Something Just for Me

Do you ever get so busy doing things for other people that you forget to be nice to yourself?  I noticed it happening with my art.  I'm always making things for friends and family, and for sale, but I rarely make anything that I intend to keep just for me.

Then along came a particular cigar box.  Unvarnished, unrouted, unpretentious.  A perfect rectangle with a slide top - no hinges or hardware to mar its lines.  I have been collecting vintage wooden cigar boxes to store supplies in, but they are almost exclusively beveled or routed, and mostly varnished and debossed with the maker's logo.  So this beauty was unusual. 

I stared at it every day for a couple of months before an idea hit me out of the blue.  The entire design came into my head fully finished.  All I had to do was put it together.

The best part?  It came together exactly like I imagined!  That almost never happens.  Things tend to evolve during the assembly process.

Now I can sit and look at this sweet little box every day and know it's just for my enjoyment.  Now I just have to decide what to put in it!