The Bee Box

I started way too late on my preparations for Craftstravaganza (CG), so I pretty much stuck with the box patterns that I did well and that had sold at the MCBA sale last Christmas. But a few days before CG, I decided I wanted to do a box with a divider on the inside, a "bi-valve" box as a friend said.

One of the divided boxes used a paper printed with a bee for creativity. The paper is not actually Asian and is difficult to glue, but I really liked the design and wanted to build a box that used it really well. (It looks good on the front of this box, but I wasn't happy with the other 3 sides.) So I've spent the last few days measuring the pattern to down to 1/32 of an inch and cutting board that will show the pattern particularly well. Usually the paper I use is either solid in color or has a broad enough pattern that it doesn't matter where I cut.
When I get into production mode for boxes, I will often cut all my paper at once and do each step on 10-15 boxes before going onto the next. But the Bee Box is all about slowing down and doing each step with great attention. In fact it almost uses a new technique in covering the box, as I want the bee stamp to be centered on each side of the box.

I had assembled the boxes yesterday (one step that I could do in production mode), but this morning, I cut the paper for only one box and worked out all of the problems in covering it as if this one was the only one that would ever be made (I actually hope to make 10). It was a new way of working for me: no pressure of an upcoming sale; no Christmas or birthday gifts. It was truly a step into what I most want: working on a design that I'm intrigued with for no other purpose than that I want to see what it looks like. And because of that, and the bee's own value of creativity (it says so on the box!), I think I have to keep the first one for myself.