In my earlier post, “Halloween arrives at Michaels“, I told you about the $1 miniature wooden coffins for sale there. I bought one and thought I would try my hand at decorating one. Here’s the result, my new business card holder for my desk (name hidden to protect the innocent, and my job)
Coffin Business Card Holder
And a shot of the outside:
Coffin Business Card holder closed
This was admittedly a pretty simple job, nothing like the awesome coffins in my “Grave Undertaking” post. Still, I was pretty proud of my effort. Here’s what I did:
- Use an X-acto or utility knife and a straight-edge to cut lines for the ‘planks’ on the lid and sides. I just scratched out one simple cut for each line. But you could carve out small grooves if you wanted to make the lines more pronounced.
- Remove the hinges and latch. You will need a small screwdriver for this.
- Stain the wood with your favorite stain. I applied some Min-Wax walnut stain with a small brush. But you could use one of the stain markers that you can also buy at Michaels.
- Let the stain dry. It actually took a few days until it wasn’t sticky anymore.
- Attach the hinges and latch – and you are done!
One problem I had with staining was that there was some dried glue on the inside of the coffin. So the wood would not take the stain in those areas I ended up coloring the area with a brown marker, but the color was not an exact match (You can see a bit of this on the lid in the first picture). So you may be better off painting the inside or lining it with another material, like felt.
I bought several more coffins and have a lot of ideas. I’ll keep you posted. But meanwhile, why don’t you drive the hearse down to Michaels and get a few yourself?
ScreaminScott says ‘dig it up!’
