Cartonnage et Compagnie...

That's a French blog that I follow quite closely. http://mesfabricationscarto.over-blog.com/ It has nothing to do with miniatures. Cartonnage is the French art of fancy box making. I have tried my hand at it in real life size and really enjoy it. It is done with bookbinder's board and either covered with beautiful papers or with fabric and sometimes embroidery. If you go to that blog you will see wonderful examples of work and in the archives there are lots of patterns for boxes of all different shapes and sizes.

Tessie is posing with a bunch of the ones that I have done over the years. The black and white
ABC box, the two checkerboard boxes down in the front row, The needle book and the little oval thimble keeper are all from scratch. I cheated on the rest. That is the box was already built. I just decorated them. I still used some of the techniques. The red and white embordery will be the top of a button box when I get a chance to build it. No. I didn't spell bouton wrong. That's French!

This morning I got the harebrained idea to try it in miniature....Tessie wanted one of the embroidery boxes that I make, like the ABC box. Fool that I am, I decided to try it.

I pulled out a piece of cardboard, in more or less in the right scale, and went to work. These boxes are what I refer to as "book boxes. They have a spine and two covers as a book would have.

In order for the covers to open properly, there must be a space between the spine and covers the width of the cardboard.

I spread the outside with glue and laid it in place on the fabric. Then I trimmed all around, leaving enough to turn to the inside. I clipped the corners and then glued it in place. This makes the outside look finished.

I then spread glue over the inside and down the spaces between the cover and spine. Starting in the center on the spine, I laid down another piece of the fabric I smoothed it on the spine and then forced it into the creases with another piece of cardboard. Next I smoothed it over the covers and let it dry.

Then with a small pair of sharp scissors I trimmed the edges flush with the cardboard.

I took some of card stock and cut a strip just a hair smaller than the 1/8" spine. I put glue on one side of the strip and pressed it to the fabric. Then I trimmed off one side of the fabric even with the strip. I spread glue on the other side of the card stock and folded the other edge tightly over it. Then I flipped it over and trimmed the remaining edge of fabric even with the card.

I made a square outer box edge just by bending the strip(in front of photo) Then I glued it in place on the bottom and back of the box cover.

After that I cut short pieces of the strip and glued them in as dividers.

Basically that is it if you want to leave the box open. If you want to close it, you have to put ribbon or thread between the lining and cover both on the top and bottom so that you can tie it shut. I opted to leave it open so that what was inside could be seen.


Here's Tessie with the finished box, sitting inside the larger version.

You can't really see it, but I have started cutting tiny 1/8" squares and winding single strands of embroidery floss around each one.(poke the Photo to see) There are four in the box so far......This may take a while.

What Tessie wants, Tessie gets. With a bit of practice, I may get better at it. Not too bad for a first try.

See you tomorrow.