Saturday, April 11, 2020

Cabinet of Curiosities - Case

Since we have been social distancing, I have had time to get to something that has been on my "to do" list for a number of  years. Before you can adhere the embroidery to the wooden casket, you need to glue a layer of paper to the raw wood. I had done this with the Goldfish trinket box so I thought I knew what to do. Turned out to be a bit harder that I thought.  I studied the videos of the steps to cover the box with paper first, then either decorative paper or fabric. After looking at several samples I decided that some it was just whatever you want to do. All of the samples were unique.
So I started in on the cream paper for the outside of the drawers and the case. That went fairly smoothly but I did use a lot more glue that I thought I would. I used rice glue because I figured that the usual wheat paste would not do my Celiac any good.  The rice glue has been used in Japan for centuries so I knew it was stable and would glue paper and fabric to wood.



Here is the whole case covered. Since the paper takes up more room than you might think, the top lid will not fit in place yet. I will have to think about just how to adjust  the pieces but for now it is what it is.

These are the various drawers, lids and bits. Some of them have marbled paper on them. When we traveled to Italy a number of years ago. We went into a fabulous shop in Florence that had drawers of hand marbled paper and I found the greatest paper.  Other parts have silk Duponi  and silk velvet is in the bottoms of just a few drawers. I have been lucky to find paper, Duponi and velvet that match.








Here is the main case with the ink well, pounce pot and pin cushion in place.



I wanted something to decorate this front panel of the case. You can't see it with the other sliding panel in place but the thought of it being there makes me happy. I used period appropriate flowers and painted them on paper before I glued it in place.



1 comment:

  1. It's a labor of love. I can't wait to see the next step.

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