Upcycled Curio Boxes DIY

I have a weakness for dollhouse furniture and have collected pieces over the years. The funny thing about that is, I don’t have a dollhouse to put them in! The DIY seed for this upcycled project planted while flipping through a recent Martha Stewart Living. Her version had a cluster of boxes hung together on the wall, used to store and display all kinds of things. My version uses mismatched boxes and shelving pieces from the thrift store. A little wood stain to unify them, a little decorative paper to mimic wallpaper, glued inside the backs, and now I have a place to store not only my dollhouse trinkets, but some other favorite things that had no real place before. These would be great to display things like those favorite Lego builds or bedside books.

Make Your Own Upcycled Curio Boxes

Materials

Thrift store wooden shelving pieces (don’t have to have a back), wooden boxes (remove their tops), or empty wooden drawers
Wood stain (I used Minwax “Ebony”)
Decorative papers (scrapbook, origami, and wrapping paper are good sources)
Craft glue
Xacto knife
Ruler
Hooks and hanging hardware
Items you want to display

Step One

Clean the wood pieces. Stain or paint them to unify the wood color.

Step Two

Measure and trim decorative papers to cover the inside backs of the boxes. A couple of my pieces didn’t actually have a back, and were just open. In that case, just glue the paper around the back of the frame. Once it’s hanging it looks like the others.

Step Three

I tried attaching all of the boxes to each other, before hanging the whole thing on the wall as one piece. This didn’t work so well and I don’t recommend it. Much better to mark and hang each box individually. Play with placement and cluster them close together.

Step Four

Place tiny things inside!