Diaper Box Liner Tutorial

My friend Heather of Pinfluence.com asked me to help her with a project she wanted to feature on her blog.  For those of you that haven't visited her site, you NEED to!  Heather has taken pinning to a whole new level.  Not only does she pin away {as many of us do!}, she started a website where she posts what she has done with her pins.  She uses the pins as inspiration for her own projects!  Isn't that genius!?!?!  

Heather needed some sewing done so she emailed me to see if I would help. My answer was an excited YES!  I, too, had see this pin on Pinterest and thought it was a fabulous way to recycle something ALL moms already have around the house. We all know how expensive bins are and as moms so many of us are NEEDING containers to wrangle all the toys that come with having children in your home. 

Diaper Box Liner Tutorial

Anyway... back to the tutorial part. Here is what you need to get started:

- a diaper box

- fabric (for this size box a yard was perfect, you might need more depending on your box.  

    {See below for an explanation of how to measure to determine size of fabric necessary}

- coordinating thread

- sewing tools (rotary cutter, pins, sewing machine, iron, etc)

How to Determine Fabric Size:

First measure your box. Here you can see that the diaper box was 10 inches tall.

 Second, measure the sides of the box.  This diaper box was 9 inches on the shorter side and 10 1/2 inches on the longer side.

 Now is where it gets a bit tricky. Decide how much overhang you want the liner to have.  Since Heather picked such cute fabric, I decided to show it off a bit more and made it come over the outside of the box about 3 inches.  Now we are going to put all these numbers together.

overhang + height + box length + height + overhang = length of fabric

For me that translated to:

3 inches + 10 inches + 11 1/2 inches (additional inch added in for seam allowance) + 10 inches + 3 inches =

37 1/2 inches

Repeat for the width of the box:

overhang + height + box width + height + overhang = width of fabric

For me that translated to:

3 inches + 10 inches + 10 inches (additional inch added in for seam allowance) + 10 inches + 3 inches = 

36 inches

Now that all that math and measuring is over with figured out, we can get to the cutting.  {Be sure to do all your measuring BEFORE heading to the fabric store or you might not get enough fabric!}  

Here is the fabric for this box. Once the cutting was completed it measured 36" x 37 1/2".

One yard was perfect for the width.  I then folded the fabric so my cut ends were together and now my piece was 44".  I cut that down to 37 1/2 inches for the length. 

Since both sides were going to be 13 inches I folded the fabric lengthwise so all 4 corners were stacked together. This way only 1 cut would need to be made.  {Yep, I'm lazy efficient like that! As my page name suggests, I'm a busy mama and I usually have at least ONE of my four small children pulling on my leg, talking my ear off, or crying about something so needless to say, I need to work quickly.}

I moved the fabric down on my cutting mat 1 inch 

so I could see the gridlines and then using my ruler I measured and cut down 13 inches.  

After moving the fabric back up to the O at the top of my cutting mat,

 I then moved it one inch to the right (again to see the grid).  I again measured 13 inches and cut.  

I now had a 13 x 13 inch square cut out of the corners of the fabric. 

 Here is what it looked like completely open. 

Starting with the bottom left corner, I matched up the sides and pinned them in place. 

This would become the first corner of the liner. 

I sewed the sides together. 

This is how it looked once I was done. See how a corner was created. 

Now just continue matching up the sides from where the corners were cut out and sew them up. 

Here is the liner with 2 sides sewn up. 

Once all 4 sides are sewn, you are almost finished.  I tried the liner in the diaper box now to check for fit and length of the overhang.  Only a couple more steps and the liner is done.  

(notice the edges here aren't hemmed up yet) 

 Inside of the box with unfinished liner

Move over to your ironing board and iron wrong sides together all the way around at 1/2 inch {I totally eyeballed it, I am horribly impatient and don't enjoy bending over the ironing board with the ruler making sure it is exact}. 

 Then fold it and press over 1/2 inch again.  

Now your unfinished edge is completely hidden.  

Pin the fabric into place. 

 Sew all the way around the liner at 1/2 seam allowance.

Put the liner back into the diaper box.

Close up of the finished edge. 

There you have it!  Your liner is done and you can start filling your bin with whatever your heart desires. 

Well you are almost finished!  First you need to click on over to Pinfluence.com for Heather's post on how to finish the box itself {that is unless you like the picture of the diapered baby and the diagram of the diaper on the outside of the box}.  

I hope the tutorial was easy for you to follow. Please let me know if you try it out and link back to your own project!  Can't wait to see how you are using your upcycled diaper boxes to help get your space organized!!!  I'm off to make a few of these for myself.  With TWO kiddos in diapers, I have a couple different sized boxes to choose from ;)