Box Shrine

Some of the members of the Travelling Journals group (the usual suspects...) recently did two gothic arch swaps on the topics of Samhain and the Divine Feminine. The challenge then was to figure out a way of binding or otherwise displaying the arches. Yesterday, Shakti posted pictures of a box she'd made to contain and display her arches, and after considering other options, I decided that her approach was the one that made most sense, as it avoided the need to punch holes in the arches or otherwise lose some of the images by adhering them to a binding of some description.

This is the box I made today. Luckily, I had a cardboard box of exactly the right size and depth for the arches. I painted the box inside and out, and I made this arch frame from card and some lovely textured gold art paper I purchased at a sale in a local craft store. (You'd get a similar effect by painting woodchip paper.)

I cut a circle in the peak using a nifty little circle cutter that looks like a compass. I picked it up quite cheaply in the craft store a couple of years back, and it's proved itself one of my handiest tools, over and over. I backed the cutout with a scrap of printed vellum. The other embellishments are plastic "jewels" and circled of brown card stock and scraps of the gold paper. To finish off, I used a small star punch to make star-shaped holes.

What I'd now like to do is find some little trinkets like holy medals and milagros to attach to the art, to give it even more of al altar or reliquary feel.

The cards fit nicely into the box and can be changed at will.