A Year in Glass: Project 3: Sanctuary in a Box

So clearly I'm a little behind schedule. This project had a lot of little details that ended up taking more time than I expected. But at least I got it done. So this week I decided to make a box with a scene of a forest in it. Well, it's a tiny forest since it only has two trees, but that's okay. If I have more time later, perhaps I'll add more to it. I took lots of pictures, so get excited.

The Process

I built the sides of the box first.

Creating two halves like this insures that I have two right angles.
This will overall make the rest of my box square. A box that is not
square is VERY irksome.

Four sides. Basically square. :)

Then I built the base of the box. The blue piece is supposed to be a river.

Over the river and through the woods...

I soldered one of the pieces of grass on an angle to try and create the illusion of a hill. I made the two trees out of copper wire. I twisted a bunch of wires together and 'fluffed' the branches out.

I soldered the trees to the base and then I attached the base to the rest of the box. I put a lid on the box to finish it off.

Finished Product:

Ta dah!

Notice the swing?

A different angle.

Aerial view. What are those two holes for?

So you may be wondering, 'what was so time consuming about this project exactly?' I decided I wanted to be able to light the box up and have it look eerie and ethereal. So I wired some LEDs to add some ambiance. However, I'd never done any sort of wiring at all, so it took a little while to get it right, but once I got it, I was glad I went through the frustration of figuring it out. Ideally I'd like to use a warmer light, but I guess I can't be too picky for a week's worth of work. So below are the pictures of the box lit up.