Pat Jones sent me an envelope of Mona Lisa stuff as a belated birthday gift. In the package:

• A piece of a Mona Lisa napkin

• A Mona mint tin
• Four tiny Mona cabachons
• A china Mona necklace
• A small, chunky framed pic of Mona
• A coin with Mona Lisa on one side
• A Mona Lisa postage stamp

That’s a lot of Mona Lisa stuff to play with!

Right off the bat, I put the necklace away in my jewelry box. I probably won’t wear it as it is, but at some point, I want to get a neck ring and some beads, and make some fabulous collar with it as the centerpiece.

I also pulled out the mint tin, because it’s going to turn into a tiny pocket shrine at some point. And I set aside the framed piece, because it looks like it wants to get tucked into an altered book I’m working on.

With the pile of goodies I had left, I decided to make some sort of box. I liked the transparent effect of the napkin, so I was looking for something clear to play with. I also wanted to spread out the Mona pieces a bit, so I was thinking outer cover, inside front cover, and interior.

I think just about everyone has one of these by now—it’s a fiberboard AOL CD box, covered with shiny paper. This one has been sitting on my coffee table for months. Maybe it will make a good structure for my box, but first, it needs a little prep work.

First, I sanded the heck out of the box, thinking that when the gloss was gone, I’d just paint over it with some gesso. I learned that the paper is what’s holding the box together, so as I sanded, the lid fell off. Bummer. I taped up the spine to hold the lid in place, and proceeded with plan B.

If I can’t paint the actual box, my next move is to cover the exterior with something that can be painted. In this case, I used some newsprint applied with gel medium. It was lightweight enough to wrap easily around the whole box, and trimmed down nicely when it was dry.

Over the newsprint, I applied a really uneven coat of gesso. I like gessoed surfaces, because they have a roughness to them that makes whatever I apply over it more interesting.

When the gesso dried, I smeared Distress inks over the exterior of the box, and as much interior as I could reach. These pads don’t really lend themselves to working on anything other than completely flat surfaces, which is something I’ve learned to work around.

To move the ink around and push it into all the nooks and crannies, I just wiped it lightly with a baby wipe. The key here is to move the ink around without lifting it off completely. Think of it as a paintbrush rather than a baby wipe.

While the ink was drying, I went ahead and stamped it inside and out with a big script stamp. It doesn’t matter if the whole stamp is crisp and clear on this type of piece—rough edges, inky fingerprints and unstamped areas are a good thing.

I gave up on the Distress Inks, and went for a bottle of walnut ink to age the interior of the box. I like to paint it on, wander off for a few minutes, and then blot at it with a Kleenex to make it look more uneven.

While my box dried, I worked on the CD for the interior. I tossed the printed AOL CD in favor of one of the clear ones that comes in large packages of CDs. I have a big collection of these clear CDs, and I love leaving parts of them completely transparent. The first thing I did to it was stamp and emboss it, using as little heat as I could to activate the embossing powder without melting the CD. The trick here is to leave it flat on a table, and not move it around until it’s cool.

I peeled away all but the very top printed layer of the napkin, and decoupaged it onto the CD with some gel medium. This requires a light touch. I painted the medium onto the CD, gently positioned the napkin, and then applied the top coat after a few minutes, working out from the center so I wouldn’t tear the edges. Then I trimmed down the excess with scissors.

Back to the box. I decided to tie it closed with a piece of torn muslin, which looked awfully white and new next to my aged box. I knocked the newness off the muslin by dragging it across a few inkpads.

I glued a few torn pieces of paper to the lid, and then glued the muslin to the box with a glue stick. I usually use glue stick for fabric—I just apply the glue, poke the fabric against my surface, and leave it alone to dry. While this piece was drying, I also glued the coin in place with E6000.

The inside front cover was looking a little bare, so I glued the flap of an old envelope to it, so it could swing up and reveal some things beneath and inside. I like making little hiding places like this, so the person viewing the piece has to interact with it rather than just stare at it.

I applied the Mona Lisa stamp to the envelope, but it looked very white against the old envelope. I smeared a little brown chalk ink over the edges of the stamp to take the whiteness down. I also stamped over the edges with some postal stamps to help it blend in.

I wanted the CD to sit away from the box a little, so I applied some foam tape behind the napkin covered section, and then mounted it in the box. I’d applied a piece of mulberry paper with the word invent stamped on it to the interior of the box, so that when the CD was in place, it would be visible through the CD.

I glued the Mona cabachons to little filigree settings, and tied them to the tails of the muslin. I also tied a couple of keys to the tails.

Here’s the result: