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):
- 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) .
- Eat the contents with a spoon.
- Remove the membranes and carefully pick off most of the pith.
- Soak the empty skins in hot water with a little baking soda for about half an hour.
- 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.
- Wait until dry.
- 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.
- Trim the edges to make them even.
- 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
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