One of my newest projects

Hi Everyone! Now that the holidays are over and I have been dealing with so much over the past couple of months, I decided it was time to get back to my safe place of crafting. I call it my safe place because that is where I can go to relax, create, and just let my mind be free. So while this newest project of mine is very sentimental and gets me emotional every time I work on it, I just knew this was the place my mind needed to be. So I wanted to share this newest project with you. It's a work in progress, but this project is totally worth all the time it will get because it is very dear to my heart, as it belonged to my dad. My dad is a Heavenly Angel now but back in his younger days when he was an Earthly Angel he had many talents, one of them was being a barber. This was his very first barber case that he received when he was in barber school. This case is over 50 years old, as he had it about 40 years and I have had it for over 10. So it's very old and has seen many days, but it's a very lucky case because it's getting a makeover from me :) I struggled a lot on whether or not I should do this as there is so much I can remember about my dad and my childhood all from this case. But since I have all of the original contents such as his scissors, clippers, cape, duster brush, etc I realized that those are what I remember the most. Those are what "make the case" and so by changing the material of the case doesn't mean I am changing the memories. After all of the tools will be going right back into it so in essence so are the memories. For privacy I have blocked out the areas that had his name engraved and I also blocked out another area where he had signed his name. I wanted to remember his signature, which he had signed on the inside of the case, so you will see there is an area that I have cut my paper around. To preserve his signature I put a clear laminate plastic layer over it. I chose papers that I thought would match the brown wood and outside brown covering. I loved the paper that has the sayings!! Every single one of the sayings means something to me so that was a must paper choice for this project. The papers and my over all concept were also to combined a bit of his masculinity along with a bit of my girlishness. I am not worrying to much about certain area seams as I am going to be covering them up with somethings that I want to include. I will be adding a collage of things that remind me of him and yet again combined some things of me, after all he's a big part of the woman I have become. Plus one day this will be passed down to my children and this way they will see that combination of the two of us. I have a ways to go yet on this case to make it just the way I want so I will keep you posted on the journey and final outcome :)

Outside of the case which I am leaving as is for now. I will just cleaned it up. I may decide to color the metal hinges at some point though as I would love to see a rustic hinge look in a gold or copper tone. (The two lighter brown stripes are just in the picture as that is where his name is engraved. I blocked it out for privacy)

This is the top inside of the case before it got overhauled, lol! (On the top left, that is where his signature is, which again for privacy I blocked it out)

Bottom inside of case - before

Bottom inside at mid-makeover status

Inside top at mid-makeover status (The top left again is his signature which-blocked out for privacy-but that is where I took and covered it with a thick clear laminate sheet to protect it so I will always be able to see his actual signature)