to my Washroom door slaming problem, make a way to sort out some arts and craft supplies since I was feeling particularly crafty and make a vase for extra points.

This container project is something that was common years ago with youth groups and thrifty homemakers!  It has a bit of a vintage feel but that tends to be how a lot of recycled material projects start off. Vintage is fun. What makes it more current are the colour choices and details that you choose.
It is very flexible for materials.  I was thinking of Fall at the cottage. right now, so that influenced my colour and texture choices. I am also thinking about the various places my new box containers, my new vase and my new art supplies holders are going to be displayed.

I literally dug through the weekends recycling and came up with some cans from soup and spaghetti sauce and some crackers boxes. We had some twine in the storage room and a bit of white craft glue and some extra tacky glue.  I also had a $3 roll of burlap out here because I was planning on making table decorations for a family Fall dinner or perhaps Thanksgiving dinner at the lake. There was plenty to spare.

First, I tested out my various sized boxes to find one that would fit properly on in the shelves and then I cut the height to the correct size for my location. By this point, I was all excited and planned out what to do with even more of my garbage! grin This is such a flexible project!

I was thinking about putting on a base layer of acrylic paint on my future container. I wanted to add paint to the boxes in particular to kind of seal the paper in case a little soap or lotion came off in the container  Regular acrylic paint  is not the greatest when sticking on aluminum cans so my husband Bob said he had an almost empty bottle of black spray paint and offered to just take the items outside and give them all a coat of paint on their inside and the outside. Yes!

Once the boxes were cut to size I moved on to the cans.

First, I took a metal file to the cut edges just to make sure there were no sharp edges and that nothing would catch.


Next, we got everything painted. The colour peeks out a bit from behind the twine or burlap so it is not the prominent colour you are seeing. I am in a fall mood, we have a lot of black in our cottage, and we had that left-over paint, so my colour choice was simple.  It would be fine in whatever colour you wanted to use. In the summer I would probably go with white or yellow or blue for the cottage!
Once it was dry from being painted I put a bit of tacky glue down the side of the box or the can and just wrapped it around and carefully overlapped the end where it joined up and then I used a bit of extra glue there to secure it.  That simple.

 I did line up the finished bottom edge of the burlap strip on the bottom edge of the container and I folded the excess at the top of my containers to the inside and used a lot of glue for that. I liked the look of it wrapping over on the box top edge and the height of my box worked with the width of the burlap but if the box was taller I would not have worried about wrapping it over the edge
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To keep everything in place while it dried I used clothespins. - yes, I use clothespins out here. In fact, that is one of the things that are kept on that bathroom shelf.  Binder clips and the big paper clip would have been useful too if I was at home in my office.  I suggest wiggling your clips loose before it is totally dry. The glue is soaking through the fabric and holes and will attach to your clip to your box or can!

The twine wrapping project is just as easy.

I would suggest using a softer twine since some types can be quite harsh and hard on your hands. The one we had in our storage room was perfect.

Prep your containers the same way and then add a bit of glue at the starting point start (I started at the bottom) and begin wrapping, around and around and around. Add the glue on to the container as you go and try and have the glue run all the way up. It is okay if it isn't all glued down so I used just a line along the side seam of the tin can and just pushed it in place as I looped it around the rest of the can. The finishing off can be a little tricky. Try and fray the cut edge a bit so that it is a bit flatter and tuck it under the edge of the previous row. It is not cheating to use a hair dryer to speed up drying in heavy glue areas. 

I wanted to add some extra embellishments to my containers, so I tied some twine around it. There are so many things you could add like lace, ribbon or fake flowers or leaves to the side to make it extra cute.

Give this project a try!

Make it your own.  I would love it if you let me know if you try this project at home for your self, with your youth group or your seniors!

EXTRA   HINTS

• This project is simple to do, if somewhat sticky with the glue. Consider
precutting the boxes and the burlap to the right size before doing it with your group. Give a variety of embellishments to your participants so everyone has a unique finished product. The repetitive nature of wrapping the twine
around might be very calming for some individuals. This would be challenging for people with limited use of a hand. I wonder how well double stick tape would work for getting everything in place.


• Yarn around the jars, cans or boxes does work but be aware that most kinds of yarn stretch a bit when wet. They also shrink down again as they dry. The motto of the story is to take it easy on the glue and if it is getting soggy don’t try and pull it  too tight.


• Consider this project for Earth Day!