Quite a few years ago I had visited the Shelburne Museum in Vermont and was fascinated with the collection of antique bandboxes that were on display.
 |
| Reproduction bandboxes by Marla L. Niederer |
If you are not familiar
with them, they are boxes that were made and covered with wallpaper. They were used to store items such as
bonnets, gloves, thimbles, etc depending on the size of the box. They were quite popular in the 1800’s and
became a cottage industry. Many of the
papers used were hand block printed although some of the wallpapers used were
machine printed.
 |
| Reproduction bandboxes by Marla L. Niederer |
After my visit to the
museum I purchased the book Bandboxes by Edwina Cholmeley-Jones on how to make
a bandbox using traditional methods. I
also purchased everything I needed to make them but became busy with other
things and never wound up getting around to making them until now.
 |
| Reproduction bandbox by Marla L. Niederer |
I spent the past week
making some of the bandboxes from the book using a pattern for a sewing
box. It took a lot of time to create
each one since they are hand sewn.
 |
| Reproduction bandbox by Marla L. Niederer |
The first box I created I
used scrapbooking paper to cover the outside of the box and box lid. I lined the box with pages from an old book I
had. I then antiqued the box with sepia
ink.
 |
| Reproduction bandboxes by Marla L. Niederer |
Then I decided to get a
bit creative and hand stamped paper to cover the outside of the next three
bandboxes that I made. I also used pages
from an old book I had to cover the inside of the boxes. It was quite a fun project to do.
 |
| Hand stamped reproduction bandbox by Marla L. Niederer |
Now all I have to do is
decide what I will put into each box!
 |
| Hand stamped reproduction bandboxes by Marla L. Niederer |
Until next time………….
warm hugs,
Marla
I am so excited to
be teaching two online classes for the Art Connection Summit in October. You can find out more about the online summit
here.
Until then feel
free to enjoy some of the free tutorials I have posted here.
 |
Free Tutorials |
If you wish to find
out about the self-study classes I offer click on the picture below
 |
Self-Study Classes |
For information
about the online classes I teach click on the picture below.
 |
Online Classes |
If you would like
to learn more about me you can click on this picture.
 |
About me |
