Marvel Toy Chest

Ive recently bought a new house and have given my two kids permission to design their room anyway they wish. My youngest son has asked for a marvel themed room so Ive started with this Toy chest.

What you'll Need

Basic box made from Wood ( MDF or similar as easy to work with )

Blue Paint

Red Paint

White Paint ( I used a wood gloss paint)

Marvel Wallpaper

Electric sander

Sandpaper ( Various roughness)

Printed Marvel sign on A4 Paper

double sided sticky tape

masking paint

Paint brushes and rollers

scissors

Stanley blade

This was made out of MDF Boards but was not made by me . I have made toy chests in the past so If anyone needs instructions on how to create a similar box like this let me know and Ill draw up some specs. But I am a fan of reclaiming and using old or used items and I found this box at a refuse centre near my home. It seems to have been used to celebrate Germany winning the world cup. So I decided this would save a bit of time rather than building my own chest. Ohh apologies on the photo its the only one i had of any pre work the box is on its side.

Because of the current paint job on the box and how rough it felt . I decided to sand the entire box down back to as close as the original wood as i could get. I used both an electric power sander and sand paper of varying roughness.

Once I have the box sanded to my liking I put on a white basecoat over the entire thing. Notice I put on more on the lid than the sides. You can paint the whole box as you wish but I decided to concentrate on the lid mostly as the sides will be covered by the marvel paper later on so i only put on a few coats here .

I decided I wanted the marvel sign in the middle of the box so i masked out the Area I need using masking tape and an old piece of cardboard. I also masked out the other areas I wanted to remain white, like the backstrip of wood , handle and the lock ( Which has also been painted white). I applied enough coats until I achieved the shade of blue I wanted. Then carefully removed the masks after the paint had dried. There was some bleeding ,which I noticed happened throughout this build but those will be touched up later. Im left with a reasonably clean blue lid with a white box in the centre

Ive seen a few of these done in the past some use stickers , others paste on actual comic book covers which is cool and unique but very time consuming. I opted for the marvel wallpaper stuck on with wallpaper paste which was cut in strips of 5cm longer than the box so it overlapped on both the bottom and the top for a cleaner finish. A Tip when doing this is to raise the box off the floor using two pieces of wood so you can overlap the paper at the bottom with ease. Also use the wallpaper paste as its easier to move the paper is needed , most other adhesives like pva glue etc you have very little margin for error.

To make the stencil I printed out the Marvel sign using a pc and a laserjet printer ( doesnt matter which printer you use as its only the letters we are interested in).

Because of the size of my box I had to use 2 x A4 sheets to create the stencil. I printed the first starting at the M and the second ending with the L. I cut out the letters using scissors and a craft knife, the MAR on the first sheet and the RVEL on the other. I then stuck the two R's overlapping to get me my entire Marvel Stencil.

Once this was done I covered the entire reverse with double sided sticky tape. Make sure all edges are covered as you will see later why. Then cut out the letters again so you have your marvel sign again but this time with double sided tape on the reverse. ( You could use an already prepared sticky sheet and print on that )

One thing I noticed at the end was the attachment of the E and L , I added this so i could correctly position the letters but I should of removed the link before painting. Make sure you cut this away before painting the stencil.

The stencil is then stuck onto the white area of the lid ready for painting

So Again I masked out the area around the white box to stop any paint going onto the blue lid. I then rolled my red paint over the stencil. (I didnt use the brush much in the painting of this as I dont like the brush strokes left behind. I prefer the clean effect given by the mini roller. The brush was only used in hard to reach areas) Again as before let it dry then coat again and again until your happy with the colour.

once Im happy with the paint layer I carefully remove the stencil. First thing I notice is the bleed onto the letters and gaps between the red box and the blue lid. These where just masked again in the areas required and a few coats with a brush to patch it up. Once dry these are removed and its Done .

This is the final result . One extra thing remember to remove the link between the E and L as I seemingly forget as you can see in these images. I just masked that area and painted red again and touched up any untidy paint work for my final piece.