Make Your Own Hobbit-Themed Wooden Box

In today's entry, we thought it would be fun to spotlight something made by another special friend, Bethany (Oliva's sister! --- see previous entry). She made two gorgeous boxes by following a tutorial for transferring photos onto wood. This would work with any theme or photo that you like. These two boxes show Bilbo and Elrond in scenes from The Battle of Five Armies. She was nice enough to explain just how she made them, so that others might enjoy trying their hand at this as well!

She bought boxes at her local craft store in the unfinished wood aisle. She added legs to match which were also unfinished wood in the same aisle. She stained the boxes and then followed this tutorial for decorating them:
https://www.mykitchenescapades.com/photo-transfer-to-wood/

Once the photos were transferred onto the wooden boxes, she sanded the edges of the photo area to give it the worn look, which fits with the style of these photos.

**She mentioned that you need to be sure to put enough of the gel medium on the wood. More is better than less with this project!
This is the exact gel she used on both boxes:

After the box was all finished, she coated the entire thing with a Krylon spray, putting two to three coats on before everything was done.

And there you have a fabulous box that's good for keeping almost anything safe! You can carry this farther, of course by decorating the inside. Bethany used a shiny and decorative paper to cover the insides this way:

And for what is one of the sweetest and most unique aspects of these particular boxes --- she turned them into "Open when . . ." boxes! Enclosed were five sealed envelopes. One of them was made to open at the time of receiving the box. All of the rest came with a note on the front specifying a special time to open the envelope. Isn't that so clever?!