Latest creation

Just thought I'd share my latest creation with you - it was a personal creation for my sister and she has kindly said I could post images of it on here. As it was her 40th birthday last week, and she is the "baby" of the family, I wanted to giver her a gift that was unique to her, memorable and that she would hopefully treasure for the rest of her life. I decided to create a "Memory Box" - so (in the space of a couple of weeks, as I only hit upon this idea on 31st December) I contacted as many of her friends and family as I possibly could without her knowledge. I told them what I was doing (painting the box in one of Rachel's favourite colours) and asked for contributions from them of their favourite or earliest memories of Rachel. I was pleasantly surprised and touched by the amount of replies I received. The box I bought was much larger than any I've decorated before, so I was hoping for a lot of replies in order to make it look reasonably full! Thankfully, it did - with photos, letters, cards, poems, newsletters and memorabilia galore - even a tee-shirt from Australia arrived in time. I wrote on the inside of the box with names of places that Rachel has lived, liked or worked at over the years, and she has told me that it's brought back a lot of happy memories for her already, especially all the funny tales that her friends have recounted for her.

I may even use this idea as a selling point for large boxes in the future, who knows? They would obviously have to be made to order, but it might be a good way of giving a personalised and unique gift to someone.

I bought the box from aspire 2702 on ebay, and it is a really well made sturdy pine box with carrying holes at each end. I would definitely use this seller again and there are so many boxes to choose from!

I lined the inside of the box at the bottom with funky foam and the base of the box itself with cork.

Here are a few photographs of the finished box: