(DIY) How I Turned A Styrofoam Cooler Into a Trunk

Hey there beautiful readers. I just had to show you my latest DIY project. I hope that you will be inspired to try it for yourself. Lets just jump right on in. I had two Styrofoam coolers from my daughters baby shower that were just sitting in a corner in my basement taking up space and probably would have ended up getting tossed in the trash. I decided to save the landfills and turn them into something I could use. YAY FOR ME right? :)

Here's how it turned it:

Now lets discuss what all I did to create my little faux trunk shall we?

I started out with this plane white Styrofoam "Cooler"

 

I then painted the cooler and the lid with some left over paint I had in my stash.

 

I had some left over fabric from my office chair redo so I decided to use that 

(as not to waist anything right?) I didn't like that the lid had cup holder indention's so I needed to cover it up. I cut a piece of cardboard to fit the area. I then cover the card board with the fabric using my glue gun.

Once The paint had dried I hot glued the fabric covered cardboard onto the lid.

 I then took a mat insert from one of the pictures I purchased for the frame gallery that I wasn't going to use, and I cut it down to the size of the front of the Unpainted cooler (just to measure the size and cut) Then I spray painted it a gold color. I then attached a piece of fabric to the back side and hot glued the whole thing to the cooler front. (Of the Painted Cooler) I just needed to make sure it would fit before I secured it.

 

 I decided to add some beads to the front, the handles and the lid, I just didn't feel like it looked complete so I proceeded to add some wooden beads that I had left over from my jewelry making projects.

 The cooler is upside down not the picture..... lol

 This is how I created the handles I used  craft wire cut to the desired size I wanted for the handles, I slid the beads onto the wire, shaped them in a curve, and moved on to my next step

I used these plant stakes to but the wholes into the cooler for my handles as well as to string the beads for the lid I will show what I'm saying right below

 

It looks something like this, It was very easy to stick the steaks right into the soft styrofoam I did this on both sides.

I then took the handles you seen in the above picture and  secured them with a pair of jewelry pliers on the inside of the cooler.

 

And as you can see, we now have some handles......

I took another plant stake slid he beads onto it and hot glued those sucker in place I had to make two
long ones and two short ones

            


This is the top of the lid but I took the picture at a weird angle (sorry) but you can at least see what I'm talking about with the beads. It will make more since in just a second. Keep reading!

The upright picture will show you better then I probably explained the steps ;-)

In this picture you can see the beads on the lid

 

And here's a better shot I think 

And that's it folks I don't think I left any steps or pictures out.

So this here ladies is how you turn a Boring (Styrofoam Cooler) into something Quiet nice and functional, The use for this is endless.

As I was making it a million things came to mind  to use these coolers on. In fact get prepared they will be featured again in my next ( Big Project)  Stay tuned for that. Until next time. Take Care!


yours Truly,
Sharon