Buckle Display Box

I was called upon to create Buckle Display Boxes for prizes for rodeo events, so I thought this would be a great project for this blog. We decided on a 3 buckle box. After studying a friend's display box, these are the dimensions I chose, but they are not firm, so you can use this as a base to work from. This project is fairly easy to make. The hardest part is choosing paint colors and decoration.

Red Oak pieces were cut out. Pictured is a strange rasp that was in the wood shop which I thought I would use to distress the wood. Instead I used a wire brush on the drill press.

Distressing the wood.

I painted all the pieces an acrylic vintage white. I didn't worry about complete coverage.

This is one of my favorite brushes. I took and old fan brush and trimmed it with scissors. I dipped the brush into the paint and removed the excess.

I lightly spread on the second color (acrylic aqua). You can see the detail of the distressed wood.

I applied a little glue and nailed it all together with a brad nail gun.

Before the plywood was added to the back, I cut out a piece of hair on black and white cowhide and glued it on.

I cut out and stamped leather corners and painted them a dark brown. The stops that hold the buckles in place were painted dark brown to match the corners.

The final step is to add dark brown upholstery tacks for more accent, shown in next photo.

A friend loaned me her buckles to photograph the finished piece!