Hello Wednesday people, how are you? We have been enjoying the sunshine here, although it seems to have disappeared for now, so that means I don’t feel guilty about abandoning the garden chores to settle inside at my table and make something pretty. This week I have been repurposing an old cigar box into a place to keep all my favourite jewellery.
I have been wanting to decorate a box like this ever since I saw Artemis’s lovely treasure box back in 2011 (only a bit slow then). So when we discovered this old cigar box in the shed that came with our house – filled with old pencils and charcoal I thought it would be the perfect thing!
With quite an addiction to buying paint tester pots I have a fair few to choose from, so I selected these happy and bright colours from Little Greene - and with the home office near completion I obviously needed more? So a dash of ’Black Jack’ and a splash of ‘Leather’ (bright Pink) were thrown into the mix and added to my burgeoning collection. 
This is my side of the bed temporarily splashed with colour as it was too dark to photograph in the dressing room. The husband will be home later and wonder what the hell happened to our pale and tranquil bedroom – never you mind, the anglepoises will be replaced before you know it and the floral pillowcase is going back in the cupboard love!
So if you would like to make a box like this for your treasures above it what you’ll need. To get started there needs to be a box! Once you have that just clean it off and paint in your favourite colours, I went mad for bright yellow, green, pink and a black lid. I made the scalloped edge by measuring the centre front and drawing around a cotton reel with pencil then filling it in with pink paint.
Let your paint is dry – I did a few coats to cover up the varnished brown beneath and made a few colour changes along the way – the lid went from yellow to pink and eventually ended up black. Luckily the Liberty fabric I chose for inside is ablaze with colours to highlight galore.
When it is all dry you could give it a spray over with a clear matt lacquer just to keep the paint from wearing off (I forgot to add that to the shopping list) then cut card shapes to fit inside the lid and base. I used a thickish card in the lid so it would allow pins to be stuck in it to hang my favourite pieces of vintage costume jewellery. In the bottom is the remains of a ‘do not bend’ envelope – see, being a hoarder of ‘useful’ things is finally paying off!
Using your card pieces for templates cut out your chosen fabric with an inch extra all around the edges. Use the double sided tape on the back to secure the fabric in place folding in the corners as you go. Then add more double sided tape and I used little diamante glue blobs here and there to secure the card once it is pushed into place. Let it dry and that’s it you are done, now you can fill your box with, jewellery, a stash of candy or whatever treasures you want. I hope this has cheered you on this cloudy Wednesday, I hope to be back later with my Etsy four post x