This is the bento box, covered with textured wall paper looks a little to shiny for the look I was after, so its the before pic, although its on the side orientation, sorry about that.

Again the pic is on the sideways orientation, the box is packed with the tins, boxes and books.

This is the look I was after, no longer bright and shiny, and some metal book corners attached to the base and the lid.

Empty box.

Packed box with the clipboard slid into the pocket. 

 

Above are the pages of one of the two tiny books included in the bento box,

These are from the other book, the two little books were made while doing an on line class with Seth Apter in June the class was Mini Book Madness, great class.

I have a quick flip through video but for some reason it doesn't want to upload on to the blog. 

I'll try again, but I haven't had much luck tonight.

 

Drawer in a box, concertina book inside.

This concertina book is encased in a small drawer inside a box, made the same way as the others in this bento box project, on tea stained mixed media paper, embellished with collage.

I still may add a focal point to the pages after I have completed the entire project. Although I don't mind the way they look now.

 

One more Tin

I didn't like the lid graphics on this tin so rather than sand it off or paint it I decided to cover it with textured paper.

 

Decorated the inside of the lid then added the tea stained and dyed concertina folded book into the tin.

Pages are decorated with small collages and some fabric scraps are stitched on for texture and added detail.

 

Another Box with a water colour paper concertina book inside.

As well as collecting tins for the bento box project I collected some boxes, this one is very plain but a good size and fits in well with the other collected items. Simply decorated.

The book is tea stained watercolour paper folded up at the base to form a pocket.

The pockets have a tag made to size and simply decorated with a small collage as a cluster on each tag.

The top of the pocket has some machine stitching along the edge, zigzag.

 

Another tin and a box for the bento box project.

Another saved tin for the project. This little old cigarette tin I found in a church fair/market for $1.00, it was painted white and stored nails or screws in it in someones work room. I stripped the old paint off, but the stripping stuff took off most of the original artwork on the front. I didn't mind the look so I've left it like this.

The pages on this particular concertina book are yet to be collaged/decorated,

the base is tea stained media paper.

A plastic doily was placed on top of the paper while drying to create some marks /patterning.

I found some concertina folded watercolour paper in my studio and didn't have a tin to fit in, so I made a box with a lid. Covered the lid with some textured paper, painted the paper then rubbed the surface with metallic rub and buff to create the look of a metal tin.

I tea stained the water colour paper then added small assorted papers to begin the collage process. 

Front

and back

 

Small clipboard created for the bento box project, plus another tin with a concertina book inside.

This is the clipboard that I made for the project, using the teabags from the paper dying process. I gathered a few together and machine stitched across the top, then stamped the pages with some text. I then covered a small mounting board from some picture framers waste with some scrapbook paper and attached the pages with a bulldog clip.

More examples of the stamping onto the teabags.

I find I like to use up scrap bits and pieces rather than throw things away, like the teabags.

once they are dried out the staining leaves great marks.

The images don't have to be text on all the pages, its was just my choice on the day that I put this together.

I must have been playing around with some other dyes this day, that could explain the colour on this page, sometimes mistakes like this have a good result.

This is another of the saved tins for this bento box project. I didn't feel the need to decorate the outside of the tin as it looked like it had had a rough time and had aged beautifully anyway.

The inside of the lid needed some sprucing up with a little collage.

This is the concertina book enclosed in the tin, with every tiny page collaged.   

 

My Take on a Bento Box, during lock down

This is a project that I have been working on while in lock down at home. During this year here in Melbourne everything, class, retreat, camp  etc. was cancelled, sadly. The most disappointing for me was missing out on my class with Seth Apter, it was going to be his Bento Box. I started searching for and saving tins and other receptacles to use in the class, and as the retreat was not going ahead due to the state the world was in and is still in at this point, I decided to give the Bento Box a go on my own. So above is a look at the Box packed with some of the things I have saved to use in this project. Some things have already changed. I will keep updating the box and once completed I will post a new photo.

This is an old cigarette tin. I've used a leather strap to keep it closed as the tin is quite old and the clasp doesn't work well anymore.

I've decorated inside the lid and enclosed some small collages on tags and card.

Some of the tags were a bit long so I just folded up the bottom and created a little pocket to pop in a ticket or something else.

Pack Rat Book flip through,

A quick look through this next junk journal, this time a bit different from the usual tomes that I make, this is a great way to utilise saved materials and do a little scrap busting for the pages.