Treasure Boxes

This weeks little craft is Treasure Boxes. I made a few of these for my brides maids a while back and decided I wanted to make a few more.

What this will require is:
Paints. I use the cheap Acrylic paints you can find at any craft store
Wooden boxes. I got mine from Craft Wearhouse.
You designs for the tops can be anything you want.
Spray on sealer of some sort.

The batch of blue ones will have people names in gallifrayan written on the tops. I use a program I downloaded from the internet for this.

You need to paint the boxes blue first.

Then when I get a name I put it into the program, print out the image. Use carbon paper to sketch the image onto the top of the box and trace that sketch with a sharpie. Once the sharpie dries I'll seal it.

The other colored ones I have will have the sailor moon emblems drawn onto them. These ones will have pictures.

These are what the little boxes look like before paint.

After paint, which you may need to do a few coats of, they look like this.

Now for the harder part, or the detail work. If you want an image on the top you'll need to find a way to get it on there unless you can draw. I can't. It's as simple as that, so I use things that help me get good images on the tops, like carbon paper. For those who don't know, carbon paper is black paper with one side coated in a fine dust. When you trace the other side this dust gets transferred to the surface of the item you are tracing too. Just put and image over the top and trace.  

Option 2 is to carefully paint on the design. If you have a steady hand and can draw you're good to go.

Option 3. Wood Burning, but that takes a lot of tools and patience.

Option 4. Modge Podge. Everyone loves Modge Podge. In a sense its a quick cheat for projects, but don't use it on anything that's going to get rough treatment.

This is after the modge podging. I'm thinking at some point I'll design better toppers, but for now they'll work.

Beyond this point it's up to you if you want to seal this with something else like resin, or a clear spray, or whatever you choose to use. I"m thinking I might do some more with these with glitter or whatnot and then either resin the tops or spray seal them.

Here I went ahead and added some glitter.

Really you can add anything just make sure you do another layer of sealer. I've sealed the tops of these but still plan to do another layer all over later.

Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, etc. I"m always up for a chat!