"Fandom" Crafts
Last year I got obsessed with folding these origami boxes and lids. I had a whole book of wallpaper samples and folded most of them into little boxes. The wallpaper makes great, sturdy boxes. Unfortunately, it was eighties "country" wallpaper, in hindsight, not very attractive. So I had a big sack of boxes sitting around waiting for me to think of some way to embellish them.
These are decorated with pages from an old book of Harry Potter posters that I bought years ago at the height of Pottermania. I used some of the posters to decorate for a Potter-themed party for my kids and their friends, and the rest sat around in a drawer, too pretty to throw out but of no current use. Each poster is backed with a gorgeous, dark-colored, very Victorian-looking pattern, pieces of which are what I glued onto the largest and smallest of these boxes. The middle-size box is an illustration of the "Gryffindor Trio" coming out of the Great Hall of Hogwarts in the first movie. They look so young and cute! I used up some gold and maroon cord to complete the embellishment of the box covers.
The faces of Harry, Ron, and Hermione are cut from the actual full-size poster. It's the same illustration of the trio coming out of the great hall. I glued them to the inside of each box lid, so when you open the box, you get a young wizard/witch looking up at you with a skeptical expression. :D
My daughter is giving these to her friend, a Harry Potter fan. I'm so glad at least three of these darn boxes have found a home! Meanwhile, just outside the Cave of Caerbannog...
That's right, it's the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. My husband has recently developed a taste for Chambord liqueur. Teehee. I will be recycling the empties into Holy Hand Grenades.
Close-up of the engraving, done with an ordinary ball-point pen on soda can aluminum. I'll post a link to a tutorial for this one of these days. Yes, the original Holy Hand Grenade was encrusted with gold and diamonds, but my daughter and I both thought an iron (faux iron?) hand grenade made more sense. And since this will be going to live in her apartment, iron it is. The "welded" seams are made with hot melt glue. I had fun making this decanter.