This box was started about an hour ago. My motivation? Use up about 600 sq ft of collected seashells (I live in Florida) and combine them with something ELSE that’s taking up room, which is about two dozen of these glass topped wood boxes that have been MOCKING ME for several years now. Their mocking tone still haunts me in my most private moments…but I digress.
Really, this shell started it all. It has the most gorgeous naturally made writing on it, so much so that it made me think of a long lost unforgiven song. Another storage box yielded the broken religious necklace in blue, and I happened to have a shoebox full of drilled glass jewels so I selected one. I applied mortar to the bottom of this box which should work, if I used enough. Which I’m beginning to doubt. Then I drew symbols and textured the mortar itself to echo the marks on the shell.
One would think the next step is to wait for it to dry and see if it all falls apart. If it does I will probably lather, rinse and repeat. If it doesn’t, the fun begins. Will the mortar dissolve if I try to antique the background? Will that stress pop off the inclusions? It also needs writing, so I’ll be thinking about what to write on the top of the box and around the edges. Right now the box is raw wood. Paint, stain, crackle?? White wash? The uncertainty of it all. Oh. the. uncertainty.
What do YOU think about it?
Crickyn 
ok, nobody said anything so i poured coffee on it.
How’d the coffee go? And could you pickle/whitewash the wood to make it look like driftwood? Or glue driftwood around the perimeter of the outside of the lid, like a frame?
(If it was me, I’d hang sirens off it or something equally as out-of-the-box, but I don’t think that’s what you’re going for. LOL!)
hi elli thanks for responding. the coffee looked ok, but beware. Dollar Store wood boxes leak. and it did make the mortar soft, but it looked good. the reason i didn’t whitewash was because i whitewashed one yesterday, but of course you couldn’t know that. i wanted to do something different, so i walnut ink’d it, which gave it a nice warm wood glow that i really like, and i put walnut ink also over the top of the coffee on the mortar, so we have a flavored coffee vibe going on in there. a nifty surprise when you open the lid, i must say!
I think it’s cool! The beads kinda look snakey. I wanna see some little something in the broken part of the shell top, but that’s just the way I am. Don’t know how it looks in real life, but in the pic it looks like it has eyes and a mouth. And hey, I paid more for those boxes at a craft store than a dollar, and never did anything with them!
yep, i got them at the dollar store and never saw them again in there. but i have plenty, let’s say. i think it looks older in real life than in the picture, the walnut ink is dark. thanks for commenting and looking! t
So, yeah. What falls off wasn’t meant to be there? Haha … art supplies are mocking you. Drink the coffee so that your brain is moving too fast to hear “the voices.”
hi diana. isn’t that the rule, if it falls off it wasn’t part of the plan. and oh yes, the art supplies, they do mock. don’t even ask me about the paper napkins. they multiply, no matter how many you use. you’re supposed to DRINK the coffee??? that changes everything.