Category : Handmade / Decorated Boxes

Handmade Dragon Egg Boxes

Clay,Handmade,Handmade / Decorated Boxes,Handmade Box,Other Crafts,Outside the Box by Snazzie

Apr.21,2019

Dragon Egg Box by Snazzie Designz

These are experimental handmade dragon eggs which open and close so that you can keep stuff in them. When they are close the seam follows the scales so it is almost imperceptible unless you know its there.

The first egg was inspired by Drogon’s egg from the “Game of Thrones”. Unlike the TV show replica which has scales which protrude which seems unlikely for an egg, I wanted to make mine more like the book description which is that it looked like red and black stone.

The stone that really inspired me is Eudialyte, a very rare crystal which apart from being spectacularly beautiful is exactly the colours I wanted for my egg. When I looked up further information about eudialyte it turns out that the rich cadmium colour in the stone is referred to by Russian dealers as “Dragon’s Blood” which seemed perfect for a dragon egg.

Also unlike the TV prop, this egg opens and the lid and base slot together so seamlessly that you can hold it by the lid and it will stick together.

With the second experimental egg I tried a different texturing technique which does look more like stone though not quite what I’m looking for. This one has the colouring of Viscerion’s egg which is cream with strips of gold and bronze through it.

On re-reading the Game of Thrones books the scales are described as being very small so I will be experimenting with different textures and scale sizes for the next one.

Dragon Egg Box by Snazzie Designz

Tags : box, crafts, designs, designz, dragon, drogon, egg, handmade, snazzie, snazzy

Handmade R.A.F. Medal Box

Handmade,Handmade / Decorated Boxes,Handmade Box by Snazzie

Jun.27,2018

This box is of my own unique and one-off design specifically made for a set of R.a.F. medals for a veteran in the R.A.F. The box is entirely handmade made of oak, teak and mahogany and the various parts of the 3D crest individually cut are made of maple, basswood, beech and American walnut.

Handmade RAF Medal Box by snazzie designz

Handmade RAF Medal Box by snazzie designz

The compartments of the box are specifically sized to each of the medals and have holes in them for the pins at the back so that the medals sit flush in the box. The indentations on the middle tray not only serve as finger holds so that you can lift the tray out, but also make the tray into a cross shape that matches the top of the crown.

Handmade RAF Medal Box by snazzie designz

Handmade RAF Medal Box by snazzie designz

Handmade RAF Medal Box by snazzie designz

Handmade RAF Medal Box by snazzie designz

Per Ardua Ad Astra is the R.A.F. motto pyrographed (burned) into the sides of the lid which loosely translates as Through adversity to the stars.

Handmade RAF Medal Box by snazzie designz

All of the parts were individually cut with a fret/scroll saw including the wings, head body and claws of the eagle. The text on the motto scroll is burned into the wood. the text on the crest is hand painted in gold.

The beak & claws took extra precision cutting as they are each less than 1cm square in size and the talons are about 2mm.

Handmade RAF Plaque by snazzie designz

Handmade RAF Plaque by snazzie designz

Inside lid with a maple veneer marquetry inlay of the R.A.F. crest.

Handmade RAF Medal Box by snazzie designz

Since the Eagle Squadrons were for American crew serving in the R.A.F., the eagle’s wings and body are individually cut from American walnut from Seattle.

Handmade RAF Medal Box by snazzie designz

For the keen eyed amongst you, you may notice that the crown on the crest is the King’s Crown rather than the Queen’s Crown since this has been made for an RAF veteran.

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Tags : box, craft, custom, eagle squadron 71, handmade, medal, RAF, woodworking

Handmade Butterfly Box

Handmade,Handmade / Decorated Boxes by Snazzie

Jun.10,2018

Butterfly box designed and hand made by Snazzie Designz.

This is a one-off custom made butterfly box which was made for the Summer Craft Competition promoting collaboration between stock photographers and craft makers on deviantArt.

Butterfly box designed and handmade by snazzie designz

I really loved the idea of this project, and the promotion of photographers and crafts people working together to create something altogether new. I also love to collaborate with other inspiring people. So this box was inspired by the wonderful monarch butterfly stock photo by Egil21 on deviantArt.

The box and lid were cut in four layers with a scroll/fret saw to a pattern that I made from tracing the photo. I then wood burned the wing pattern on both sides of the lid because monarch butterfly wings are patterned similarly on the underside. I then added colour and finish to it.

Butterfly box designed and handmade by snazzie designz - Work in progress

I then cut out the middle body part (which I’m sure someone will tell me the scientific name for) and added antennae made from copper wire and beads spray painted dark brown. It sits on a layer of felt which is the fluffy hair on the butterfly, but it doesn’t come out too well in the photo.

Butterfly box designed and handmade by snazzie designz - Work in progress

Butterfly box designed and handmade by snazzie designz - Work in progress

The wings of the butterfly act as the lids of the box and open up to reveal the contents within. It went against my nature to then have to cut its wings off, but of course I would be re-attaching them via small hinges so that they would rise up and down like butterfly wings, and act as the opening lids of the box.

Butterfly box designed and handmade by snazzie designz - Work in progress

Butterfly box designed and handmade by snazzie designz - Work in progress

The box is lined with felt in the same pattern as the wings, which meant painstakingly cutting out tiny pieces of felt and trying not to glue them to my fingers instead of the box bottom! Never again!!!! 😀

Butterfly box designed and handmade by snazzie designz - Work in progress

Oddly the hardest part of this entire project was painting the base of the box. I nearly threw it out the window on several occasions. At first I couldn’t get an even coat, so I put an acrylic base on it as a primer. This was a disaster, and the acrylic started to peel off. So I sanded it all back and started all over again. This time I used a proper oil-based primer, but it didn’t cure properly and after several attempts to patch it up I ended up sanding the whole thing off again and starting all over.

Butterfly box designed and handmade by snazzie designz - Work in progress

Finally after some online research I discovered that particular raw woods such as pine are notoriously difficult to get an even coat of spray paint on. Also I discovered that you can get a spray primer which I got and hey presto! It filled in tiny holes in the grain, and provided a sooth and solid foundation for the spray paint. I decided to use a textured spray paint on the base just to tone it down and blend into the background more because I want the butterfly to stand out.

Butterfly box designed and handmade by snazzie designz - Work in progress

Butterfly box designed and handmade by snazzie designz - Work in progress

Tags : box, butterfly, handmade

Handmade Chequering Tools Box

Handmade,Handmade / Decorated Boxes,WellSnazzie Collaboration by Snazzie

Jun.9,2018

Chequering Toolbox with Dragon Pyrograph Decoration.

Chequering Tool Box

I bought some chequering tools which came in an awful cardboard box which looked awful. So Aldwarke very kindly and most expertly made me a wooden tool box for them. As you can see below it took some precision measurements and cutting to get the hollows the exact size for the tools.

Chequering Tool Box

Chequering Tool Box

Chequering Tool Box

Chequering Tool Box

Chequering Tool Box

Chequering Tool Box

So when I got hold of this beautiful box I obviously wanted to decorate it with something that would do justice to the wonderful craftsmanship that went into the box itself.

Chequering Tool Box

Initially I had planned to decorate the box with hand cut and carved swamp dragons based on the marvellous Paul Kidby illustrations of swamp dragons for the Terry Pratchett Discworld series. However they were too bright and orange to match the more golden wood finish of the box so I cancelled that idea and tried some hand cut and burned traditional Chinese twin dragons

Chequering Tool Box

The Chinese twin dragons were too small and detailed to work well on the box lid. so I decided to cancel that idea too and instead go for one bigger Chinese dragon in gold which would match the colour of the golden wood finish on the box.

Chequering Tool Box

For a full list of all of the WellSnazzie Collaborations please click here.

To see more of Harry’s remarkable craft work check out his gallery on deviantart here.

Aslan Box

Handmade / Decorated Boxes,Handmade Box,Monochrome Pyrography,Pyrography,Pyrography With Colour,WellSnazzie Collaboration by Snazzie

May.11,2018

Aslan Pyrograph

Aslan Box Pyrograph

I was very lucky to get my hands on this beautiful handmade box by Harry Wells. The edges of the lid are hand scalloped with a chisel to reveal a beautiful striped pattern from the ply layers. It reminded me of bite marks, which inspired me to use a lion for the lid decoration.

I’ve always loved the poster for “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” film and I thought it would be perfect for the lid. Also the scalloped edges look like rays of light coming out of Aslan so they seem doubly fitting.

This was also my first time experimenting with blending bottled inks on wood. If the blending is done properly the ink allows for seamless blending as you can see with the background which goes from dark navy, to blue to aquamarine to amber. Unlike paint which masks the wood, hides the grain and hides the burn lines, ink soaks into the wood, enhances the grain and allows the burned shading to come through.

The lid with the wood burning done, before the colour was added.

Aslan Pyrography Monochrome

For a full list of all of the WellSnazzie Collaborations please click here.

To see more of Harry’s remarkable craft work check out his gallery on deviantart here.

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Tags : handmade box aslan pyrography, pyrograph pyrography Aslan woodburning wood burning

Handmade Yin-Yang Box

Handmade / Decorated Boxes,Handmade Box,Other Crafts by Snazzie

Jun.1,2016

Handmade Yin-Yang Box

This is a wedding ring box of my own design inspired by the ancient Yin Yang symbol representing perfect harmonious balance between male and female, and it was handmade by me from start to finish.

Handmade Yin-Yang Box work In Progress

The main part of the box is made of solid oak.

The Yin wood was an off-cut piece of Ipé wood which is rock solid and almost impossible to cut or drill. It took a lot of very slow and patient cutting on my scroll saw to cut it out.

The Yang wood is pine and was much easier to work with, but I was not careful about placing the design on the wood the first time around and the grain of the wood was cutting across the very narrow tail end of the shape. It snapped off when I went to sand it. So I had to re-make the Yang piece this time I placed the shape over the wood so that the grain curves around the tail end of the piece (as circled above) making it nice and strong.

Tags : box, handmade, ring, wedding, wood, wooden, yang, yin

Handmade and Decorated Fishing Box

Handmade / Decorated Boxes,Handmade Box,WellSnazzie Collaboration by Snazzie

Dec.27,2015

Fishing Box Woodburning Pyrograph

This handmade fishing box is a WellSnazzie Collaboration between myself and Harry Wells. Harry made the box and I decorated the lid.

Fishing Box Woodburning Pyrograph

This is a stunningly beautiful fishing box hand made by Harry from American white oak with meranti accents, and a Baltic pine lid suitable for pyrography. I was blown away by the beauty of this box and the masterful way in which it was made.

Fishing Box Woodburning Pyrograph

It was my job to try and match that beauty by decorating the top with an image of a father and son fishing at their favourite lake which they fished at together for decades. I was asked to include a pike on the box in some way so I included a pike leaping out of the water as part of the border.

For a full list of all of the WellSnazzie Collaborations please click here.

To see more of Harry’s remarkable craft work check out his gallery on deviantart here.

Tags : handmade fishing box pyrography wood burning

Handmade Chisel Box With Pyrographed Decoration

Handmade / Decorated Boxes,Handmade Box,Pyrography,Pyrography With Colour,WellSnazzie Collaboration by Snazzie

Apr.20,2015

This incredible chisel box was made by Harry and I had the very great pleasure of decorating it with Japanese inspired imagery.

The chisels are marvellous Kirshcen brand chisels. Kirschen means “cherries” in German, so I decided to do a cherry blossom themed box to match. The cherry blossom designs are inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

Handmade chisel Box With Cherry Blossom Pyrograph by snazzie designz

Handmade chisel Box With Cherry Blossom Pyrograph by snazzie designz

Handmade chisel Box With Cherry Blossom Pyrograph by snazzie designz

Handmade chisel Box With Cherry Blossom Pyrograph by snazzie designz

I continued the Japanese theme on the underside with a Japanese dragon.

Handmade chisel Box With Cherry Blossom Pyrograph by snazzie designz

For a full list of all of the WellSnazzie Collaborations please click here.

To see more of Harry’s remarkable craft work check out his gallery on deviantart here.

Tags : blossom, box, cherry, handmade, pyrograph, pyrography, ukiyo-e, woodburning

Rune and Swan Handmade Wooden Boxes

Handmade / Decorated Boxes,Handmade Box,Monochrome Pyrography,Pyrography,WellSnazzie Collaboration by Snazzie

Aug.23,2014

These handmade boxes were the very beginning of what has now become a long list of continuing collaborations between myself and Harry Wells collectively known as WellSnazzie collaborations.

The Rune Box

It all started with me making a set of runes for Harry. He decided that he wanted to make a box for them and asked if I would burn a Celtic owl onto some Baltic pine for him so that he could inset it into the box lid.

Celtic Owl and Rune Set

This was one of my very fist wood burning projects and everything was very rough around the edges compared to the impeccable and stunning work that Harry did on the box itself. The dark streaks in the beech wood are naturally occurring beech spalting caused by a fungus growing in the wood.

Rune Box Handmade by Aldwarke

Rune Box Handmade by Aldwarke

To see more views of this box and more of Harry’s remarkable craft work check out his gallery on deviantart here.

The Swan Jewellery Box

This is a personalised swan design burned into the bottom of one of the box drawers in this incredible jewellery box that harry made.

Swan Jewellery Box Handmade by Aldwarke

To see more views of this box and more of Harry’s remarkable craft work check out his gallery on deviantart here.

Jewellery box Handmade by Aldwarke

For a full list of all of the WellSnazzie Collaborations please click here.