Full Sized Witchy Potions Cupboard

About a year or so ago I found a little decorative spice cupboard in a junk shop near my house.  The moment I saw it I knew that I wanted needed to turn it into a witchy potions cupboard for the lovely Knickertwist  Since then it has sat around my house awaiting an excuse to be built and sent to her.  Thankfully that excuse came up in the guise of the Back to Hogwarts Swap organized by pinkleo.  Sadly I can't seem to find the before pictures I took of the cupboard. 

[b]Edit: For size reference, the cabinet is 15" tall, and 12" wide, with the doors closed. (Thanks Knicker!) The shelf in the background is actually my mantle, and it is sitting on a bookshelf.

And a great big THANK YOU! to cackle and rackycoo for all their help and advice while making this project![/b]

Here's the outside of the finished cupboard. 

I used a wood burning tool to burn in the runes onto the front.  They read "It does not do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live."

The top also has a celestial pattern burned into it, and random wonky dots burned up and down the front.  After burning the outside of the cupboard, I re-sanded it, so the insides of the burned areas would be a little dusty.

The bottom also contains a small drawer that I filled with magical bits and bobs.  More about those later...

Here the doors open to reveal the ingredients inside...

Let's get a closer look at the top shelf.

We have a bottle of rose petals from a first love, a silver bell, a "Miracle Elixir of Life" patent medicine bottle from the 1880's (the purple one), a tiny basket containing vials of Scarab Beetle Eyes & Powdered Unicorn Horn...

a tiny Grimoire, and a silver chalice for serving up bubbling potions...

The Grimoire has notes, lists of magical items, and quite a few potion recipes, including this one for a Passion Philtre:

(Incidentally, these are all real recipes, safe for human consumption!  Most of the recipes are for homemade liquers.)

And the lower shelf... In the larger bottles we have Dragon Heartstring (variegated gold metallic yarn and variegated red ribbon crocheted together), dried Aconite, Blessing Seeds, Dried Doxy Eggs (lumpy dull brown potato pearls), and a bottle of Bezoars.

In the tiny bottles we have Pearled Phoenix Tears, Mugwort, Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, Beetle Wings, and Sneezewort.

Inside the drawer we have a nearly empty spool of red thread, a tiny bundle of phoenix tail feathers, some rune dice, a golden key, a buckeye from my yard, a Nazar, and an amulet to protect a loved one.  They aren't pictured, but there are also two candles tucked in the drawer, one red and one white, for use in various spells.

So there you have it.  A full sized potions cupboard for my favorite witchy friend, Knickertwist. 

TARDIS Matchbox

I recently was "strong armed" by the awesome Pinkleo into participating in the Matchbox Swap Round 4.  My partner spidermom is a big Doctor Who fan, and had lots of TARDIS themed items on her Wist.  Since they are both rectangular, I thought the TARDIS would be a great choice for the matchbox I was going to build her.   I used an online template from Swap Bot for the box itself.  (Though the PDF wouldn't really open for me.  I had to take a screen capture of it, and size it up.)

After coming up with the right sized box, I found blueprint images of the TARDIS online, and cut down the front and tweaked proportions till it fit the size of the box front.  Then just cut and pasted together in Photoshop.  I printed it, along with the manual cover on the only sheet of blue card stock I had.  Thank goodness it worked the first time!  The printed lines were all gone over with superfine Sharpie, and the upper windows were cut out and backed with vellum. The doorknob is a little metallic scrapbooking embellishment.

Matchbox, with all it's goodies packed inside:

When the tray is empty, you always have the Doctor to keep you company.

All the goodies unpacked, including a resin bottle cap pendant, AB beads, a bone bead, tiny TARDIS Instruction Manual, two keys to the TARDIS, a paper tag, pin back, clip, blue buttons and beads, blue acrylic drops, a copper and brass ring, stamp from China, evil eye bead for protection, star charms, hematite beads, hook clasp, an angel wing charm, 60's-esque teapot, leather "Travel" tag, s-hook clasp, and a cookie fortune.

Detail of the necklace.  I made a ton of these charms in the Steampunk Charm Swap, and have been meaning to make necklaces out of them ever since.  For those of you who are curious, I believe it's a Leinenkugel's Fireside Nutbrown Ale cap.
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You can't be flying about time and space without any idea how to operate the crazy box, so I made a tiny TARDIS Instruction Manual

Inside of the Manual

Possibly my favorite find from my stash, the fortune:

I should probably note that when I came up with this idea, I had never seen an episode of Doctor Who before.  I chose most of my bits & bobs just by going for items that related to traveling, and the same shade of blue as the TARDIS.  Since I finished the box and mailed it a week ago, I started to get curious though.  In the last week I ended up finishing Series 1, and just started Series 2 this morning.  While David Tennant is adorable, and I'm sure will grow on me soon, I already really miss Chris Eccleston who I was nursing a bit of a crush on.

*Edit: I have since learned to love and adore David Tennant who will always be "My Doctor".