Stylized Painted Box - Part 4

Now that I am back in town, I have been working on my painted box again.  I have completed the painting, but the box still needs to be sealed with an acrylic sealer.  There are still a few things that need to be done to it.  Once the sealer is dry, I will put the hinges and clasps and handle back.

I also plan to put some felt on the bottom of the box so that it won't damage the dresser.   The box originally came with metal corner protectors on each top and bottom corner.  I removed the lower corner protectors because they were not of very good quality.  I was concerned that the metal bits would mar the furniture.  After all, the box is only a seven dollar plywood box.

The bottom of the box needs to be covered with green felt.  Why green felt?  Why not some other color?  My husband tells me that it has to be green.  He insists that no other color will do and that all boxes have green felt bottoms.  I'm not so sure that will hold true across the board, but I looked at every purchased box I had at the house and found that they all had green felt on the bottom.  I suspect that makers of fine boxes purchase the felt in large quantities to get the best discount.  Also, the dark green will not show dirt as much as a lighter color.  Anyway, I purchased some green felt to add to the bottom.  I guess it is traditional.  If anyone else knows something about green felt and boxes that I
don't know, please inform me.

I would like to add some velveteen to the inside of the box as well.  It might  be a few days before I can get out to the fabric shop. There were only two patches of snow on the lawn today.  A winter storm warning is in effect here now.  More snow is expected.  In fact, we may get as much snow as we had on the ground from the previous storm.  Once the streets are clear, I can get out top purchase the fabric.

This project is almost complete.  I had a lot of fun painting this box.  I decided to paint some fan figures on the box to break the foliage pattern a bit.  That was almost a mistake.  It ended up being too big of a mass.  I ended up painting dots around the edges and through the center to break it up a bit.  The blue dots also helped tie it in with the color of the flowers.  That helped a lot.  It just goes to show that if you think you have messed up a project you should keep painting on it rather than getting upset and throwing it out.  There may be a way to save it.

I also learned that I needed to loosen up a bit on my painting.  The more I tried to make stroke and leaf exactly the same size the worse things got.  When I let go of trying to make everything perfect the design took on a more organic look.  I guess that is a valuable lesson to learn about painting.

This project will be completed in a few days.  Then I will be on to another project.  I think I will do another papier mache' project next.  More about that soon.