Wedding Album container Box

My niece was married last month and they asked me to be the Wedding Photographer. I had a little prior experience so agreed and offered to make up an album and offer it and my services as my wedding present.
I had about 1500 shots and it took 2 weeks of full-time work to sort photoshop and print and make up the album.
Then I thought it would be a nice touch to make a box to store and protect the whole project.
I used simple pine starting with a 12X1” plank which was too thick and too wide for my bandsaw to resaw in one go. I ripped it then resawed and reglued to make the top and bottom. The sides were made from very thin cyprus pine which I laminated onto some thin ply. The thick bottom was attached using hand cut dove-tailing.
The sides are simply glued to the rest and the whole outside sanded with a random orbital sander.
The lid is heavy eucalyptus hardwood recycled from some offcuts and the handle is a short length of leopard tree branch shaped on a belt sander and dowelled and glued to the lid.

The walls seemed too thin to hinge on the heavy lid so I made an almost air-tight plug in lid shape and used 2 drilled holes and a nylon cord to keep the lid attached to the box when off.

The finish is 3 layers of polyurethane gloss and a steel wool canubra wax final coat to give a nice tactile effect.

I am posting it off to them this week and am keen to hear how it is received.
It is shaped so that it can be stored flat or on edge on a bookshelf.

-- David Australia