Meaningful Date Star Map Trinket Box

This polymer clay box has a gilded star map that shows the exact night sky that could have been seen at a meaningful day and location of your choosing. I think it makes a sweet and meaningful gift for an anniversary or any other momentous occasion.

Graph paper

Polymer clay

Polymer clay blade

Needle

Dotting tool

Gilding glue

Faux gold leaf

Gilding varnish (optional)

Soft-hair brush and stiff-bristled brush

Quick setting epoxy glue

Small hinges

Start by drawing out your template on graph paper. You need a square (with a×a dimensions) and a rectangle for the four walls (with a×b dimensions). My chosen dimensions: square 7.5 cm ×7.5 cm, rectangle 7.5 cm ×4.5 cm.

Roll out a piece of dark blue polymer clay to a thickness of about 2mm, place your square template on top and cut according to it using your blade. Repeat this with the rectangle template four times. Bake all the pieces according to package instructions (for me it’s 110 °C for 30 min.).

Mix up some pastel blue and pastel purple polymer clay. Shape little balls out of the pastel blue clay and flatten them. Add them in a jagged curve slightly overlapping each other on the edges and taking up around half the length of the wall on the left side. Fill in the cloud with larger pieces of clay and smooth out with your finger. Repeat this on the right side with pastel purple. I chose to overlap the clouds on some walls and have them not touch on others. Bake according to package instructions.

Using the blade cut off any overlapping cloud material and cut in a 45° angle for the sides of the wall as shown. Mix up the epoxy glue and glue together the walls while also gluing it to the base. Allow to dry for 24 hours.

Turn the box over, bottom facing up, and trace the edges on a piece of paper. This will be the shape for the box lid. Doing this is better than simply using the same templet as the bottom, because if the walls have warped somewhat or the gluing wasn’t perfectly accurate, the top might not make a perfect square and this way your lid will still fit perfectly.

Go to https://skyandtelescope.org/interactive-sky-chart/. You can use a different sky chart website, but this is the one I like. Look up the coordinates of the location you want, choose “enter manually” and enter them. Enter your meaningful date. Click “submit”. Uncheck all the boxes and only check “constellation lines”. Print the star map out so that your lid fits neatly in it. It might require some experimentation to get the perfect size. Cut out the lid template shape from the star map positioning the cardinal directions in the corners.

Roll out another piece of dark blue clay to a thickness of around 2 mm. Put the template you made on the clay pencil down and cut out the shape. Place the star map on top. With a needle poke through the paper all the major stars and planets and score through the paper to mark the constellation lines. Remove the paper, use the needle to make the constellation lines clearer and use the dotting tool to enlarge the stars and planets. Bake according to package instructions.

Add gilding glue to the divots a few, wait until it gets tacky and using a soft hair brush pick up a piece of gold leaf and place I on the area. Wait for a few more minutes and remove the excess by rubbing with a stiff-bristled brush. Repeat this until all the stars are gilded. Optionally if you want the gilding to last varnish the lid. I also chose to varnish the sides of the box so they match better.

Mix up some more epoxy glue, put the glue on the leaves of the hinges on the side that doesn’t have the extruding barrel. Place them on the outside of one of the walls, then bend the top of the hinges 90°, add glue on top and place the lid on top, making sure that you are positioning the lid in the correct orientation. Allow to set for 24 hours and you’re done.

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