Wooden Crafts | My Creative Side

I previously posted about a trinket box that I had worked on for a friend, put aside, then picked up again. It seems that I forgot one part of my prior attempt at making this box: the beads.

Back when we had cable TV, I saw a show on HGTV where a woman had strung beads on thread and glued them to the box. I wanted to do the top of my friend’s box in this way. I was using two blues and two neutrals: clear and silver.

Beautiful, right? The problem was that when I was trying to apply them, I had trouble keeping them in straight lines. They wound up going all over the place, and I eventually stripped them all off and repainted the top of the box. Then, I removed any paint and glue stuck to them, and wound up with this mess:

Now, I am stuck trying to figure out which beads are light blue and which are dark blue. Which beads are clear and which are silver. They look somewhat different in the tray, but when I start sorting them, they start to all look alike. I have learned my lesson: until I get good at pasting beads to boxes, I will only use very different colors. This way, if things go wrong, I can sort them with ease.

Does anyone out there have any tips for gluing beads to boxes? If so, I would love to hear them, as I would like to be able to do this successfully some time.

This year is the 40^th birthday for many people I know, including myself and one of my best friends, who was the Maid of Honor at my wedding. She and I both LOVE the ocean/sea, and I found this cute aquamarine sea turtle necklace on line for a great price, but how to package it?

I was in the process of cleaning/organizing my craft room when I found the solution: a sea-themed trinket box I had started making for her several years ago but was never happy with. Time to give it another try I decided. Unfortunately, I can’t give you pictures of all of the steps as I never took pictures when I initially worked on it. I had painted it a color called “Caribbean,” which was perfect. However, there is a shadow box area that I could never get right, so that was where I began my second attempt.

On my first attempt to paint the insert for the shadow box, I covered with with “Coarse Pumice Gel” to give it a sandy texture. I then painted over it with paint that was the color of sand, but the color was too consistent and did not look right. On top of that, the shell I had chosen kept blending into the background. That was when I gave up on my initial attempt.

When I began this second attempt to make this box the pretty item I imagined in my head, I noticed that the insert for the shadow box had expanded and no longer fit. So, first I had to sand down two edges to make it fit again. To fix the color, I got out several different “sandy” colors and a sponge, and gently sponge painted in several layers, being sure not to get too much of any color in any area. Once I felt like the color was right, I got several other shells out and found the one that looked best.

I wanted the sand to sparkle, so out came my glitter Mod Podge (love that stuff)! One layer over the sand, and I was able to call that area done.

After several years in storage, the glass needed a good cleaning, so I cleaned that up.

I wanted it to have a velvet lining, and I found a pair of velveteen black pants no longer fit—perfect! I cut down the fabric to insert in the box. I must not have measured as well as I had thought, though, because the edges stuck up over the lip. I also noticed that the fabric was prone to fraying, so I put some Fray Check around the upper edges and let that dry. Then, with the help of some small, sharp scissors and a good Exacto knife, I was able to trim the edges nicely.

By this time, I noticed that I had gotten a few nicks in the paint, so I made a few touch-ups. When the paint was dry, I checked how the necklace looked in the box. The fabric wasn’t cushy enough. So, I sewed a small pillow to put in the bottom for the necklace to rest on. I also decided that the paint was too matte to represent the sea. I debated between gloss varnish and glitter Mod Podge. I decided the glitter was a little too much and went with the gloss. Here is what I finally wound up with: