A new piece for the museum is finished!

Some days are just days of accomplishments.

This morning I decided it was time to finally do a much postponed project: the Feejee mermaid case.  I bought a couple of mermaid skeleton charms (just in case one of them got ruined), and asked dear husband to please paint one with his acrylic paints, like he does with his Warhammer skeletons.  "How do you want me to paint it? With shadows, or...?", he asked.  "Paint it however you think it will look best", I said.  And he did, and the results were fantastic!

So, my job was about to start.  Initially, I thought of making the case to showcase the mermaid skeleton with scrapbooking cardboard.  But it looked kind of bland to me, so I decided to use wood instead.  I purchased popsickle sticks, and cut 4 of them to measure to make the body of the case:

2 parts for the bottom, 1 part for each side

And two small pieces to complete the case

All glued up!

After that, it was time to stain and paint.  I wanted the inside to look old, and the outside to give some contrast.  So I stained the inside with Inktense Chestnut ink, and painted the outside with black paint:

Then, I cut a piece of tan velvet paper to cover the bottom of the inside, where the skeleton would lay, as to mimic the look of sand in a beach:

Then I glued the piece of paper and the skeleton, and vòila!

I even added a couple of pamphlets from Victorian exhibitions related to the Feejee mermaid, and a picture of a gentleman posing with one of the multiples Feejee mermaids that were so popular back in the day.

I absolutely love the final look!  It already has a place of honor in Kassandra's museum:

Is it hoax? Is it true? Who knows!

The musuem is coming along very nicely, but still a lot of work to be done!

Crafting for the museum

Isn't it wonderful when you just have to craft something because you cannot wait to see it finished?  The museum room is starting to have pieces to display.  First one: a jewelry box that used to belong to an Egyptian queen!

Remember that old jewelry box that I repurposed into a Tarot cards box?  Well, it has been repurposed again into a jewelry box!  I removed the golden sun charm from the lid, and painted it again for a new decoration.  Hubby lent me the paints - I had to use a mix of two colors to match the box's brown:

Then, I used an scarab charm to decorate the lid.  I wanted it to be yellow gold, like most jewels were in the Ancient Egypt.  I simply painted the scarab with a golden paint, let it dry, and affixed it to the lid:

Before and after painting

I even added a red jewel to the center of the piece!

Then I decorated the sides with scenes taken from Egyptian papyrus, depicting scenes from the Book of Dead.

And the most fun part: to add the jewels inside!  Naturally, they are pieces from Bindels, except the Ankh, which I already had.  A nice pair of lotus earrings, a bracelet and a charm piece!  I love them!

I hope to be able to do the table in which everything Egyptian will be displayed this weekend.