Hello, hello! Have you been enjoying the Dr. Seuss room series? I hope so! Today I am going to show you how I turned a simple wooden toy box into a cheery, Dr. Seussy dress up box for my imaginative little boy. I’m not an expert DIYer, but I do know how to make thing cheery!
This project got off to a rocky start. I started with a wooden toy box that I found on Craigslist, which was surprisingly difficult to find. Imagine my anger when my husband sat on it and the lid broke in half. Argh. I used wood glue and duct tape to secure it back together and told my son not to stand on it. He doesn’t really listen, so we will see how long the lid holds up.
The next misstep happened when I tried to spray paint this box. Believe it or not, it was the first piece of furniture that I ever tried to spray paint. I didn’t want to sand or prime, so I got a spray paint that supposedly mixed the paint and primer. This is how well that worked…….
Oy. My girl Stephanie came to my rescue. She sanded and primed by box for me, and I have never at least carefully primed since that time. Thanks to her, I have become a spray painting fiend. Ask my dad. I make him nuts spray painting in the garage all of the time. (We are living with him to save money right now.)
Here is how the box looked once it was rescued by Stephanie and painted yellow. We left the inside unpainted because I knew I wanted to line it with book pages (also Stephanie’s idea…..she’s a genius).
Now that the “DIY” portion of the project was done it was just time to cutesy things up, which is my specialty. I used spray glue to attach book pages to the inside of the box and then Mod Podged over them later. Truth be told they aren’t quite as firmly attached as I would like, but they have held up well enough and are so cute.
On the outside I asked my boy what word he wanted, and he chose “DREAM.” So I cut letters out using book pages from extra Dr. Seuss books that I found at a thrift shop, and then I cut other little characters and paper strips to make the chevron pattern and whimsical touches. I glued them to the box and used Mod Podge to seal them down.
I love the way that it turned out! Want to see a few pics in action? It now resides in the dress-up corner of my son’s Dr. Seuss room. That corner is my favorite part of the whole room!
Be sure to go peek at the full Dr. Seuss Room Reveal. It’s obnoxiously fun, if I do say so myself!
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Amy | The Happy Scraps says
May 17, 2014 at 1:06 pmOk, the inside of that toy chest is MY.FAVORITE!! SO fun! Thank you for sharing with us at The Creative Exchange!
Summer says
May 20, 2014 at 11:22 amI just Love this!! I think it is so fun that you created a Dr. Seuss bedroom – just love the bright colors!
Shelly says
July 24, 2014 at 9:27 amCan you tell us about that GORGEOUS quilt on his bed? Is it handmade?
Sarah Westover McKenna says
July 24, 2014 at 4:43 pmYes, my MIL made it. 🙂