We are always creating fun and unique things here at The Shabby Tree. I wanted to try and create a fun container that we can use for a tree or flowers. My house is full of old antique furniture and I always love adding a variety of old buckets and containers throughout my home. We create a lot of items here at The Shabby Tree using cardboard. I found a way to create the look of an old barrel using a simple cardboard box.
The supplies I will be using are:
1. One 12x12x12 cardboard box
2. Box cutter
3. Ruler
4. Scissors
5. Paint brush
6. Four packs of Jute from the Dollar Tree
7. Black and brown paint
8. Cinnamon
9.Polyurethane spray
10. Duct Tape
11. Sanding sponge
The first step is to open your box and pull it apart where is was glued together. You want to open it so that you have one long piece of cardboard.
You will now have four sections on your one piece of cardboard. Each section will have a slit at the bottom between them. My box is a 12x12x12 so each section of my cardboard is 12 inches wide. I placed a marked every 2 inches because I want my strips on my barrel to be 2 inches wide.
You will mark 2 inches on both sides of the cardboard.
I then used a long piece of wood to line each mark up so I can draw a straight line down the cardboard.
I did this to all the marks I made.
You will now take the box cutter and cut along the lines. You will not cut all the way through the cardboard. You will want to lightly push the box cutter into the cardboard and cut your line. Do this to all of the lines that you made.
When you are done cutting you should be able to bend the cardboard at the lines. This is going to allow you to form the barrel shape.
Once you made sure that all your lines are cut and the cardboard can bend you will need to do some more marking.
You will want to place a mark a quarter of an inch on each side of the line at the bottom of the cardboard.
You will do this at the bottom of each line and on both ends of the cardboard.
I then placed a mark 2 inches down from the crease line of the cardboard. You will do this at every line.
You will then draw a line connecting your two marks. This will form a triangle
I then used a very sharp pair of scissors to cut out the triangle and cut straight up the line. You will want to cut the line up to the crease of the cardboard.
You will do this to both sides of the cardboard.
Now comes the tricky part. You will need to wrap the duct tape around the cardboard to form your barrel. I had to have another person help me do this step. We first did two strips of duct tape below each crease line if the cardboard.
It is best if you can add the duct tape and not have creases but I gave up on that. You cut the triangles out of the card board because it will allow you fold the end strips of the cardboard inward.
Once I had the shape of my barrel I then painted it with black paint.
Once the barrel was completely covered with the black paint I then added brown paint.
I decided to add jute to the top rim and bottom rim of my barrel.
I used four packs of jute from the Dollar Tree.
I wanted the center rings to stand out more so I added more brown paint and sprinkled on cinnamon.
This gave the center rings a rusty metal look. You can then spray a coat of polyurethane to help seal the cinnamon.
This is fun to create and turns out amazing. You can create this barrel any size depending on the the size box that you use. I hope you will all get creative and give this a try.
