Beat Boxes: Building Cajones with the Kids, part 2

Painting and Finishing

This weekend we painted and finished our cajones. Sean’s was constructed from furniture-grade mahogany veneer plywood, so this one would be finished with a natural finish. The girls wanted flowers, butterflies, and ladybugs. Nathan had his heart set on a monster. Since I’m entirely unable to draw any of these things well, we ran to the store and found some stencils that the kids could paint on their respective boxes. These worked much better than I’d expected – the kids were able to do it themselves with beautiful results!

grass and sky background for the beetle box

Painting on monster hands

Stenciling on some flowers and a couple skulls

Stenciled flowers on Emma’s flutterbox

Making a bead rattle/snare

Nate posing with his monster box

An initial coat of polycrylic applied

Sealing in the waterslide decal

He likes the skull

The finished products

These are definitely family-room worthy pieces that we should be able to enjoy seeing and hearing for years to come. Great work, kids!

Emma’s cajon

Emma painted flowers on the side

The “flutterbox”

Nate’s cajon – el “cajon monstruo”

Another view of Nate’s monster box

Nate wanted a skull and bones on the side

Sean’s cajon

Mahogany sides and top with a skull and sombrero stencil

Annalise’s cajon

the beetlebox

Annalise chose a dragonfly stencil for the side

Another shot of the four

the group