Making the bullet & book page

Making the bullet

I'm really pleased with how the tin is going, but I thought it would be nice to add an item that shows the war around the child that he could find and add to his tin.

My first thought was bullets, so I researched some images.

I like the idea of adding a bullet to the tin to show the contrast of the innocence of the toys but bloodshed of war.

I found a chunky lid to a pen in my room and covered this in paper. I then made the tip to a point with PVA and tissue and waited for that to dry.
I then filled the bottom of the lid with Plasticine, then coated the whole thing in a layer of the gold acrylic paint.

I painted red and white detailing on the bottom of the bullet then dabbed brown paint over the whole thing. I then scratched into it with sandpaper.

Making the book page

I also want to include something of a soldier's so I started to think about that. I remembered that I bought a World War one replica pack from the Imperial War Museum a few weeks ago. The pack has replicas of medical reports and national registration certificates which I was thinking of making, however these are items the soldiers would have kept on them and wouldn't fall into the hands of a child. 

I was reading a replica of "When to join the ranks" and found some of the rules and language used quite interesting, so I made a page from this to include in the tin, as this is something that probably would have been easily lost in World War one. 

I created this page in Word. The text is size 9 Times New Roman font. This page would have been more effective if I had a typewriter, but Times New Roman was the closest font I could find without one. 

I aged this by tea staining the paper (surprise surprise!). I wanted darker patches too, so I watered down some brown acrylic and dabbed this on with a tissue, which I think looks quite effective.