Miss Frugal is just like me – she loves shiny things, especially pink shiny things!
Everywhere we go she’s on the look out for something new to add to her special shiny things collection – whether it’s a special stone she sees on the floor, a shiny jewel in a gift shop or even an old brooch or other shiny jewellery in a charity shop or at a car boot sale.
Until recently she had about ten trinket boxes of various sizes filled with her treasured but when we were sent a lovely wooden box (I can’t even remember what was in it now) with a little tray in that lifts in and out, she decided to claim that to be her ‘special box’.
The box looked to us to be ready to paint it so we did with some cheap poster paints that we bought from the supermarket and gave it a quick varnish to seal it when we were done. We used a copper colour on the outside and a sparkly silver on the lift out tray and I love the finished box.
I know it’s not a great picture but you can get the idea 😉
As soon as it was dry, she took it upstairs and spend at least an hour filling it with her special treasures….
Her button collection has also been granted a place in the special box as they’re from my Mam’s sewing kit and she associates them with her as she used to love playing with the button box when she spent time with my Mam. The phone you can see is also my Mam and I always smile when I see it as I remember that just after she died, Miss Frugal used to talk into the phone and pretend she was talking to her.
The reason I’m sharing this with you now (apart from wanting to show off my clever painting skills) is that I think it’s a great idea for a present for someone. I just searched on eBay for ‘wooden box’ and there were plenty of search results – a box around the same size as ours could set you back up to £15 but there’s plenty of smaller ones as well.
You could personalise a box with photos, clippings from a newspaper or a magazine or even just paint like we did. Make sure your box is finished with a layer of varnish and it should last forever (almost). I’m going to make a Lego one for Master Frugal to keep his Lego Minifigures in for Christmas and I know that he’ll love it as much as Miss Frugal loves her box!
