This project started when I was contacted by my mom's cousin who was looking for a birthday gift for a "friend who has everything".  Her idea was to have friends and family write him notes of good wishes on his birthday and then place them, loose, inside a fancy box.  She told me he liked New York, broadway, piano bars, and things with an art deco feel.  We decided on a night scene of a man playing an upright piano under the Brooklyn Bridge.  This is a modified clamshell box where the spine does not drop down flat when opened.  It is more like a shoebox-shape with a hinged lid that fits over the bottom tray.  This box is covered with black pigskin leather and accented with the raised bridge design (built up in layers on the cover board before the leather was applied), a silver crescent moon, and the piano player "in shadow" stamped in pewter foil.  Silver lettering in a deco-appropriate san serif font was also added along with a deco-inspired decoration on the spine of the box.  We went with a "tuxedo" color scheme with the black cover and eggshell linen edges on the box.  The box was lined with black and white marbled paper.  This box measures 12" long by 8" wide and 3" deep.

A box like this would cost around $390 not including the cost of the die used to stamp the piano man on the front (a die this size might cost around $90).

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