Antique style travel box.

One night late as usual ( I'm a night owl ) I had the idea of making a writing case after seeing one on Antiques Road Show. It was adapted during the proces to become a travel box or map box. I began by making a mock up in card for scale and to work out the pattern. I decided to use balsa which I would not usually do but I didn't have thinner wood and birch ply was too thick.

 Here you can see the first stage with the balsa, the pattern, the mock up and two tiny books for scale.

 More details of the mock up open and the tiny 'antique' books.

 Here is the finished box before antiquing ! I added fine edges, the hinge was made from a piece of coton fabric cut on the biais.

 Here you can see it is different as I started over but did not take pictures of the new shape.  I covered the base with a scaled down antique book cover depicting animals and on the lid I put a photocopy of an antique globe map.

 Here you can see the Inside that I lined with an old map from a charity shop and put inside a pair of binoculars that are in fact just a metal charm painted. I added a bundle of pencils made from toothpicks and painted and a 'travel journal'.

Here is in slightly more detail of the interieur, the toothpick holding it open gives you some idea of scale.

Here is the finished map box amongst several other books and tea caddies.