The first burr oak veneered box I did was the William Blake Pencil Box and I have done several to the same basic pattern but with different details and internal formats. As with the Harlequin Tea Caddy this is designed with an internal format copied from a Victorian box. It is decorated with fiddle back maple and curved motifs made from laminated dyed veneers. The interior comprises two separate tea caddies for different teas and a hand made lead crystal blending bowl.

The main carcasses of the curved boxes I make are formed by laminating mdf and then hand shaped using a hollow plane and by careful scraping and sanding. The lid is formed from 2 or 3 layers of 1.5mm birch ply laminated onto a curved form ~ this method produces a lid that is extremely light and stable. The whole box is then worked as a single piece ~ ensuring that all curves and edges are continuous ~ and then veneered. I always use a single piece of veneer for each side of a box and use no decoration around the lid margin ~ this ensures that the figure appears continuous.