Update a cardboard box into a cute storage container!

So this has been my project today: 

Yep. This boring old blueberry box that I got for FREE at Aldi. (My absolute favorite grocery store 😊) Although it’s boring, it’s a really sturdy box that fits perfectly under my kitchen sink to hold my cleaning chemicals. I mean, it’s absolutely perfect. BUT, it’s not very cute. So I was trying to think of a way to update without spending money versus buying something different that might not fit the space as well.
I decided to try spray painting it with the $0.99 flat black spray paint I already had in my garage. I have a slight (OK maybe not slight) obsession with spray painting things. I keep dragging things out to my garage and spray painting them. So I thought, why not try spray painting it? I figured if it ruined the box all I was out was a free box I could probably get again next time I go to Aldi.

So I emptied it off all the cleaning chemicals, made sure the cardboard was clean, (which is crucial) and took it out to my painting spot in the garage. (Which also happens to be where my husband parks his car, but while he is at work I utilize it 😜) After one quick coat it looked like this:

Not bad! At first I thought I ruined it because it seemed to soak up the paint weird. But once it was dry, it looked great! I did do a second coat on the outside just to help keep the words on the box from bleeding through. I was very happy with the results so I let it dry and loaded it back up with chemicals and put it back under the sink. 

But when I took a look at it just wasn’t quite finished, I wanted it labeled. So I unloaded the chemicals from it and grabbed a can of chicken and my silver sharpie. I traced the can to make a circle and wrote “cleaning supplies” inside. Now I put it back and it looks great! 

I’m very happy with the results and I’m pretty excited that you can spray paint cardboard boxes. There may be more of that in the future 😜 Maybe all those empty diaper boxes I have have this coming to them! This project is really inexpensive, and very effective at organizing. It didn’t take very much paint, so this project cost me very little! Plus I already had the paint on hand. 

Here is the before and after:

Pretty great, right? This project gives me more ideas, too. They will definitely be upcoming blog post projects!

Until next time,

Marisa