Bandboxes

 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

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