How to Make a Cupcake Bin

I started this blog because I couldn’t find any crafting, sewing, and quilting blogs that I could relate to. Too many of them catered to crafters with kids. I don’t have any kids and do most of my crafting for theater or just what I need for my childless, adult existence. This how to make a cupcake bin post may look like a craft for kids, but it came about in a completely different way.

A couple friends and I have put together a burlesque troupe and were working on putting on our first show (see totally not kid-related). Our event (which happened this past weekend) was to be gluttony or indulgence themed since it was happening in November (Thanksgiving as a theme is not exactly sexy) so our numbers were about food and booze.

I had this fabulous idea to do a super cheeky French number with uber cutesy costumes (think Katy Perry in California Girls) that starts sweet and ends with unexpected twerking (it turned out awesome BTW). To go with the cutesy theme I wanted us to have little cupcake stools to sit on to start the number. The other two girls in the troupe have woodworking significant others so I was hoping one of them could make a simple stool base that I could then upholster like a cupcake, but alas they were both too busy and it was up to me to do some clever crafting.

And was I ever clever! As if you would ever doubt me.

It’s made from a kids toy storage bin and I covered it in such a way that it still opens up and can be used as a bin. It’s not as easy to carry with the covering, but it’s light and easy to move around.

I tried to find a simple stool at Target that I could cover, but what I found was either too large or too expensive. And then I saw these:

They came in two different styles: Frozen and Ninja Turtle. So I bought three, got some cheap vinyl (1 yd for each cupcake), some buttercream colored felt (2 yds of wide felt for 3 cupcakes), and some poly fiberfil seat cushions at Walmart and got to cupcaking.

I’ll go through step by step on how I covered the bins, but a couple notes first. I used hot glue which isn’t great at sticking to either plastic or vinyl – it will work, for awhile, but it’s easy to rip off. The felt on the lids stayed well stuck, but the vinyl around the bottom had some issues. As things came apart I re-glued them with super glue. The super glue worked much better, but due to the size of the how to make a cupcake bin project it might be worthwhile to start with hot glue and come back through as needed with the super glue.

So, starting with the lid. I took a seat cushion and cut it into a circle the same size as the lid. Using the cushion corners that I cut off I kind of built up the center since the lid was concave in the middle. Then I covered that with the cushion circle.

Then came the felt, I had to gather it a bit to get it to the right shape, and actually managed to do so without burning myself with the glue gun (don’t worry – that part happens later.)

All that was left was to trim the excess felt so that the lid went back on properly.

For the base of the cupcake bin, I cut my vinyl in half against the grain (not that vinyl really has a grain) and folded the edges on 2 sides to make a clean edge. I pleated the vinyl every 3 inches and just glued it on the top since I would have to adjust for the taper of the bin once I glued it on.

One half of the yard of vinyl made it about 3/4 of the way around so I did have to use some of the second half. Once I made it all the way around the top I went through and glued the bottom pleats in place (this is where I burned myself).

Then I just glued all the pleats over the bottom and covered with a circle cut from the remainder of the second half of the vinyl. And there you have it.

We eventually went through and added some felt sprinkles to the top.

If I had had more time I might have added a ruffle around the lid or something like that, but oh well. I don’t have a picture of all three cupcakes – as you can see from the pictures, one was pink, one was blue, and one was green – but I do have a picture of us in our super cute costumes that go with the cupcakes.