Aged Treasure Chest

Good sunshiny morning!  I have a very cool treasure chest to share with you today.  My friend is getting married with a nautical theme, and she asked me to make her a treasure box to hold the cards at the gift table instead of the classic birdcage or decorative box. 

We played around with a couple of proto-types, but they were all too small to hold a large card, let alone several. 

That's when I knew I was going to have to get creative and play with a couple of different kits to get the look we were after. 

I used these kits from SVG Cuts:

Ryan's Play Date

I used just the sides and bottom of the box

My Day with Dad

I used the lid from the tool box, but not the sides of the lid (I cut a few extra slits in the tabs so that it would fit around a semi-circle).

French Quarter Ironwork

I used the fleur decorative piece, and just cut it to fit.

I also used some basic shapes from my library such as the half circle (for the lid sides) and an oval stretched out (for the closure)

I used Lori Whitlock's Hinges for the back of the lid and to hold the handles.

For the "gold" rim, I used gold colored cardstock and cut 2"x the correct length of the side that I was using it on.

Now, this might sound a little confusing, but it really helped make a clean edge.

I folded it in quarters, then glued the two ends over to create a clean edge and then glued the gold piece in place on the box. (this was very time consuming because of all the glue that had to set, so I eventually got smart and used my glue gun...much quicker)

I used my distressed stripes embossing folder for the wood grain look and I used a dark brown ink to really make it look like aged wood. 

You might notice the handles look different.  The bottom picture is from the first time around with a round handle, but that was adjusted to the smaller more oval shape of the above picture...much better. 

To hold the hinges, handles and closure in place I used copper brads and for the top of the lid, I decorated the bands with pearls and rhinestones.

This really was a labor of love...mostly because I wanted to make it look like wood, which meant I had to cut all of the brown paper into strips and for the interior (in a darker shade of brown) I just inked the edges with black. But for the outside of the box, I not only embossed and inked the pieces, I also put some small foam squares to the bottom part of the pieces to make them look like they are layered.

I kid you not, this thing is super sturdy...Oh and I used black as my base for the chest so that I had a surface to glue all of the wood planks to, so it's 3 layers thick. The handles are made with 8 ovals so they are really strudy and the closure is 2 layers thick.

I think it's really cool that it closes just right and it even has the hole for the lock, should it ever be needed.

This is the inside, really quite deep. The box measures just about 10"x10", but the inside box part is 6.75"x10"x7.5"

I hope you are having a fantastic weekend! I love seeing what other crafters are up to, so stop by my facebook page and comment on my post featuring the treasure chest to share what projects you've been working on and you will be entered to a drawing for a $5.00 gift card to Starbucks. Winners will be picked on Wednesday, 8/15/12.

Also SVG Cuts has another freebie up on their blog along with 237 other freebies!

How awesome is that?!?

They also have a free gift up for the week...spend $9.98 or more and get this file free: