trio

These pieces have such a great rich colour. They fit together, hiding a secret compartment.

in situ

This is where the box-inside-the-box-on-top-of-the-box sits, it is removable. I’ve changed around the scarab on the top since the last photo was taken, and as soon as I put the map inside the lid of the box-on-top-of-the-box, recopy the hieroglyphs and demotic on to some antique paper (regretfully, not papyrus), roll that up and put it in the capsule, and affix the wire to hold the capsule in its place it will be done.

Then a good-bye photo, and off to its new home.

choices

When I first saw pictures of Joseph Cornell’s stash I thought I would never need that kind of space. Silly me. Having a luxury of pieces to choose from is wonderful, but continuous organizing would be the key, eh?

The wear on the bare metal boxes is lovely, but I do wish I had more of the white ones (and maybe fewer pink ones, yellow ones, and I have no idea what to do with my lone orange tin). The variety of sizes I’ve found makes decisions easier, I had no idea there were tins less than a centimeter across, but now I have a dozen - both round and rectangular.

Hinges are still scarce though. I’ve been making them out of various non-hingey things, but someday I may break down and buy teensy dollhouse size ones. I wonder if there are any that click closed, that can be very handy for secret compartments.

component

This is one of the inner parts for the top of this box - I love the light coming through the jewel, so I’m not going to put in the portrait that was going to be on the bottom of the lid. There will be several items in the ’secret’ compartment, including a map and a message written in demotic script.

I may have over-thought this (as usual).