Tutorial: Padded 5 gallon bucket lid

I made this tutorial specially for some fellow LDSers that are preparing to go on a trek this summer. For those of you that don’t know, what we Mormons call a “trek” is a reenactment of the early Mormon pioneers. They came across the country with wagons. Some of them were lucky enough to have wagons that were pulled by oxen, but there were many who came pulling hand carts. The youth in our church reenact that trek by dressing the way they did, giving up many worldly things (cell phones, mp3 players, etc) and going on a 3-5 day journey pulling handcarts. I have never personally been on one, but I hope to one day. The kids and adults that go on the trek come home with an appreciation of the sacrifices those early pioneers freely gave to make it to a place where they could practice their own religion. For more about the early pioneers, please visit this site.

Anyway, during this trek, the youth are allowed one 5 gallon bucket for their belongings. Because of a need to pack light, they cannot take anything other than that bucket. After a long days walk (sometimes up to 12 miles) they would like to have a nice, padded place to sit down. But, they cannot take comfy camp chairs. The solution to that problem, therefore, is… drum roll please..

a padded 5 gallon bucket!

This took me about 15 minutes to make. No, it doesn’t look professional by any stretch of the imagination, but it will do the job.

Here are the supplies you need:

Fabric – (the piece I used was 25X19 although I cut off quite a bit. I think 22X19 would probably be enough. If there is a chance they will get wet, use waterproof fabric. You can find table cloths at yard sales or thrift stores if you’re lucky!)
scissors
glue gun
stuffing (I used left over blanket stuff that I had. Just get something soft that you can stuff in there)
A 5 gallon bucket lid, of course

Here is what you do:

1. Lay out your fabric, with the front side down.
2. Lay your lid, also front side down on your fabric. Lay it pretty close to an edge (3 inches or so away)
3. Put a little hot glue on the inside rim of the bucket lid. Tuck over a piece of fabric.

 4. Keep putting glue on and tucking over fabric

 and fold it over just like you’ve been doing with the rest of the fabric. Continue working around the lid until you have gotten ALMOST all the way around, but don’t do the whole thing!

You’ll get almost done and you’ll realize that it looks like this: