How to Make a Plant Carrier Box for Your Car and Home

What’s a great solution to spruce up an ordinary container? Cover it in wallpaper! Follow along with Spoonflower Ambassador Stephanie Watkins as she shows you the steps with her new plant carrier boxes, perfect for transporting her flowers and greenery to and from the car. Plus, you can use this method to cover more than just boxes for your botanical babies—try with cubbies in your craft room, supply containers in your home office or vanity storage in your bedroom.

Bringing the outdoors inside has been a staple in our home. If you look at our home on my blog, Casa Watkins Living, or on my Instagram, you can tell that I love decorating with plants, having botanical-inspired decor and finding inspiration from nature.

My journey into plant parenthood began with my mother and her love of plants. She always infused natural plant life in our military homes. Perhaps it was her way of creating the Caribbean vibes of her home country, the Dominican Republic, while stationed in the middle of Europe. Whatever the reason, my mother passed her love of plants and nature onto me.

I just love having plant life around my home! However, being a plant mom can be pretty messy at times, especially when bringing new plant babies home. My car trunk can get a bit messy with dirt, fallen leaves or spilled water when I’m transporting plants home. So, I wanted to create a fun solution to help with those messy trips.

These DIY plant carrier boxes are so fun to create and are customizable with any wallpaper design from Spoonflower. Plus, they help transport the plants into your home in fewer trips. I usually bring home at least 3-4 plants at a time and taking multiple trips to the car to bring them inside is not fun at all. Though, these two steps to get into my house now are nothing compared to when I lived on the top floor of my old apartment building… that didn’t have an elevator!

The boxes, covered in Peel and Stick Wallpaper, also make me feel like I’m giving myself a present. What a fun way to bring the outdoors inside from the plant store all the way home. Now, let me show you how you can create your own pretty plant boxes!

For this project, I planned my wallpaper needs by doubling the length of the box. This would give me plenty of paper to cover the length and sides with enough slack, should I need to move the paper around. Since my box is about 17” (43 cm) in length, I planned for at least 34” (86 cm) or 3’ of wallpaper per box.

Measure the Peel and Stick Wallpaper to the length (doubled) of your container and cut to size with scissors. Using a 2’ x 6’ roll, there should be enough wallpaper to fully cover the outside of this 17” wide container and up to 2″ (5 cm) on the inside (which we will trim down later).

With a pencil, mark the corners of the container on the underside (non-design side) of the wallpaper. You can either trace the bottom of the container’s shape or place dots to mark each corner.

Cut the wallpaper from the edge of the paper up to the marked container corner on the paper at about a 45 degree angle. If your container is a square (I find this easier to cover than a rectangle), just use the corner of the wallpaper and cut up to the marked container corner on the paper.

Remove the container from its location and peel away the wallpaper backing from the top, bottom and middle area where the container is sitting.  Leave the remaining parts of the wallpaper backing for the moment. Put the container back to its original position using the markings you made earlier on the left and right pieces of the wallpaper backing as a guide.

Bring one of the exposed wallpaper flaps upward and adhere it to the container. Use your hand or wallpaper smoother to remove any bubbles. If your container has any curved edges, you may need to make a slit on the side of the wallpaper so that you can manipulate the wallpaper around the curves.  Leave any excess wallpaper at the top until all sides are completely covered.

Repeat step 5 on the opposite side of the box. Then, remove the backing from the remaining sides of the wallpaper and repeat the process until the whole outside of the box is covered.

When covering the left and right sides of the container, it is okay to overlap the wallpaper beyond the sides to create an angled look on the box. Adhere the wallpaper over the edges of the container about ½” (1 cm) and trim off the excess.

Now you are done and ready to transport your plants in style! Use these boxes to carry your plant babies home from the nursery, plant store or when moving to your next home. The plastic containers will also allow you to water your plants without a mess, just be sure there are no holes in the bottom.

You can also use this wallpaper project to customize storage boxes in your home or office. Spoonflower’s wide array of wallpaper designs allows you the ability to create your own space in your own style… even in your own car!