I recently found out that you can make boxes from dried citrus rind. This is a traditional Italian craft originally used to make snuff / tobacco boxes out of bergamot orange skin (the outside goes on the inside, and the contents pick up the scent of the oils). You can use any citrus fruit with a smooth rind (I mean, in principle you could use something wrinkly, but it might be harder to work with). I made these out of ruby grapefruit.
The procedure (aggregated from multiple online sources):
1. Halve the fruit (from pole to pole, not across the equator, so that you don't end up with a flaw right in the middle of each half) .
2. Eat the contents with a spoon.
3. Remove the membranes and carefully pick off most of the pith.
4. Soak the empty skins in hot water with a little baking soda for about half an hour.
5. Invert and stretch each half carefully over the base of an appropriately-sized jar, and use some rubber bands to hold the edge in place.
6. Wait until dry.
7. Apply a few layers of paper mache to the outside of each half to strengthen the box and reinforce any cracks, and wait until that dries.
8. Trim the edges to make them even.
9. Optionally sand the edge and outside lightly, and paint / further decorate the outside.
More details based on my experiences so far:
* If you don't have two jars that are conveniently sized to give you a base and lid that fit together, you can wrap a taped loop of cardboard around one of two identical jars, to provide extra space around the rim of the lid. You could also do this only when adding the paper. I don't recommend trying to reshape one half while it's half-dry; that's a great way to tear it.
* Make sure you put the halves back on their moulds to dry, or they will warp.
* You can use a warm iron to smooth out wrinkles in the paper mache.
* I used tissue paper (split into layers) and a blend of wallpaper paste and white wood glue for the paper mache. The glue doubles as a finish.
More info in descriptions.
#crafts
OOTS
John Schrag
Cat
Adrianna Pińska
