Box Making Tutorial--Part 4

Completed Project

The final step of finishing our box is to cover the exposed board on the interiors of the top and bottom trays. Of course, there is more than one way in which to do this. One way to cover these areas would be similar to covering the bottom of the box in the Wrap Around method. Simply cut a piece of decorative paper (either the same paper of a coordinating paper) slightly smaller than the dimensions of the tray. Glue it up and place it down (keeping in mind that the paper will stretch a little once wet). This is called a Glue In.

A different way to cover the exposed board is make a separate insert and glue it in. Take a piece of thin scrap board (I use museum quality matt board). Cut it to size (once again, slightly smaller than the tray size and allowing for the thickness of the covering material). Cover the boards with the material. Glue in place.

Dry measuring for size

 Glue the boards to the underside of the decorative paper.

Both boards glued to the decorative paper

Trim out the the boards for 3/4 inch turn ins and miter the corners.

Trimmed and mitered.

 Glue the turn ins to the underside of the boards.

Glued insert--bottom view

Glued insert--top view

Glue the insert in place. Be careful not to use excessive glue. Too much glue on the bottom can squish out along the sides of the tray and ruin the walls or the top side of the insert. Position the liner so that a small reveal of the original paper shows on the bottom tray.

Insert in placed and glued down

Let dry. Place a weight on the insert so that full contact can be made on all sides. Because my decorative paper is suede paper, I take a piece of extra board and place on top of the insert. If the decorative paper on the insert is delicate or can be easily marred, a weight will show impression marks. By using the extra layer cut to size, the weight will not mark the paper.

Weighted and ready to dry

Repeat the above steps for the second tray.

There are several reason that I like to use an insert rather than a Glue In. First, if there are any problem areas with your turn ins or mitered corners, the insert will hide them. Second, the inserts add a little heft to the box. Third, if you mess up the insert,  you can always redo it. If you mess up the glue in (the glued decorative paper option), then you can almost never recover the error and might ruin the whole box.

Note: If you mess up a glue in, one option is to repair it by adding an insert--LOL.