Altered Cigar (Treasure) Box #1

Hello to all - I recently spent several weeks refurbishing two old cigar boxes that I have been saving (for that special person/persons) and after deciding who the recipients were going to be (my nephews) -and  after many hours of day dreaming - collecting small items (that I believe a young boy/man would like) and printing my own artwork -

This was my first altered cigar box and it was created for my nephew Joshua for a Christmas gift.

I set about gathering various papers and using my very favorite glossy "Modpodge" to put it all together.

Pictured above is the outside of the first box.  I decided to leave it as a cigar box and I polished it and cleaned it up a bit to bring out the wood sheen.  For this I used "Old English" and a cotton cloth.

Below is a photo of the top half of the inside - I used various patterned paper and metallic gold paint to do the trim.  I personalized the box by gluing in scrapbook postage stamp letters and I also glued in a Lego piece as well as a sea shell, pirate coin and small prints of my own paintings of beach scenes.

  Here you can see the detail of the inside bottom.  In the top left corner I glued a small Jack-in-the-box figure - at the far right corner I glued in a Star Wars miniature figure.  Since my young recipient likes to travel - I glued a Garden State Parkway token on the bottom left corner - and to the right I glued a miniature tire from an old toy car.  At the center on the bottom I glued a small figure of a Bearenstain Bear leaning on a baseball bat.  I also printed out and glued in two of my artworks - The Sun and Ferris Wheel.

 The idea was to keep the integrity of the outside of the cigar box looking the same - for I felt it was beautiful just the way it was - and my hope is  that when my nephew opens the box - he would feel the magic of  all the thought and love that went into creating it.  I also left plenty of room for him to add his own treasures over the many years to come - so that the Treasure Box would then be a keepsake he would always have as a reminder of how special he is.

oxoxoxoxm Daisy Rita