I Feel The Need To Make A Box

Every now and then I get this antsy, go-do-it feeling like I need to pound copper or age wood or twist wire. Right now I'm in the middle of a mini-project that is taking some time and I'm nothing if not impatient. So, for some instant gratification, I want to make a box.

When I say "make a box", I'm straight up lying. I don't make anything and the thing I'm not making isn't square like a box. What I'm really doing is decorating a cylinder. Here is where I start:

As you can see, it isn't square and I haven't made it. But I will do things to it. Cruel, tortuous things.

The plan was to describe each horrible step and show a picture of it, like horror porn only crafty. Here is step one: Drown the not-box in a jar of tea.

Not-box stays in the tea long enough for me to run upstairs and get my Amazon Fire because watching wood soak is really boring.

 As if drowning the wood in tea isn't tortuous enough, I next drown it in a nasty solution of vinegar and steel wool. Why? Because stinky, that's why!

What does all this soaking in noxious fluids do? Nothing! I did it for fun and because I like to see wood suffer.. Also, now the not-box looks like this:

But all for naught because, after many other steps that I neglected to photograph but believe me, each was more horrifying than the one before-- you can't see the wood at all.

People of a crafty DIY bent will know that the vinegar and steel wool solution is to age wood. The solution does some sort of alchemy with the tannin in the wood and, voila! funky looking old wood. However pine, which the not-box is made of, doesn't have much tannin in it, hence the tea bath. Tea has tannin in it.

And there you have it. A detailed, step-by-step tutorial on how to make a box. Except for the part about how to make and decorate it, it's all there.

80's romance girl is now dancing to a record player.