I made a box for my late roommate Soup.

Soup was not a human. Soup was a cat . Soup was not my cat. My friend Jen was Soup’s human, and we all used to be roommates some time ago in a house in Berkeley, California.

(Jen is a musician who plays for The Hammerbombs and Heartless Folk. Go see her bands! Buy their music!)

Soup passed on in May of 2019. Soup was an awesome cat, and even though she was not my cat, I really miss her.

Thee one and only Soup!
She was a black cat who would hide
in my room from time to time.

I was surprised when my friend Jen wanted to give me some of her cremated ashes. Jen decided to share her ashes with all of Soup’s favorite humans.

I was quite humbled and honored to be considered one of Soup’s favorite humans. Soup was a really cool cat. She was very affectionate and playful and impish. Everyone liked Soup, even people who supposedly didn’t like cats. I once had a girlfriend who was not fond of cats. (Name redacted for her protection.) She not only played with Soup and petted Soup, she let Soup sit in her lap, much to my astonishment!

When I got Soup’s ashes, I realized I needed to find a proper receptacle for her. I went on Etsy and looked up boxes and cat boxes and memorial containers for pets. There was a lot of nice stuff on Etsy, but none of it was quite right. The designs really didn’t work on many of them, and a lot of containers were simply too big. I only had part of Soup, not all of her ashes.

I decided it would be better to make my own Soup container. I would make a memorial box for Soup!

I knew it would be small and made out of wood, but I also knew I needed some advice on how to proceed, so I went to YouTube, the land of DIY videos and searched for “How to paint a wooden box.” The first video I watched would end up being my primary source of inspiration and instruction for this bohemian endeavor, a video made by a young woman who goes by the YouTube handle TrippyDraws, a channel I highly recommend if you want to get into painting and drawing.

I found just the right sized wooden box for Soup at a crafts store, but I also bought a smaller wooden box to use for practice. I wanted to get in some painting and varnishing before I worked on Soup’s box. It would mean extra time, but I wanted to do this art project right.

Trying out a practice box really helped. I was able to find out how many layers of paint to use, how to cake on the paint rather than dab it, how I should paint around the latches rather than trying to remove them, (They don’t go back on very well,) and I also tried experiments with blending and shading.

The practice box, which I needed up giving
to my mother as a Christmas present

I watched a few more instructional videos, particularly ones on working with acrylic paint and varnishing, and then I set out to work on Soup’s box. It was a longish process, because every time I put on a new coat of paint I would wait quite some time for it to dry. One side at a time. Eventually I came out with something I liked. It was not as elaborate as I had planned. When it came down to finally painting the box I went with simple.

Working on Soup’s box

It’s not as elegant as my cat Bashir’s professionally made box that was provided by his crematorium, but I guess Soup was more of a punk putters, so the DIY look is appropriate. The finished product is in the video below!

Soup will get to hang out with my Bashir, my giant tabby dog-cat who passed on several years ago.

My Dogcat Bashir, who passed on several years ago,
and who now hangs out with Soup on my desk!