As you may know I went off on a little tangent about this nifty little project in my last What are little boys made of?  Weekly Round Up.  I didn’t get a great picture of the chest I used as a box for a family Christmas gift last year which really saddens me, but since my aunt has it displayed in her family room, I should be able to get one next time I go to her house!  You can sort of see it in these pictures:
(TUTORIAL IS BELOW) My aunts family is very into Pirates of the Caribbean, so I came up with the idea of centering their family gift on Treasure (gifting items to each individual family member based on what they treasure in life).  I doctored up $1, $2, $5, $20 and $100 bills (front sides only as not to break the law!!) and added each family members face to the bill in order of age (ie: youngest was $1, oldest was $100).  I printed a ton of these out and used it as stuffing in the box as well as had it hanging out of the box for the presentation.  The following was the contents of the box: Pirates of the Caribbean board game, Jack Sparrow christmas ornament, magnet with my cousins faces on the body of Elizabeth and Will, Snoopy Ornament and Calendar, NY Yankees shirt, Mega-Star Wars PEZ dispenser, Scrapbooking Kit, lip gloss and chocolate coins. Lastly, in order for them to get into the treasure chest they had to find the key.  I made a Guess Who game with pictures of family members who were at the party – printed it out on cardstock and cut it out to form a Guess Who game board.  They had to try to guess (just like in guess who) who had the key.  They made guesses such as “Does this person wear glasses?” and “Is it a boy?” and depending on the answer they folded down the people who were not it until they had one person left who had the key. 
Without further ado, here is a tutorial with pics to help you make your own pirate treasure chest.
You will need:
  • Large diaper box
  • Tape
  • Glue Gun
  • Scissors/Knife
  • 2 yards Fabric or paper
  • Cord
  • Ribbon
1.  Start with your diaper box.
2.  Tape it closed.
3.  About 1/3 of the way down the box, cut open both sides and the front. Fold the box top up – you may score along the fold line if you would like.
I do not have photos of the last steps, but is easy enough:
4.  You want to wrap your fabric around the whole box.  I found it easiest to glue the fabric to the inside front of the lid and then wrap the fabric over the top, back side, bottom and front of the box.  I glued the edges down with a glue gun. 
5.  To cover the sides I cut out panels, folded a 1/2″ seam all away around, pressed it and then glued the panel of fabric onto the side. 
6.  To cover the seams, I used hot glue to glue gold cord along the edges of the box . 
7.  I also added a 1.5″ gold ribbon 5″ in from both sides.  I glued it the same way I did the first fabric panel.
8.  Lastly I added a loop and clasp I made out of thin cardboard painted gold. I put a small lock (off from a Dollar Store Diary) on the clasp to hold it closed.
You may find an easier way to cover your box, but this worked best for me.  I also lined the inside of my treasure chest with the fabric.
Happy treasure making!