An Easy And Cute Shoebox Craft For The Home

I never seem to have enough craft storage. Especially boxes in which to hide the little things. Instead of buying something, I decided to reuse what I already had at home with this shoebox craft.

One of the best things about this shoebox craft is that I could sit and do all the doodling whilst catching up with the winter Olympics.

This craft cost me virtually nothing, as I had everything already. It was a very quick and straightforward upcycle and featured under B for boxes in the list of A to Z of upcycling ideas.

Create Vintage Suitcases With Shoebox Craft

The boxes look cute on my shelves, and I think I will make some more. I might even add some labels to the boxes disguised as luggage tags.

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What you need

• Cardboard shoeboxes – I used boxes in various sizes.
• White Chalk paint
• Black Sharpie
• Pencil

How to make Shoeboxes look like vintage Suitcases

First, paint the shoe boxes white with chalk paint. You can use other white paint, but I prefer the matt finish you get with chalk paint. I just used a wall paintbrush for this.

If the shoeboxes are brightly coloured, they may need more than one coat of paint.

2. Once the paint has dried on the shoeboxes, you can draw on the suitcase furniture. Before doodling onto the shoe boxes, sketch some designs of handles, hinges, locks, and corners. This will give you a reference guide to refer to when doodling.

You can copy the doodles I used below.

3. Draw the vintage suitcase doodles onto the white shoe boxes first in pencil. Make sure you add a handle, locks, corners and trims to each shoebox.

Then when you are happy with the design, go over the pencil marks with a black sharpie.

4. With this shoebox craft, I doodled on the front, back, sides and top.

Top tip: Don’t worry about making a mistake with the sharpie. You can always paint over it with white chalk paint and start again.

Other shoebox craft ideas

I’m pleased with how these shoeboxes turned out and can’t wait to make some more.

With five of us in the family doing a lot of sport, we get through many shoes. I need to find some more shoebox crafts! I think I will cover some of them in maps as I did with my empty cookie tins. Instead of drawing on the handles, I could make real ones from leather scraps.

The simple monochrome look of these suitcases inspired me with some fun Christmas decorations. I made some simple white felted baubles with black stitching and a black and white Scandi felt forest.

There are many excellent cardboard Christmas crafts here.

The vintage suitcase shoe boxes also blend in well with the wallpaper in my dining room. It’s a bit like camouflage.

With the addition of wallpaper, you can make a perfect upcycled picture frame from a shoebox lid.

If you are looking for more craft storage ideas, you might want to check out these DIY storage boxes with denim, map magazine holders and upcycled craft caddy. Also, my festive painted wicker hamper.

Check out these giant Christmas decorations for other uses of cardboard boxes.

Or even my famous vintage map suitcase and other upcycled suitcase ideas.