A trash receptacle made from trash? Whoa...

This project almost ended up a Craft Fail!

I tell you this went together SO easily in my mind. My friend Karen asked me to make her a little trash box out of an old, empty laundry box. Love the idea! It's nice and big AND it's all nicely scented for you AND it's free because you're reusing/recycling.

(I've been working on this project so long I took this photo at the last house I was house-sitting at!)
I guess you could leave it like that but what were those Gain people thinking? My retinas are scorching the longer I look at that box.

My idea was to cover it in this beautiful red paper and then do some black patterned things on it. Except the paper I chose turned out to be too thick and the edges would. not. stick. down. I tried multiple times with no success so in a bit of a temper I ripped all the paper off and then realized that what I had was a box that was completely covered in sticky, lumpy texture. I mentally slapped myself in the forehead. Now what? I was working in the kitchen so I started looking around desperately.

Hmm here's a stack of paper napkins. How about I decoupage those to the box and make it look like this whole texture thing was on purpose!

*evil genius laugh* No one will ever suspect this was totally on accident and completely out of desperation! I am soooooo clever. *snort*

*Hint: the more wrinkled and crinkled the better!

Now that my plan is on the right track I spray painted the whole thing black. Brown would be good, but I was out of that.

While waiting for the paint to dry, I layered some rectangles of paper to make a label for the front. (Yes, that is the Garfield ruler I've had since gradeschool. Like I'm going to get rid of a classic!)

This box is going on her washer in the laundry room so she has somewhere to put the dryer lint.

It's not just anyone who has a "black leather" lint garbage box!

It does kinda look like leather, don't you think?

I also painted a wooden candle cup to glue upside down to the top as a handle, but if you read my last post you know I'm going back and forth between two houses and there is a conga line of craft supplies strung along behind me and I'm not sure what house that part ended up in. It's not exactly necessary, but I think it might make it a little easier to open and it will add interest to the top.

Phew! Thank goodness I had a craft mentor who taught me that a problem or mess-up was just an opportunity to be creative!

Also linked to Trash to Treasure Tuesday over at Reinvented!