The Nature of Inspiration.

I have a friend in California who makes these wonderful cigar boxes. She decorates the tops, paints them, lines them. They are beautiful and aptly named Bella Boxes.
Well, my kiddies had a calendar with wonderful art that is longer useful, but I like the fairy pictures. I thought I will make boxes a la my friend as gifts. (I'm allowed to, she gave me permission, but I wouldn’t for sales—that’s hers.) So I was all ready to go and invest in cigar boxes for gift making.
One day whilst trolling at my local Big Lots I found these "boxes." Lets just say I invested heavily in them. I thought "this is great, I can now decoupage my calendar pages onto these boxes, and they will be cool and groovy and inspired by Bella Boxes."
Well the box project evolved into another beast all together. Only the fact that collage and a box are involved is there any "connection" to the original inspiration.
Influence from another inspirational source also added to the box design/construction. The rim of the original box fit very tight. When the rim was painted the lid scraped the paint off. To correct this problem I doctored a lip into the rim of the box. I was looking for a way to finish this cut lip. For some reason, soldering kept entering my mind, a nice shiny silver edge. I don’t solder-I don’t need another hobby, but lets face it, that book "Pretty Little Things" entered into my subconscious.
Well, I got my nice shiny silver edge thanks to foil origami papers. The pictured boxes are just a few of the ideas I have planned for these boxes. The purple fairy box is probably the most directly influenced by Bella Boxes, it’s a great leap off point. Once I have tried a few samples, I will have them available at my Etsy store. I also plan on using these boxes as bases for mini shrines and dimensional Milagros.