Box for Curiosities - Commission

At last it's finished. When you get commissions you often have to work to a brief from your customer. Well I had a friend, Julia, come round to visit and she took the tour of the messy Art Room. Spotting a box she has a eureka moment. "Just the thing for Neil's birthday! Go on Joan do your thing with it"

Oh that left me with so much choice, but rein yourself in girl, no mad neons or over the top Victorian stuff. This is to be for Neil to keep his very special watches and other nick nacks. Oh and there are many, I know he's shown me some from Neolithic arrow heads to 1920's lithe flapper girl bronzes.

So I started with a nine compartment box. Measures 10 x 10 x 2.5 inches. Paint the whole thing black and then gold. By painting any small gaps will look interesting and not like bare wood.

Lots of snipping and sorting through my collection of vintage paper goodies.

Day by day, gluing, more painting, more snipping of paper, this time really old hymn books. Drilling holes, attaching handles, sticking on watch faces, many coats of varnish and then finally its done

Each side has random bits of hymn text and music. Neil is in my church band - plays base guitar.

Each compartment has four sides and one base, had to find a suitable illustration for each one.

Even have a map showing their village.

The handle is a vintage one, possibly made of copper so nice and grungy. Screws however were new, painted those to age them.

Watch faces are vintage but were a bit too clean so they got the grunge treatment too.

Whinge Blogger has turned this around again. But it's pages from Who's Who at the bottom of each compartment, listing all the Jones's. Hey you guessed he's a Jones Boy!

Finally the base, boys Lion Annual collage.

Julia liked it, so let's hope Neil does.

Hope UR all well. Next exciting blog will be a report on my Make, Do and Mend class. First one, so very excited or nervous, can't quite make my mind up on that.