Here’s the next item that I’ll be taking on—a metal slide magazine in a box, sent by Carolyn Brady.

The slides can be removed from the magazine. So, board box, metal magazine, metal slides.

First, I removed all but three of the metal slides. I know some of you were hoping I’d do something that included every single slide, but straight off, I knew that wasn’t for me. The slide holders are so tight in the magazine that it made them hard to pull out, and even harder to put back in gracefully. It’s been my experience that most people, when presented with an item that doesn’t move easily, will opt not to move it, fearing that they’ll break the piece—and these slides were giving me that kind of vibe. I decided early on that I’d use just a handful of them, and figure out something that made it easy to slide them out a bit, but not require them to come out all the way. These extras are set aside for another project, which I’ll post down the road.

I worked from the outside in on this project, because the inside required a little more thought. I decided the whole box was going to be some sort of pirate themed extravaganza, so the exterior of the box became a treasure map. I simply coated the exterior of the box with gel medium, and wrapped it with a page from a large atlas, then trimmed along the edges.

The ends of the box were snipped to the corners, then the two side pieces tucked inward, and the last flap glued in place upward. Nice and neat.

I toned the whole box, inside and out, with a little brown glaze. I have a bottle of Golden glaze for this, but a bit of glazing medium and some cheap brown acrylic will do the same thing. I applied in a circular motion with a foam sponge—lots of control, and no brush strokes.

I glued three wooden game piece blocks to the bottom of the box, to give it a little weight, and an obvious base. I toned the wood with the same brown glaze. It ended up looking very much like a shipping pallet when finished.

OK, on to the slide magazine. I removed the front ID strip, acetate, and support board and set them aside to use later.

I dripped alcohol inks over all the metal surfaces, and patted them down with a little alcohol extender on felt. Sort of a modified polished stone technique, in caramel and brown to look sort of rusty.

The slide holders also got a coat of alcohol inks on both sides. Pretty much everything that was silver previously is now sort of a mottled rust color.

I cut 2×2 pieces of plexiglass, and slid them into the slide holders. These will be clear shelves inside the chest, which will make the most of the light that comes through the front and back of the piece.

I printed a vintage pirate girl image, and trimmed it down to fit the front opening, using the old ID strip as a guide. Over the image, I stamped a little text.

The image was put back into the front of the magazine, with a cardboard support strip tucked behind, and the original sheet of acetate over the top. The acetate was just a little bit yellowed, which worked nicely to tone down the very vivid colors of the print.

I decided to wrap the front with some fibers, and add some keys, but I really didn’t want to interfere with what I had planned for the interior. My solution was to poke a hole in one side of the magazine with an awl, and run my fibers through the hole. They’re barely noticable inside the box this way.

I was very easy to fill this box with goodies, because each shelf slides out. The bottom shelf got some rolled up papers and maps, the middle one has three glass bottles filled with various strange substances, and the top shelf got a shell supporting a gaudy rhinestone brooch I pulled off a shirt a bought last year.

The exterior seemed to need just a little more attention. I cast a skull using a sugar skull mold and some air dry clay, painted it up and wrapped a piece of cloth around it as a head scarf. The skull, an old coin, and some old chicken bones were arranged on the top of the box.

The finished treasure chest: