Housewarming Herbs

I found this box at a garage sale, it had probably been used as a gift set for wine. Even though it had a strange purplish stain on it and was missing it's lid, I was looking forward to transforming it!

Some friends of mine had just moved into a new place and I wanted to give them a housewarming gift. I love having fresh herbs in my kitchen to cook with and I thought they would as well.

My local farmer's market had just started selling herbs for the season, I chose basil, thyme, parsley and oregano. Luckily the little square pots they came in fit perfectly side by side!

The box was made of a soft wood that I wanted to try my hand at carving. I printed out and transferred the letters onto the box with carbon paper. I got out my tools from a printmaking class I had taken years ago and after outlining the design with an exacto knife I started carving out around the letters. At first I wasn't sure how it would turn out but after completing one letter I could see it was going to look great.

When all the carving was done, I painted the whole box a soft black. Next with light grey paint I used a dry brush technique to bring out the raised areas and give it the aged look I was going for.