Floral Snuff or Pill Box

I have always loved little one of a kind things. And I have a special affinity for boxes and containers of all sorts. I have made many beaded leather bags and exotic wood boxes so I wanted to try to improve my skills by making a small box. First I looked at a lot of boxes! And I have to admit that I copied the design of this one from a master silversmiths video on Youtube. I changed the decoration some but it is truely his design. The biggest problem was of course soldering skills. Silver must be clean, clean,clean! If I can remember that one thing the soldering goes much better. Then holding the pieces together with just the right amount of force. Too little, the silver moves when I heat it. Too much and it deforms! ARG…..! I still haven’t been able to make a perfect ball on the end of a piece of wire yet. One thing I’m trying to do is use hard solder for anything that will show so it will tarnish at about the same rate. That makes for a few problems.  I have been using wire solder but I wondered if paste solder might work better in places where I don’t want the solder to spread too much. I intend to make my hinge differently next time too. I think they could be smaller and made from a piece of drilled solid wire or maybe a small coiled wire hinge. I would love to find a hidden hinge in which I could incorporate a spring opener. Oh well, back to the drawing board! Here is a pic of the first box. It’s about 1.5in dia.