Skip to main content

Camino crafts - gift/memory box

It's my dad's birthday coming up (although by the time that I post this it will have already passed) so I decided to build a cool box to put one of his gifts in and naturally I made it Camino-themed!

I was lucky enough to be able to find a yellow cardboard box at Ikea but you could use a brown one and cover it with yellow paper afterwards (or paint it yellow if you prefer). You also need a craft knife and/or scissors, a ruler (I used a 15cm one as that was all that I had but a 30cm ruler would have been better), a pencil and some sellotape.

The size that I made the box was dictated by the size of the gift and that of the box. The shaft end is 14cm wide and up to the point of the arrow is 25cm long and the arrow's point adds 10cm more length and sticks out 6.5cm from the shaft of the arrow and then I just connected these points with a line about 17.1cm long at an angle of about 37 degrees (I hope that that all makes sense! For anyone who only works in inches the shaft is 10inches long, about 5.5 wide, the point adds about 4inches and sticks out just under 3 inches from the shaft).



Two of these were made, one to be the base and the other the lid.

Next I made the edges - for the base they are 5cm (a bit under 2 inches) high and are connected right at the edge of the base (so that they are as flat to the ground as the cardboard base is if that makes sense - connected to the base's edge).
The lid's edges are half the size of those for the lid at 2.5cm and are connected half a centimetre (5mm) from the edge of the box so that their bottom edge sits of the cardboard (not against the edge of the cardboard as for the lid) - you can see all of this best in the second picture below I think.




I hope that that all makes sense to you!


I hope that after he's taken the present out Dad will be able to use the box to keep in some items from the Camino (like his credentials maybe or any postcards etc).

It did take a bit of time to make the box but mainly because I had no idea as to whether or not it would work or not, if I were to do it again (which I doubt I will!) it would take a lot less time. Set aside an hour or two depending on experience just to be safe, this isn't a quick craft but it looks good - Dad doesn't know what's inside but he's pretty impressed with the box itself!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Camino Primitivo

The Camino Primitivo (or the Original Way) is reportedly the very first Camino Way to Santiago in the 9 th century when most of Spain was under the control of the Moors and it runs from near the city of Ovideo in Asturias as it starts in Villavicosa (which also lies on the Camino Norte so many people follow this Way from   Basque city of San Sebastian (Donosti in Basque) or in from the French border at Irun ( this route then hugs the Bay of Biscay passing through Guernica, Bilbao, Santander, Llanes before going under the Picos de Europa and then heads along the coast to Ovideo) before branching off onto the Primitivo which goes across the mountains and through the city of Lugo before joining the Frances at Melide. The route is 320km long. Image taken from https://viaalpina2013.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/camino-del-norte-camino-primitivo/

Symbols of the three main Christian Pilgrimages

The symbol of the Pilgrim to Santiago is the Scallop shell  of which many can be found on the coast of Galicia and it is actually a symbol of the Pilgrimage (and has become a symbol of other Christian Pilgrimages too) partly because you could find the shell easily there and so could go back home and show it off as proof that you had done the Pilgrimage. It has also been included in carvings in some Churches.

Pilgrims' Trail to Saint Michels Mont, France

I have only walked two of the Camino routes (the Frances and Portuguese) and still want to try many of the others and yet I am also finding other Pilgrimage routes that I want to walk - I did the Pilgrims' Way in the summer which starts from Winchester which is also the starting point for the Pilgrims' Trail a 155 mile route that finishes at Mont St Michel in Normandy, France. The cult of saint Michel was popular in Britain from the 9th century and the Pilgrims walking this way were called Miquelots and many Pilgrims on their way to Santiago. The route is marked by green way markers in Hampshire taking walkers from Winchester to Bishop's Waltham to Southwick and then to Portsmouth where ferries are caught to France and Way markers become blue. Tradition says that, in 709 Saint Michael the Archangel appeared to the bishop of Avranches, Saint Aubert, and told him to build a chapel in his honour on the island. The bishop obeyed and soon sent a group of monks over...