Faux Marble Remote Control Holder from a Cigar Box

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How to wrap a cigar box with contact paper to repurpose into a decorative remote control holder for a coffee table.

Our family has been playing a fun little game lately. It’s called Hide the Remote from the Baby.

I swear you can give an infant a million and one colorful toys with all of the bells and whistles, but really, the best toys always end up being car keys, cardboard boxes, and, in our case, the remote control. Go figure.

But then I had an idea to make a handy spot to keep it out of sight and out of mind, while also making it pretty and easy for us to always find. (Hey, that rhymed!)

I always seem to stumble upon cigar boxes and jewelry boxes while out thrifting, so I knew it would be the perfect solution for a remote control holder on our coffee table.

And it was the perfect little project for this month’s Trash to Treasure Transformation Tuesday. (You can see more thrifty transformations from my blogger pals at the end of this post.)

Luckily, I still had some marble contact paper leftover from a coffee table makeover back in the day, so this one cost me all of about $4.

(Some affiliate links are provided below. Full disclosure here.)

Supplies Used:

• Cigar box
• Marble contact paper (or whatever design contact paper you prefer)
• Pencil
• Ruler / straight edge
• Scissors
• X-acto knife
• White craft paint
• Medium craft paint brush

The Steps:

1. Roll your contact paper out first, decorative side down, and position the cigar box in the middle of the paper with enough excess paper on each side of the box to allow the height.

2. Mark the corners of the box onto the paper with a pencil and trace the edges.

3. Draw a diagonal line at each corner. Then draw a vertical line at the corner and a horizontal line meeting up with the diagonal line (shown above).

4. Cut the lines with scissors or an X-acto knife to create a flap (shown above).

5. Repeat on all corners.

6. Slowly peel the backing off of one side of the contact paper (about 1/3 of the way) and place the box onto the paper so it’s lined up correctly at each of the corners.

7. Press the paper in place and peel the rest of the backing. Smooth out any air bubbles with a straight edge.

8. Open the box, smooth the paper at the sides, and wrap the flaps at the corners to fully wrap the bottom of the box.

9. Repeat the process for the top of the cigar box.

10. Trim away any paper covering the latch and hinges with your X-acto knife.

11. Paint the inside of the cigar box, latch, and hinges with white craft paint and you’re done!

This video by Martha Stewart is helpful if you need a better visual. Just wrap the top and bottom of the cigar box like separate box lids.

Isn’t it pretty?!

It’s not totally perfect but it definitely looks like real marble in person at a glance.

How long do you think it’ll be before baby Regan discovers this box hides her favorite toy? I give it a day. Maybe less. I’m sure it’ll eventually end up higher out of reach than the coffee table by the end of the week. 😉

But it’s a handy little thing.

You can see the rest of this month’s Trash to Treasure Tuesday projects from my T2T friends below too:

Clockwise from top left: 

Prodigal Pieces | Girl in the Garage | Confessions of a Serial DIYer | Artsy Chicks Rule

If you want more thrifty ideas, you can see all of my past Trash to Treasure Transformations here.

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