Burning to Make Boxes

If I had to choose one art tool I couldn't live without I would have to pick my hot glue gun.  This is the case, even though every time I use it I burn myself.  Waiting for other glues to dry is just agony once you've gotten used to the fast-drying hot glue.  I have to transport my work to the Rider University Art Gallery soon, and my work is mostly fragile, unframed, and three-dimensional.  I don't think I could have made the oversized packaging I've made this week without that glue gun.
There are very few glues that work on styrofoam, and work quickly.  I needed to build cushions into the boxes with styrofoam pieces. Most glues will melt the styrofoam. A touch of hot glue will work.  It even glues the bubblewrap to the styrofoam.

Figuring out how to make packages for my work to protect, add rigidity, stabilize various elements during transport AND be lightweight was a real challenge.  I custom built 4 boxes recently.  


The hanging paper scrolls were a problem.  In order to make the big box a little smaller, I brought the bottom of the twin scrolls up by securing the   
endknobs with wire poked right through the box bottom.  Then I "rolled" the scroll up over a paper towel holder that I first covered with glassine paper for it's neutral ph.  Two cardboard fingers can be lifted up to release the scroll from it's packaging.

The bamboo at the top of the scrolls is tied into the box with wires also, and the porcelain end caps are cushioned with form fitted styrofoam.

Pieces like the porcelain LANDSCAPE LATTICE have boxes like that, and have so far survived a number of moves.  They are stored in the stacked boxes in my storage room.

The glue gun is not without hazard.  Almost every time I use it for a project I burn myself.  I had been lucky for several days, but today I was almost finished with one of the huge boxes, when I burned not just one finger, but some fingers, on both hands! As soon as I felt a finger burning on one hand, my other hand burned, and then a fingernail.  I must have gotten a flying hot glue drip.  It's like having hot candle wax stuck on your hand. After finishing the cardboard strip, the first thing I found to "ice" with was a package of old white chocolate chips in the freezer downstairs.  Then I also found a little cold pack.  Well something about the (cellophane?) packaging on the chocolate chips makes that NOT effective for soothing burns.  I tried to hold one cold thing on my fingernail of my left hand while holding another cold pack on two fingers of my right hand.  And I am impatient.  When I should have sat and waited, I wanted to check and answer emails.  Hard to type with hands like that!  An hour or so of an on and off approach, and the pain was calmed down enough to return to my packaging project.  What oh what would I do without my trusty glue gun?