Mini Shipping Crates II







Mini Shipping Crates was the first post about my handmade craft in this blog back in 2014. When I first made the crates back then, I didn’t even capture the moments of building it step by step. Which I believe is the missing part of that original post. If you follow my blog, then you’ll know that I post several projects in Instructables; a DIY project sharing site. The advantage of Instructables is that not only you are able to share your project with the online community, it also keeps your project records online. I used to have a small notebook to keep record of my project documentation – design sketches, dimensions, etc (I lost the notebook by the way). With Instructables I'm able to refer back to the projects that I previously made with ease.

Going back to the mini crates, I did a single change on the design, which I’ll explain later on. For now let’s move on to the first step:  preparing the crate’s walls.








The wall is made from a 8 pieces of craft sticks. A piece of craft stick usually has a width of 10 mm, so one wall should have a total length of 80 mm. The wall will be cut as a 80 mm x 80 mm square.








Always measure the wall length prior to cutting, it might not necessarily be 80 mm exact. If the length is more than 80mm use the cutter to do the trimming. It is important to have a square sized wall. If not, you’ll have difficulty to assemble it later on.








I use PVA glue to attach the sticks – it’s reliable and provide strong bond. Make sure to clamp the sticks while it dries (binder clips will do) for the best result.








The total of 8 walls shall be allocated as follows: 2 for front/back walls, 2 for side walls, 1 for bottom cover and 1 for the top lid.








The front/back wall has an addition of a frame on top of the wall. The side walls have an additional horizontal support on top and bottom of the wall. These walls are glued together to form the body of the crate.








For the bottom cover, trace the outline of the crate’s body and cut the wall according to that dimension. The bottom cover will have additional support, which is 3 sets of craft sticks glued together to become the crate’s skid.








The process of making the top lid is the same as the bottom cover, except that it has two bottom supports and another two supports underneath it.








Here is the change that I mentioned earlier on. I add an open slot to insert coin/tissue paper on the top cover. Adding this feature now extend the capability of the mini shipping crates as a tissue box or a piggy bank. 









The final product:













ardee

September 2017

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