Guest Project -- Turn plastic bins into Cool Kitchen Utensil Holders {and free printable}

Hi everyone!

My name is Amanda Formaro from Crafts by Amanda.

I just wanted to start by saying thank you to Jen for having me here today. :) We recently moved back into this home (long story) and I've been pretty busy creating projects to spruce up my kitchen. Aside from my craft blog, I'm also a food blogger over at Amanda's Cookin'. I love to cook and bake and have tons of different utensils. They were taking over my drawer space and getting harder and harder to find, so I turned some old beanie baby boxes into fun kitchen utensil holders.

Note: While I did use my Silhouette machine to create the letters and pictures for these, you could certainly print them out on regular copy paper, spray them with clear matte sealer, cut them out and Mod Podge them on.

I started with these plastic beanie baby boxes (which of course I washed out first, yuck). My husband called me from work one day and asked me if I wanted a case of them that someone was getting rid of. Being the craft supply junkie that I am, I of course said yes!

I apologize that I don't have step by step photos. My camera batteries gave out on me in the middle of the project.

The next step was to give them a quick spray with some primer to help the paint adhere to the plastic. Then I simply painted them with Vintage White acrylic paint. I ended up giving them a total of three coats, allowing them to dry an hour or so between coats.

I did use the Silhouette, and if you would like to use it or edit it, the template is here.

The font that I used was Lithos Pro, so you could recreate these in Word if you like. Here's a PSD file with the clip art if you use Photoshop.

I printed the designs onto vinyl and added them to the containers, being sure they were all lined up with each other. Once I had attached the vinyl I sprayed them with two coats of acrylic sealer (matte finish), allowing them to dry between coats.

For the fabric liner, I simply cut strips of fabric from an old tablecloth and doubled them up using hot glue. Then I glued the doubled fabric to the outside, tucking the extra inside the containers. I added a simple piece of twine around the outside of the fabric and my utensil holders were complete!

I love the way they turned out. I hope that you like them too! They have been a great way to free up some drawer space and keep all my different utensils separate.

Thanks for having me today Jen! I hope you guys will come visit me at Crafts by Amanda, and maybe subscribe or follow me to keep up to date on what I'm doing. I am also on Facebook and Twitter.