What to do with your Costco boxes

I'm a Costco shopper.  Their big, bulk items are perfect for this average size family.  As the kids have gotten older, their appetites have gotten larger.  Go figure!  Costco is my solution.  I visit, browse,  and shop there once a week.  Yes, every week.  We go through milk, bread, and eggs rather quickly, and their organic produce is always priced better than most stores.  Each week I go and show them my membership card and take that oversized shopping basket down the wharehouse aisles.  I stick to a strict grocery budget so with my list in hand, I can get my items within 30 minutes (unless I'm browsing) and well under $100.   It's not the only grocery store I visit, so I try to make this trip quickly with the least amount of damage...to the wallet.  The longer I roam, the more likely I will see something I all of a sudden need...like a new blouse, or gourmet salad dressing, or a new sink.  You can find it all at Costco.  Got to love it.

When it's time to check out, your items get put into boxes.  I have tons of boxes I've recycled from costco, but the other day, I decided to use my milk boxes for my kids' snow gloves and hats.  I put the boxes in my laundry room and they now have a place where their snow things go after some outside play time. 

I love all the basket and bins I see all over Target and Michaels, but I just can never bring myself to buy them at those prices.  As my ugly milk boxes did their jobs holding my kids things, I sat and stared at them trying to come up with a way of making them look like a real basket. Then I had a light bulb moment.  First, look at what I did.

Do you like?  Nod, yes, with me!

So this little project was super, duper easy.  I love the rustic basket look and was thinking about how to achieve that look on the boxes.  I thought about using twine or jute twine but as I saw their skinny little strings, I realized it would take me F-O-R-E-V-E-R to cover my box.  Then while at Walmart to pick up a few things for our kids Valentines Day gifts , my husband and I strolled over to the hardware section to evaluate using rope for my project.  As soon as I saw it, the evaluation was over.  So for $5, I made myself a nice heavy duty basket...box...holder thinga ma-jig.

So here's the "How To" so you can do too!

Get yourself any size box you want to cover and cut the top folds off!  Bye, Bye. 

Get yourself some rope.  My rope came from Walmart for $5.  It's called Sisal Rope (100ft x 1/4in.).  Get the fattest looking string you can find.  You'll thank me later. When you get it home, open up the package and unravel it.  It will be a lot easier to work with like this.

Now take your box and hot glue the rope to the box for the first turn.  Then glue the rope to each other for a few more turns around the box to secure the rope.

  After using the hot glue gun for a few turns, I started rounding the rope by hand around the box.  It stays perfectly.  Be careful though.  The rope is not "finished" so it can be rough on your hands.  When I got to the end of the rope, I hot glued that last layer to the box again.

If you like the natural look, you're just about done.  You can always cut you box to size or add a linen piece on the inside to get that "store bought" look.  I prefer the darker color baskets, so I decided to spray paint the rope.  My "go to" final project phase always seem to be spray paint.  Why not? I always have it on hand and this time I used Espresso by Rust-Oleum. (one of my fave colors lately!)

Here it is with one coat of spray paint.  I ended up spraying 2 coats to get it all even, but for my next box/basket I'll be covering the box with a brown paper bag first.  This will save me some spray paint for future use.  I also suggest gluing a brown bag first to the box if you want the "natural" basket look.  The letters on the box won't come through that way

So since I don't sew much ever, I thought I'd try a pillow case for the inside linen.  Yes! a standard size pillowcase is what I used and it fit perfectly.   These pillow cases weren't in use any more since we got rid of our queen size bed.  Ironically, we still have all the bedding for a bed we no longer have.  That's how we do things sometimes.  I just threw the whole thing in there and let the "lace" fall over.  That's not really my style so I folded the top and tucked the lace edges underneath and came up with the clean lines.

Love it!  The box/basket is heavy duty and will be hanging out with us for a while.  You can bet I'll be doing a few more of these for the laundry room and the living room and bathrooms (you get it, right)!

I have lots and lots of ideas for boxes and what you can do with them. Stop by and see what I come up with for Lewisville.

                                      Blessings,

                                         Lisa

Linking up to these fine blogs!
                 
Finding Fabulous                        A bowl full of lemons                  The Shabby Creek Cottage                Too Much Time on my Hands          The Project Queen
Family Ever After                      Nifty Thrifty Things
Savvy Southern Style                Keeping it Simple
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