Monday, February 20, 2012

Soliciting an upcycling idea

Hey all you clever, creating, crafty types out there, I have a challenge for you.  I have procured, for less than a dollar for reasons that will soon become clear, this cute vintage jack-in-the-box:



The handle still turns, some (funky warped version of) the music still plays, and the graphics all around are in pretty good shape.  But Jack has flown the coop.  The lid doesn't pop up on its own either, but I believe that's just because there's no spring underneath to put pressure on it; you can hear the release happening.  Inside is nothing but a cardboard tube running down from the lip of the opening to the base of the tin box, where Jack presumably once slept:




I haven't been able to find this same one in Google images, so I can't date it, but I can tell you it's sweet and cute and to be honest I like it better without Jack.  Just ask anyone who knows me - I'm not a fan of things that pop up suddenly to startle me.  I often get cringey around balloons, on the off chance they might pop.  I never liked a Jack-in-the-box when I was a little girl, and I hated, but got pretty good at, the game Perfection.  You remember the one?  there was a board with all these shaped holes, and then there were a bunch of pieces you had to stick in the correct holes before the constantly-ticking timer went off and the whole thing exploded in your face?  At least that's how it seemed to me: bomb-diffusing for children.  I loathed that game; was sure it was invented by evil people intent on causing (or perhaps in my case just exacerbating) childhood neuroses.  But I felt compelled to do it every time my sister cranked that timer up.  My pulse would race and I would get so nervous, but I would stick those stupid little plastic pieces in their little holes like a frantic... child trying to diffuse a bomb.  I think we've been over this part already.  

Anyway, all that to say I don't feel any particular loss for the missing Jack in this little tin box, and think it would be fun to re-purpose/upcycle it in some way.  And so I'm asking you, clever reader.  What would you do with Jack's house, now that he's vacated the premises?


2 comments:

  1. toilet paper holder? candy jar? probably not at the same time though! ha

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  2. Hee! Not quite big enough to stash TP, but it would be cute full of mints or something on my desk at work!

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