Tag Archives: boxes

April 13, 2014 · 7:39 am

Boxes with Steel by Sam Castner

In the summer of 2012, I started making portfolios and since then I’ve added three more sizes of notepad covers.  Back when I started making them, I had a conversation with myself trying to decide whether to make those or boxes.  This winter I’ve come back to the boxes.  I started with some clamshell ones with a piece of my enameling inserted in the top. You can see one here, if you scroll to the bottom.

In December, before the deep freeze set in, I enlisted the help of Sam Caster, an accomplished metal artist, for ideas, encouragement and scraps. To my delight, Sam was very supportive and even willing to add his artistic touch in finishing my pieces.  For the past few months, I’ve been making more boxes to work with Sam’s designs.  We are finally ready to put some on the market! First are the ones with my enameling:

Then Sam’s work on stainless steel:

I’m planning on making these boxes to order to exactly fit people’s heirloom treasures, jewelry or wedding memories.  I think it will be a fun diversion from my books and a great use for all my paper!

I will be putting a few up on Etsy in the coming week and they will be available at the Arts Center.

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March 3, 2014 · 12:19 pm

There Are Days Like This

Two weeks ago it warmed up enough for me to contemplate descending into my basement, standing on a cement floor and putting my hands into water.  In other words, to do some marbling. I made my carrageenan the night before, set up all the trays, paints and paraphernalia, alummed my paper and dove in. I was planning on doing some large monochromatic sheets, like I had done last year with smaller pieces. Yellow and red were the colors I chose and planned to mix orange. Orange is the only secondary color that I have had consistently good results mixing for marbling.  Those were the plans, anyway!

The first sheet I pulled had some line problems, the second caught a big air bubble, the third developed alum striping — and on and on it went.  I know it had been a long time since I had marbled, but this was ridiculous. Of the eight or ten sheets I pulled that first day, only one or two were good.  On top of that, I wasn’t really happy with the color combinations.  The second day was a bit better, but still way too many sheets that had major flaws so on the third day I threw in the towel on my plans, moved to a smaller tray with smaller paper and grabbed the metallic paints and colored paper.  A background color can disguise a lot of problems!  Things started going more smoothly and I began connecting to the marbling, but I was still frustrated.  What I need right now are large perfect sheets, not more small ones. At the end of the session, I started playing.  Maybe that’s where I should have started.  Here are some pictures of the good, the bad and the ugly!

It’s turned really cold (0* to 10* above) again, so I’ll have to wait for another attempt.  Here’s hoping I’ll be right in the grove and pulling perfect sheets every time!

In the meantime, I’ve been playing with some boxes.  They are based on the clamshell box used for rare books and for archival storage. This is the first one I’ve finished.  I’ve inlaid one of the pieces I enameled last year on the cover. The inside is a four-sided box (book boxes only have three sides) lined with black velvet.

I’m planning a lot more of these as I have quite a few enameled pieces and other treasures for the covers.  I just hope people like them!

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March 22, 2013 · 10:50 am

Maps of the Mind, Marbled, of course

Maps are some of my favorite recycled papers to marble.  I try to use colors that complement the areas of the map – browns and rust for desserts, blues and greens over the oceans – as well as harmonize with any printed colors.  As with much in marbling, you can plan a lot, but the paints seem to have a will of their own in the end and that’s the element I find so fascinating.  The little drop of white that centers itself right over a town or the purple swirl that almost follows a coastline  or the yellow streak of marbling that happens to disappear on top of a printed red and magically appear again to lead to a river or mountain is always a surprise.

Here are a few maps I’ve marbled in the past.

In my last marbling session I did a bunch of pages from an atlas.  Because of the way books are made, when disbound the pages are not consecutive, so I had gazetteer pages facing map pages.  I had originally planned to use both pages for ladders,  but I like the maps so much that I don’t want to cut them up.  Here are some of the pages.

I’ve used my marbled maps in numerous projects: books, towers, portfolios, almost everything I make, I’ve tried it with maps.

The map covered towers have been very popular, especially when I use local maps.  Eventually I will map some map ladders, but right now I’m “laddered-out” as you will see in my next blog!

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August 12, 2012 · 10:47 am

Where Did That Week Go?

Busy, busy week. Not sure quite what happened, but I know that the painters finally came to start work on my porch, my company left and I finally mowed the grass.  To update the trifecta, first the pickles did get canned, another 12 pints. 

I finished one book as a sample for a potential customer.

The final bit was making more Treasure Towers with maps on the outside.  They are close to being finished, with just folding the interior boxes and gluing them to the outside.  Keeping the two blue/purple towers separated with their proper papers was a challenge, but I think I have them right.  It really wouldn’t make too much difference as their colors are very similar, but when I put a lot of effort into choosing just the right piece of paper, I hate it when I mess them up at the last minute.  That’s one reason I never work on more than four items at once.  There’s just way too much chance for papers getting switched.

Here are the towers and the paper cut and folded for the boxes.

On a totally different note, I’ve started harvesting potatoes from my garden.  There’s nothing better than a freshly dug potato!  Here’s the harvest for today.
The cherry tomatoes are overflowing.  I may have to figure out how to can them!

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August 5, 2012 · 10:40 am

Going for a Trifecta

This week is starting with a bang: papers chosen and started for four Towers with maps on the outside, papers matched for four books and the textblocks cut and folded, plus another gallon of cukes salted in the fridge.  Let’s see what gets finished and what waits for next week!

The cucumbers are just about over.  We haven’t had much rain in the past two weeks and they are getting smaller and smaller.  On the other hand, the cherry tomatoes are going like gang busters!  So sweet and juicy, nothing like the ones in the grocery store.  I may even try to can some, just to have a memory of summer next February when the snow has piled up and I’m almost house-bound.

I’ll take some pictures of the towers and books as they begin to come together.

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August 1, 2012 · 10:43 am

Home again with more boxes and way too many cucumbers

I arrived  home again and was immediately faced with a deadline.  Before I left for North Carolina, I had started five new Treasure Towers and assumed I would have plenty of time to finish them after getting home.  Of course, I hadn’t counted on delays caused by illness, weather and general negativity. Drop-off day for the new show at the Arts Center was Monday and it took a real push to finish the towers in time. I was pleased with the results: All the papers on the correct boxes with no last minute switches or upside downs.  Mistakes caused by pressure & rushing seem to be plaguing me recently.  I hope the jinx has run its course.  Here are the finished towers at the Arts Center. I didn’t have time to make “artsy” photos, but it gives me a record of what I’ve done.

The third tower has a print of a painting of Keuka Lake by Jane Terry on the outside instead of my marbled paper.  As I was photographing these, I realized there were none with maps on the covers.  I often put marbled local or area maps on the outside of the tower and these have been very popular.  I wasn’t planning on it, but I should probably do another set with maps before the summer people and tourists leave in September.  I hope I can find enough maps already marbled!

On the garden front, I came home to a jungle of tomato, squash and cucumber vines and even a couple of heads of broccoli.  First task was the cucumbers as they spoil fastest. The cukes are huge, but still sweet and fine for making bread and butter pickles. I did two more batches, 22 pints, if I’ve counted correctly (not counting the ones before my trip) and more to come.

The cherry tomatoes are just coming on, both orange and red.  They are oversized this year, but still sweet and flavorful.  For the first time I’ve been able to outwit the rabbits and actually harvest some broccoli and cauliflower.  I harvested one small watermelon just a bit early (still delicious) and a second will be dessert today.  Again, for the first time, the acorn squash has really gone to town and I’ll have quite a few that are good-size in the fall.  The potatoes are almost ready to be dug.

In spite of the late start and my intial pessimism, this looks to be my most succesful garden ever.

I am really pleased!

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April 6, 2012 · 11:40 am

Off On a Tangent: from box to book

I really thought my next project would be a different style of box, but the road took a twist.  A few days ago I bought a book on how to make 100 different books.  As usual with this type of book, most of the designs explained were in the genre of “Artist Books”. Books in weird shapes, with pop-ups or folded pages, beads dangling or cleverly designed around artwork.  They are wonderful to look at and explore.  Unfortunately, I don’t enjoy making them. My “artist books” tend to look either like a kindergarten project gone awry or something designed by the Mad Hatter on his way down the rabbit hole.

I prefer functional books, just like my preference for functional boxes.  After a lifetime of collecting non-utilitarian objects, I’m all about function and use these days.  Anyway, the book I bought did have a bunch of “real” books with sewn bindings and hard covers.  There were a few that caught my eye and I even tried out one.   (See more in the Book section on this page.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I was plotting out some possible designs, the Arts Center called to say that they needed more towers. So all plans on hold while I make a few more towers for them! Such is life.

Here are the the quickie towers I did over the weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I mixed up the yellow boxes and put them into the wrong green backgrounds.  Whoops!  Not sure though and it’s too late to do anything about it.

Here are the two yellow/green towers.  Still not sure.

I also discovered that Etsy has an app that lets me put a gallery from my store on this site.  I’ve put it here as a test.

 

 

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April 3, 2012 · 9:41 pm

Decision Time Again: Which Box to Make?

I’ve been thinking for a while about making some other types of boxes, but I haven’t settled on any one style.  Here are some of the ones I’ve been considering.

 

These are some of the styles of boxes and portfolios I’ve made in the past.  I’ve probably made at least a hundred calmshell boxes in various styles over the years.  Most were made to fit specific books, papers or other objects and I’ve created many different variations.  I enjoy making them, but they are nothing new for me. Another negative is that they use a lot of purchased materials.  The brown and blue boxes on the top row are clamshells.

The first photo on the second row shows a few of the origami boxes I have made.  They are cute and easy to make. On the pro side, the only material they use is my marbled paper.  They are also great for using the perfect parts of an imperfect sheet.  When I marble, I still catch air pockets or stray hairs which ruin parts of the paper.  On the con side, they don’t require any creativity, just good dexterity.  To counter-balance this, I rarely make the top and bottom from the same paper.  Drives the folks where I sell the boxes crazy!

The next two photos show lidded boxes.  These can be made in any size and shape as well as being able to be lined or partitioned.  I’m leaning toward these for my next project, but I’m still pondering.

The matchboxes with the book inside are cute but rather useless.  I tend to put sayings, quotes or lines from poems or songs in the books, but once you’ve read them, what do you do with it?  I much prefer structures that have some useful function.

The miniature books are neat, but again, not really functional.  I have seen them made into jewelry as pins or hung from necklaces and earrings, very nice but not me.  I rarely wear any jewelry anymore.

The last photos are the portfolios.  They can be made any size or shape and are very useful.  Carrying a hand crafted custom portfolio is neat.  The major drawback is that they use large quantities of bookcloth, especially the 9×12 one.  The outside needs to be cloth rather than paper if  the portfolio is expected to be used.  Paper would be prettier, but it wouldn’t wear well.  Unless I could do the hinges and edges in cloth and the center in paper, like a half-cloth book.

So there’s my dilemma.  What to do?  What to do?

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March 30, 2012 · 6:31 pm

Finished Towers

Finally put the towers together and I’m happy with the results.

Four of them are 7″ and one is 6″.  The yellow one in the front was a particularly hard match.  The orange boxes are a heavy textured brunt orange colored base paper that I marbled in browns, reds and yellows. That paper was too heavy to use for the covering of the tower, but nice and sturdy for the boxes. I thought I would never find anything to go with it since the base color radically changed the marbling colors.  I finally was able to get some complementary colors from burnt sienna, yellows and some greens.

The other box I’m really happy about is the one in the back with the bright outside and dark interior.  I had done a bit of figurative marbling and I had no idea how to use it.  Here’s a closeup.

You can learn more about the construction of the towers on my page, Making Towers and more examples on Boxes & Other Creations.

 

Three of these are headed to the Yates County Arts Center and two to Etsy for sale in my shop, Losing her Marbles.

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March 18, 2012 · 8:19 am

Well, Almost Finished

Took the books out of the press and here they are:

They all looked really nice until I realized that  the back endpaper in the map book was upside down!  My endpapers rarely have directionality and I never noticed.  Sigh.

Towers are in good shape, well, at least so far.  Haven’t finished the boxes for them yet, but have cut and folded the paper so it’s just folding and gluing them into place.

Here’s a look at the outsides:

You can see them all at the page onMaking Towers.

Some of these books and towers will be for sale in my shop at Etsy, Losing Her Marbles.

 

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