I love curio cabinets. The Victorians excelled at collecting things, (which are now non-PC or probably extinct), on their Grand Tours around the world. My Great Great Uncle Bernard was one of these, and in the family we still have his amazing cabinets filled with butterflies and eggs that he collected voraciously. Nothing came in small measures, he would collect 50 perfect specimens of one type of butterfly rather than just one, plus the caterpillar of the insect as well. The smell when the cabinet is opened is overwhelming of camphor still, and when I was a little girl I would spend hours inhaling the smell and coveting the butterflies. I have quite a few little odd bits such as fossils, animals and coins, and wanted to group them in some sort of display case together, following the Victorian cabinets which are so inspiring:
My last post talked about buying at auction, and one of the items I purchased was a very cheap little oak wall storage box from, I think, an old power station/railway box. It is made of oak, and has the original sticker in the box. As it is plain oak, I decided to paint the exterior in a distressed grey/green effect using chalk paints. I left the interior oak as I wanted the items to stand out.
Once it was dry, I hung it on the wall and popped in my little items; a skull, a pickled lizard, vintage smelling salts, fossils, coins and my grandfather’s lead toy soldiers. Here is the finished cabinet:
Emma Kayne 