My goal in my new sewing room is to get as much sewing and craft supplies as possible neatly tucked away. Organized. Labeled. And pretty!

So far I’ve slipcovered the sewing chair, updated the cushions, and added some fun design boards. Next project on my list was to update this bookcase with fabric boxes.

Meanwhile, I brought a second bookcase in from music room/office to the sewing room. That’s another one of my many objectives for 2021. Make that space more about MUSIC and less about office!

Both bookcases are from Ikea. We’ve had them for years and they were called Expedit back when we bought them. If you buy them now, they are called Kallax. All together we have five plus the desk additon. Ikea also sells boxes and baskets that fit into the openings and I have several of those. Plus I have made at least five more. Trying different methods. You can look at this post for the first two …..

and then here is the post for the three I made for the laundry room.

The boxes that Ikea sells are inexpensive and sturdy. Come in lots of colors. There is even one with a cat door. But I wanted new PRETTY and MATCHING ones to fill up the empty spaces in the bookcases. (And Ikea is in Tampa which is about an hour and 1/2 drive and I really don’t like dealing with the traffic!)

I had originally planned on making four boxes. The openings in the book cases are 13″ high by 13″ wide by 15″ deep. I used the “plus sign” method to make these boxes. This is how I make my shopping totes and I think it’s the easiest method. No boxing corners or fighting with inserts.

I used the Rifle Paper Company Strawberry Fields canvas on the front piece. The other exterior pieces are just plain black canvas. This saved me some money and I didn’t use all of my precious Rifle Paper Company fabric on sides that would never be seen. I used white muslin and fusible midweight interfacing for the interior.

For the first box, I used Peltex 71f single-sided fusible interfacing on the exterior fabric. Peltex 71F is VERY stiff which makes it awkward to work with. I broke needles while wrestling with getting this cumbersome box through the Baby Lock Unity sewing machine. Neither I nor the machine were happy. It gave me WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! on more than one occasion. After I finished the first box with the Peltex, I decided that perhaps one new pretty box was plenty and the drive to Ikea might be worth it. I believe that making this box might have contributed to the demise of that sewing machine. Two weeks at the repair shop and $200 later she still will not sew with a denim needle.

But I gave myself a week to reconsider. I am not one to give up! I pulled out the ByAnnie Soft and Stable and used this in place of the Peltex 71F. I keep this around for some of the totes I create. My Baby Lock was still at the spa so I also used my little workhorse Bernina. Not a needle was lost! That machine just chugged through every thick intersecting seam. Amazing.

So here are the two boxes.

In the above photo, the Peltex version is on the right. In the below photo the Peltex version is on the left. The Peltex version is obviously sturdier in the bottom pic.

But, I don’t think it’s that important. The boxes are in the bookcase. And look fine there.

Then I considered the costs. I used two yards of the Peltex on the first box. I checked the prices on Amazon yesterday (2/22/21) and Peltex 71F was $9.18/yard so just the Peltex would be $18.36. One Soft and Stable package was $14.31 and it was only enough for four sides. I fortunately had a scrap that was just big enough for the fifth side. These costs don’t even include the Rifle Paper Company canvas fabric, the black canvas, the muslin, nor the interfacing. The Ikea boxes start at $3.99, a nice basket is $14.99 and a box with a lid is $12.99. Target and WalMart also sell boxes. In this case, sad to say, cost just might beat pretty!

I still plan on doing some research to find less expensive alternatives that will still make the boxes sturdy. Meanwhile, next up is how to label all of my storage units so I actually know what is in each container without rummaging through each and every one to find that illusive item!