The box needed to be quite large (minimum 10x15x12 cm) in order to fit a prepurchased gift inside. Here is what I came up with:
As soon as I read the request I knew that I wanted to use the new Timberline papers with the chocolate woodgrain washi tape. I had been planning on using this combination for an upcoming kids workshop to make a father's day gift, so this was a great chance to make sure the combination worked.
First thing I had to do was design a net that would give me the correct size and shape (lucky I was fairly good at maths at school). I always draw a rough sketch of how I want my nets to look before I draw them to scale on scrap paper and cut them out. It is important to take into consideration the size of the paper you are actually going to use (in this case 12x12 inches) - you want to make sure your pieces will fit on the paper. [There is one piece missing from the photo below.]
This chest required 3 pieces of cardstock. I chose to use Kraft Cardstock to complement the look of the woodgrain paper.
I used tombow and glue dots to glue the flaps down to create the 3D chest. I use the tombow along the edges of the flaps to stop them lifting and looking untidy and then place a dot on either end of the flaps to give it strength.
Next I cut out rectangular pieces from the timberline paper to cover each of the rectangular surfaces on the chest. It is important to make sure that the 'grain' in the wood is running the right way when placed on the chest. To cut the two trapezoids on the sides of the lid of the box I simply cut that piece out of my net and used it as a guide.
I glued the timberline pieces to the chest using bonding memories glue.
Next I cut lengths of the washi tape and covered all the edges. This helped reinforce the chest as well as hide any edges where the timberline paper had not quite sat flush with the edge.
Once this was all done I felt the chest still needed something. After much deliberation I finally decided a closing mechanism looking somewhat like the padlocks on old chests would work.
I used dimensional elements (framework and mixed shapes) and covered them with bronze shimmer trim. I cut lengths of the shimmer trim and placed them side by side over the dimensional element until it was covered, then I trimmed the excess shimmer trim off with scissors (love my micro-tip scissors for this fiddly kind of work).
This left the edges of the elements looking blatantly white - no problems, easy fix - grabbed a dauber and my chocolate ink and coloured the edges to be a less distracting chocolate brown.
A piece of ribbon from my stash was easily stuck to the back of the two dimensional elements using glue dots and the top element was stuck to the top of the chest with more glue dots. I then put a piece of velcro behind the bottom element - and here is a trick - you stick the joining piece of velcro to it as well (so you have the element, then ribbon, then a velcro hook dot, then a velcro loop dot with it's tacky side facing outwards). Now I can position the bottom element where I want it to be when the chest is closed and push down so that the velcro sticks. Then I carefully open up the chest to make sure that velcro piece now stuck on the chest is stuck down firmly.
Finally I decided the chest didn't look 'piratey' enough so I added some triangle studs.
I was very happy with the outcome but discovered a devastating problem..... Master 3 thought it was for him!
