When life hands you lemons ...make a lemonade coloured wipes cover

I've just put a pot of tea-for-one on to brew while I write this blog. Gosh I love tea. If you have more than 5 cups of tea a week, you seriously need to get one of these tea-for-one teapots and a pack of loose leaf tea because it's ...just the bomb. So easy, and -hey- you could get hit by a bus tomorrow so live like it's your last day and treat yourself with little pleasures!

Anyway, why am I here? I got sick of looking at the container of wipes that I keep in my lounge room. It's the one room in the house that stays the tidiest, and even when everything is cleared up, this seemed to make the place look untidy:

I normally get the thinner wipes, but the container looked a little better than the cheaper wipes as a permanent fixture in the loungeroom. But I knew it could look even nicer.

I made this using a fat quarter and I'm really happy with it!

Here's how:
You just need co-ordinating thread and enough elastic to go almost all the way around your lid measurement. I don't know what my measurement was because I always thread the elastic first then tie it and THEN cut it from my roll. My guess is about 30cm or 12in long.

FIRST, lay out your fat quarter (piece of fabric about 18x22 inches) and trace around your wipes box base on the wrong side of the fabric. Draw some tabs out all four sides like below.

I have a Sewline air erasable pen which has ink that disappears after a while (or if you steam iron it, immediately) so that's what I use. You can use taylor's chalk or whatever.

You could measure your wipes tub, but I just tipped it over and traced around it.
For the record, my tub is about 10x11x20cm or 4x4 1/2x8 inches.

SECOND, add a little length to the tabs of your shape. (If this becomes too confusing, simply cut out the tabs as wide as the edges of your fat quarter allows like I did. You can always cut off excess if need be).
You'll need to fold the edge over twice to create a neat elastic casing. It needs to be at least twice as wide as the elastic you're using, and add two seam allowances (seeing as it will be doubled over when you create the casing).
If you need to know how to create casing for elastic there are a bazillion tutorials available online.

Thirdly, add your seam allowance. This is really important! The actual seam allowance is whatever you like to work with. Best off sewing it too large and you can take it in. Mine is a bit loose but with the elastic case I left it loose. I don't like doing things twice.

Then cut it out and hoard your scraps haha.

NEXT, sew the cut edges with RIGHT sides together. This will give you a cube kind of shape with an open top.

In this picture I've already sewn the elastic casing, but you're not that far ahead yet, this is just to demonstrate sewing the cut out corners right side together.

Test your wipes box to see if you passed the measuring test, and if so create your elastic casing around the top. Insert your elastic and wait for an excuse to need your wipes!

TIP
I get worried I'm going to forget to leave a hole to insert the elastic into, so I sew a few centimetres first and then lift the sewing machine foot and drag the thread a few centimetres and then begin sewing again (backstitching each side). Then I can sew around to the beginning without the stress of going too far. Here's how it looks:

If you like you could sew it shut after you've inserted the elastic but I don't bother.

Please send me a pic if you make one of your own, I'll add it here!
Thanks for visiting :-)