"Band Box and Bonnet Boards"- The Making of a Band Box pt. 1

I recently upgraded my sewing room with shelving and all sorts of wonderful functional furniture (thank you, Ikea!) and now that I have all of my lovely shelves, I'd like to have some nice containers to tuck away all of the bits and bobbles that need homes so they can stop cluttering up the open shelves.

I figured this would be a great excuse to make some historical containers in which to keep some of my things. This way, when I need to grab items and take them to an event I won't have to worry about transferring them to an appropriate holder.

I interpret anywhere from 1770- 1840, so ideally I'd like something that spans a couple of decades (easy, right?). This might sound like a tall order, but thankfully there was one option that I could both easily make and could work for the broad span of time in which I might be interpreting.

Enter: the band box.

Buy a Bonnet Box  1804 (The Victoria and Albert Museum)

To be fair- band boxes can have various styles of paper coverings which change with fashion, but the basic concept of a paste or chip board box covered in decorative paper seems to stand the test of time. To that effect, I thought making some bandboxes would be a good idea for storage in my sewing room (both for notions and whatnots, but also even to hold some of my smaller accessory pieces and perhaps even some larger boxes for my bonnets and hats.)

So, I got to work examining extant boxes via my bookshelf and museum collections online, and then set out to make one for myself.

Without special ordering materials, I was only able to purchase chipboard in 12x12 sheets at the nearby Michael's. Hobby Lobby was closed but may have ragboard or chipboard available in larger sheets. I plan on checking at a later date. Otherwise, I'll have to order online if I want to make boxes much larger than the one I am working on now.

Pieces cut out of chipboard and ready for assebly

Bottom of box assembled and ready for covering

I cut a paper pattern for the bottom and top of my box, and then cut the bands which would become the sides.I went for a very basic circle-ish shape for this go, just to keep it simple. After stitching the bands to the base I whipped up some wheat paste and went to covering the bottom of my box.

Just after starch was added

Mixing the starch nicely

Once the paste was removed from the stove.

I haven't stitched the lid, yet, but couldn't wait to paste on my paper covering. The outer is currently drying in my kitchen, and I'm rather happy with how she turned out. I haven't decided if I want to use repro newsprint to finish the inside of (which was very common) or if I'll go with just a plain paper instead. To be honest, the covering of the box with paste and paper was somewhat addictive. (No, really. I'm not sure if I just have a problem or if it's the nature of the beast. But I just want to do it all day. Every day.)

I might try painting/blocking my own decorative paper for a few more of my boxes in the future. I'll be sure to post photos once my box and lid are completely finished. It will be fun to experiment with different shapes and sizes to suit my needs and organize my space. Now I can say I'm being productive even though I'm not sewing a garment! =P