A quick writeup on another gift box.
This one started from a prefab box (Darice unfinished cigar box), and went through a few finishing stages.
(Boooorrriiiinnnnnggggg zzzzzz)
First up, the engrave. I made a stylized Pisces symbol out of the fish and surrounded them with a wave border. I filled in the waves with a textured background to give the vector shapes some variation in the engrave. (engraved with variable power setting turned on) The box fit nicely in the GF and required no extra height adjustment, the top naturally sat in the 0.5" engravable height range of the GF.
Once engraved, I quickly cleaned up an smoke residue with a denatured alcohol wipedown. Once it dried thoroughly, I mixed up some black ink (Speedball #3400) with water to make a fairly dilute mix, I’d say it was about 20:1 water to ink, and wiped it liberally on the surface. After about 5 seconds I immediately wiped the ink off, I was going for a very light wash of color. I think it came out nicely, my sister is very beachy and this looks a great deal like driftwood.
The interior is lined with self-adhesive printed cork sheets (DCWV brand premium cork stack), I chose two contracting prints and I think the effect is pretty pleasing.
(Calipers for scale. Definitely not because I was in a hurry and just left stuff everywhere. Nooope.)
For hinges, I used leather tabs to make a rustic living hinge. This is definitely my new favorite trick. The box came with some serviceable silvery chromed hinges, but they looked cheap (and were cheap, the whole box was $5!). I think the leather adds to the design.
[PHOTO NOT AVAILABLE]. Dang forgot to picture this. See my other gift box post for the gist… Gift box for my Aries sister - #3 by Jules
I didn’t make a proper “latch”, but I did make something to keep the top aligned, a custom sea turtle adornment. This is made from non-PG maple (Green Valley Wood Products), and was dyed in a similar way to the rest of the box with more ink (Speedball #3409 Turquoise).
I decided not to finish the wood any further. Oiling it or anything would have taken the “driftwoodiness” from it.
In all, I’m pretty pleased with it. 
