How to Build a Cardboard Treasure Chest
This is a great project for a lazy Sunday afternoon. It has all the makings of dressing up a basic storage box and providing a beautiful conversation piece for your child’s room in which he may store away his collection of 100 matchbox cars, marbles or other small items that are constantly underfoot. To learn how to build a cardboard treasure chest just follow these steps and you are in business! Best of all, it is cheap, creative, and you can make as many as you like to place in your child’s room!
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Things You'll Need
- Storage box (letter or legal size) with lift off lid
- Brown paint (spray can)
- Clear packing tape
- Self adhesive contact paper (wood grain)
- Yard stick or ruler
- Pencil
- Scissors
- Shelf liner for wire shelving
- Self locking plastic cable ties
- Optional decorations: dark green crepe paper, shells, Jolly Roger
- Glue
Instructions
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How to Build a Cardboard Treasure Chest
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1
Set up the storage box. Depending on the size you chose, it will be about 12 inches wide and 10 inches high. Do not cut out the pre-stamped handle holes! Fold the lid. Make sure it fits properly onto the box.
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2
Spray-paint the inside of the box and lid with brown paint. Let it dry completely.
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3
Reinforce all of the folded over areas with clear packing tape. This prevents any of the seams from giving way when some weight is put inside the box.
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4
Pick up the contact paper and measure 2 inch tall planks that are 12 inches wide if you are choosing a letter size box to begin with. Pick up the scissors and cut them.
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5
Apply the self adhesive wood grain contact paper planks to the outside of the reinforced storage box. Apply it in such a manner that the picture of the wood grain is placed horizontally, alternating the grain to run from left to right and right to left. This simulates the use of different wood planks. Repeat this process until all four sides of the cardboard box, the bottom and also the lid are covered in this manner.
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6
Use the yardstick or ruler and locate the middle of the lid. Make a mark there with your pencil. Next, measure three inches to the left of the middle and three inches to the right; place marks there, too. Copy these measurements to the back wall of the treasure chest.
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7
Poke holes at the three marks in the lid and the treasure chest. Fasten the lid to the treasure with the cable ties.
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8
Cut three 2 inch wide strips from the wire shelving liner. Make them long enough to cover the exposed cable ties from the inside and the outside. You might want to consider cutting them into a fancy shape like an elongated diamond. Affix them over the ties, covering also the holes in the lid and box. These are now the pretend metal clamps holding the pretend wooden lid in place over the pretend wooden treasure chest. Secure with clear packing tape as needed.
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9
Cut more 2 inch wide strips of the shelving liner to be placed over the corners and seams of both box and lid. The goal is to make the cardboard treasure chest look as though it was fashioned from wooden planks held in place by a metal frame.
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10
Affix optional decorations. If you want to simulate a cardboard treasure chest that would be right at home with the Pirates of the Caribbean, find a Jolly Roger sticker and place it over the top, some green crepe paper will become seaweed, and shells could be glued all over the lid and the sides to give the impression of a box that has been under the water for a while.
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Tips & Warnings
While you are working on your cardboard treasure chest, be sure to place it outside when you begin spray painting the inside. Ventilation is crucial with this activity!
Resources
- Photo Credit Morguefile.com/Stuart Whitmore
