JenniferDyer.net

by Jennifer Dyer

I’ve had these two steamer trunks for over two decades. They’ve served as coffee tables, storage, and benches. I have covered them with fabric to match rooms and even put bench padding under the fabric to make them more comfortable. With this last move, I needed a place to store my Star Wars toys–I mean the kid’s Star Wars toys… I thought, why not make it obvious?

So, I bought two yards of Star Wars fabric from JoAnn Fabrics and went to work. This latest project took me less than an hour.

The front of the Star Wars trunk

Starting on the lid, I glued fabric along the inside seam using Mighty Mend It bonding agent (see pic below). (I’ve also used a hot glue gun.) Think of wrapping a tricky present or making a bed. The fabric goes around the sides and front, with small triangles in the corners to gather the extra fabric.

Inside rim of trunk lid

I then glued the fabric down by putting lines of glue around the edges of each surface, starting with the front of the lid. For the lid’s part of the clasp, I put glue around the metal section of the clasp then locked the trunk down so that the glue would bond the fabric to the trunk. (see pic of trunk clasp below.) After this bonded, I worked my way across the the top of the lid, the backside of the lid, then the back. (Think of outlining each rectangular surface on the trunk with glue and pressing the fabric down.) I kept going around the bottom and back up to the front.

Trunk clasp

The clasp on the front side of the trunk was a bit tricky. I had to cut a slit into the fabric so it would go around the metal clasp. Instead of cutting a rectangle out of the fabric, I cut a slit in the fabric the same length as the clasp and cut little snips to the left and right of the top and bottom of the slit I’d cut. (My cuts made a shape like a capital letter I.) This helped me get the fabric around to the backside of the clasp so I could glue it down. I made small triangles of the excess fabric at the corners and glued those down too.

Inside the trunk

The sides gave me a bit of trouble until I decided to wrap them like a present. I made triangles from the top and bottom sides of the fabric then glued them to the side of the trunk. (If you need more visual, I linked to this video. At 2:08, JamieGeidtHowTo starts wrapping the ends of the boxes, using the method I used on the trunk.) I then cut a rectangle of fabric and glued a seam all the way around the sides, so that no ragged edges showed. I glued this over the edges of the triangles and under the trunk handle, so that trunk could be easily moved. (The last time I covered the handle, but didn’t like that as much.)

Side of trunk