I do like to be beside the Seaside

I made this "card" for Simon's friend Charlotte who turned 7 this week and had a pirate themed party.
I wanted to have a cavity for the treasure chest, and I had been wondering for some time how to construct something from card when I happened across this paper mache box, which seemed like a suitable alternative.
The box was gessoed and painted with a cream acrylic.  I then stamped several shell images onto white tissue paper using Archival ink and adhered these with a glue varnish from Decopatch.   As you can see in the 2nd photo there is a treasure chest shape cut from the top so the cavity was visible when the skull was removed.
I've always had a passion for stamps of shells and other sea related images, which has not been diminished by living in a wet, cold, land-locked European country for over 14 years now (I've now started collecting die cuts as well).  The shell corner stamp is one of the 1st stamps I ever bought - about 16 years ago, an old wood mounted rubber one from a company called Stamp World (made in Australia, doubt it's still available).  Other stamps which I used as fillers were from a Crafty Individuals Crafty Elements set.
The topper was cut using Sizzix Original "Skull and Crossbones".  The negative was cut from mount-board (it needs to be quite thick in order for the skull to sit in it firmly) which had an alcohol-inked surface - I think I used Sandal, Salmon and Latte inks as well as Gold.  The skull was cut from a double layer of foam board with a piece of black sandwiched in between so the eyes weren't hollow.
Inside the box were 9 little compartments.  The middle one visible when the skull was removed had a die cut treasure chest in the bottom - cut from brown and cream coredinations card using a Quickutz die.  The others had stamped shell images from the Crafty Individuals set, and all were sprinkled with mult-coloured glitter (to represent sparkling jewels).  To finish it off I wrote and printed a small rhyme and aged it using distress inks and tearing the edges.   The font used was Treasure Map Deadhand.