A project for two afternoons: makeup chest!

 Today I found Kassandra very happy, opening a gift that someone had given her.

"Hello! What is that you are opening?"

"Hello dear!  Oh, I am overjoyed!  The principal dancer of a ballet company with which I work from time to time has given this to me."

"Oh, how cute!  Is it a makeup chest?"

"Yes!  Oh, Erika is such a dear!  I love her so much.  I have seen her progress from a novice dancer to a great ballerina.  She deserves all the success in the world."

"I am sure she does.  And I hope you enjoy your makeup box!"

"I am ready to fill it up!"

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Fantasy apart, I saw a similar box in Facebook, and very much wanted to make my own.   I am in a phase now that I love what I call the "dancer pink" color, so I wanted the box to place it in the ballet studio.  I started with an ordinary box made of plain, untreated wood, and painted it pink:

 

Then I decided to cover the inside with a textured paper.  I was going to use a tan suede paper, but my husband said that looked too dark, and suggested something in ivory.  So I used the same fabric paper that I used in the natural history cabinet:

 

Trying on the patterns

Bottom side...

... and lid

Since it was a makeup chest, I wanted to include a mirror.  At first I thought of using a spare mirror I had in 1:144 scale, but it was very small, and I didn't like it.  So instead, I cut a piece of an acrylic mirror (the same type I used to hang in the ballet studio):

Dry fit to check the size

Wonderful!

 

I did not want to paint the bottom, so instead I covered it with a black suede paper, so it wouln't slide on the surfaces:

 

Then, embellishments!  So naturally, gold brass corners and a functional hinge (I love it!):

It looks perfect!

Next step, to craft some tiny makeup!  It was easier than I thought, with some help from YouTube videos made by talented crafters:

 

The lashes box comes from Zenas Miniatures; the two nail polishes I made following this video; the eye shadow pallete I got from here, and simply glued it to a piece of black Eva foam.  The gold nail file I made with gold textured cardboard, and the mascara bottle is just a piece of black paper glued around a toothpick that was painted with gold paint.  I covered the paper with a piece of clear adhesive tape.

It looks lovely in the ballet studio!

A new chest finished

Remember when I made that vampire hunting chest kit?  Well, one was not enough, so I had to make another.  Bigger and better!

I bought a Dragonfly trunk kit a long time ago.  It was supposed to be something like this:

Stock photo

 

But it turned out to be very small for what I wanted to do with it; after all, it was supposed to be a doll trunk, so I turned it into another vampire hunting chest:

It was a project that I had postponed for a very long time.  I am happy to have finally finished it.  Here are some pics of the making process.

This is the new, opened kit:

 

I started by assembling the two boxes that would make the main body of the trunk, and then staining them with brown ink:

After that, I covered the inside with red velvet paper:

Then I assembled the drawers, stained them, covered the inside and put them in place:

Then I started getting together what was going to be put inside.  I chose a cross and a couple of candles for one of the trunk sides, and a hand mirror, a bible and wooden stakes for the other:

 

Next, to cover the outside with a faux leather finish.  A black faux leather was included with the set, but it was 1 mm too short to use (a pity, I really liked it!), so I used the same faux snake skin I used in the folders for the maps cabinet:

And then I put the gold embelishments: hinges, corners, locks, handle and the keyhole.  Everything is from Bindels Ornaments, except the locks:

 

 I absolutely love the locks!  They even have a mobile part that latches into the other piece.  I got them in one of Tom Bishop's shows.  And then I put some extra stuff in the drawers.  A necklace with a cross, and a bottle of holy water.  The mallet I made from polymer clay a long time ago for the other chest, but it looks way better in this one:

And voilà!

 I hope you like it as much as I do :)

New chest piece for the study

This one was so much fun to make, but very challenging too!  Here a picture speaks more than a thousand words:

I saw this original piece in Unique Miniatures' shop, and I wanted to make one as well.  Working with such tiny coins was difficult, but fun:

Now the piece is displayed on the cabinet in Kassandra's study: