Small saleable boxes 1

 Boxes for sale 

I’ve always made items that interest me and are a challenge to design and make as well.   The more complex the better.  Making simple quick things or bits for the workshop just doesn’t appeal.  But it got to the stage where we had too many boxes in the house, so my wife suggested I try and sell some …….  

Well, I started selling them off around 4 years ago, which was always sad as they went from the gallery.  Particularly as I had never made them with any intention of selling them.  

 

But when the gallery closed, and I found a new one to showcase my work, I decided to have a go at making small ‘affordable’ boxes specifically to sell.  I had always wanted to dabble with decorative tops on boxes using gold dust, seashell, and eggshell, - inspired by Japanese lacquered boxes. 

 

So, I came up with simple small box concept that could be made from timber off cuts.   They would have simple mitred and splined corners, with rebates inside and out, so the lid would fit without the need for catches, hinges or magnets. 

 

These are the first ones – before the lids were cut off. 

 

I finish the boxes before starting on the decorative lid. So the lids have had three or four coats of poly finished to 3000 grit to give me a flat sealed surface to work on.  

I use masking tape to delineate the areas. The eggshell chips were then placed into wet polyurethane varnish doing just a small area at a time, otherwise the poly goes off.  It’s a very therapeutic process!! I use a pin in the end of a piece of dowel.  I dip the pin into the poly on the box lid which is just enough to make a tiny piece of shell stick to the pin.  As you position it there’s more poly on the lid so the shell sticks to the lid and you can then position it with the pin.  The abalone/pau shell chips are applied in the same way.  Once all the shell is in place, the masking tape is removed, and numerous coats of polyurethane are applied to build up a flat surface again that can be sanded and finally wax polished.  For numerous - think 20 or so coats! 

 

For the tree silhouette I made a mask of the tree and its branches from masking tape which I stuck on the finished top.  The top is then coated with polyurethane and gold dust sprinkled on.  Once dry, the mask is removed, excess gold dust is brushed off and again numerous coats of polyurethane are applied to build up a flat surface. 

 

To sprinkle the gold dust I use the tubes/pipes below.  They are covered with bits of redundant abranet mesh sanding disc. The tubes have the dust put in them using the funnel and little spoon.   You can get different dusting effects by hold the sprinkler higher or lower and going over the surface a few times in certain areas.  All trial and error!!   

 

 

Below is a commercial bought Japanese sprinkler tube which you can get with different gauges of mesh. 

 

 

The star bust with gold dust, pau shell and eggshell, has a gold jewellery finding as its centre.  As with the other boxes numerous coats of ploy build up a surface that covers all the applied bits and pieces enable a flat polished surface to be achieved. 

 

The wave effect of pau shell and gold dust used a similar masking tape mask to delineate the different areas. 

 

The fun thing about these boxes was that they were made quite with the construction taking very little thought and time, unlike my usual projects. This enabled me to have more fun fiddling with the decoration on the lids. 

 

I’ll post some more on the next set of boxes I’ve made with different decoration ideas on the lids. 

 

Thanks for looking,