One of the best presents in the world and a sneak peek into my makeup collection...

I was given one of the best handmade presents in the entire world recently from my fiance's friend. My fiance (Mike) has been helping his mate, Haj, with building a CNC machine, which is basically a cutting machine.

Haj kindly built me a ginormous makeup box. I initially wanted one that will fit in one of Mike's cubby hole wardrobe shelves, so I gave him dimensions for that... except Mike is selling his property, but I'm sure I'll be able to fit this in our new home. The dimensions of this amazing box are40cm wide, 30cm deep and 30cm high.

 

Haj got the CNC machine to cut everything out, including the stay rod (see picture below) and my name! I love the white shell-fan background that he used (the design was not cut using the CNC machine though).

He used a top quality paint (forgot the brand, sorry!) as well. There's about 8 coats of paint there! The quality of this box is superb! It's so sturdy that I can see this lasting me a lifetime. 

In case you didn't know what a stay rod was, it's that thing on the left side of the box, which connects from the side of the box to the lid. You can actually lock it, so that the lid stays open. I can't believe he made that thing!

It has a flip top lid with a mirror on the inside, and a really deep compartment. It fits a 16.5cm tall bottle of Mario Badescu Special Cucumber Lotion with no troubles at all!

The bottom drawer is quite shallow compared to the top compartment. It's dimensions are 9cm high, 37.5cm wide, and 27cm deep.

After a few days of procrastinating and trying to figure out where to place this box, I finally managed to find the perfect spot and (almost) filled it up!

I filled it up with my skincare, (the majority) of my foundations and primers, mascaras, eyebrow pencils, favourite palettes and blushes.

In the top compartment, I've placed two boxes. In one of the boxes (on the left), there's my opened foundations, primers and setting powders. At the back of that box, I managed to fit in some skincare products that I don't use everyday (such as pimple busting products, and Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Concentrate, which you're meant to use consistently for a few months and then stop for a few months before continuing again.

In the second box (on the right) lives most of my unused/brand new foundations and powders. I've also stuck two travel sized bottles of eye makeup remover, as I couldn't decide where to put them. I also placed my Lush Gorgeous deluxe sample size on top of one of my powders. In front of that box, I've put my more frequently used skincare (from left to right) - Mario Badescu Special Cucumber Lotion, SKII Facial Treatment Essence, theBalm Vanilla oil-absorbing face moisturizer, Skindinavia No More Shine Makeup Finish mist, and No7 Eye Makeup Remover.

In the drawer below lives my favourite (and only) face palettes (eyeshadow palettes live in a different set of drawers). I have my Guerlain Meteorites palette (which I have yet to open, it's far too precious), LORAC Pro to go, MAC palette, and Inglot freedome palette.

I have my eyebrow pencils, favourite eyeliner at the moment (travel sized Kat Von D tattoo liner in trooper), and Benefit eye bright in the middle of the drawer.

On the right side of the drawer, I have two bellaboxes that I used as containers/tubs. The one at the back of the drawer contains all my opened mascara (I have a heap of new ones in a separate set of drawers... I'm a bit of a mascara junkie). In the other box, I have my favourite blushes, most of which are MAC (I'm also a bit of a blush junkie).

Would you be interested in purchasing a box like this? I'm trying to get Haj to make some acrylic makeup boxes, as I'd love to purchase some from him.