Here are more examples of toymaker/children’s book author Steve Light’s treasure boxes filled with toys, trinkets and ephemera that help keep his wheels turning. (For those of you coming into the middle of this Treasure Box conversation, check out previous posts: Treasure Boxes ; One Dog’s Junk ; Geocaching ; and The Snuff Box and the Rocking Horse.)

I collect cool boxes. The larger black one was once a jewelry display case. I liked the big clasp and the padding in the lid and bottom. The first two storybox figures that I created were Hansel and Gretel, and before I made a wooden box for them, I kept them safe in this case, using it as a carrier to bring them to school to show my pre-school students.

I’ve liked miniature toys as long as I can remember. As a kid I was always looking for the right size rubber bands to use as tires on the little tanks I’d whittle for my friends... and I was fond of those great little metal pieces in Monopoly that hold your place on the board, which might have something to do with this collection of small metal figures. I have an affinity for metal toys because they're indestructible.

These tiny antique pink stuffed animals I bought at a wonderful old New York toy and novelties shop called B. Shackman, which still exists, but only online now as a wholesale company. It was around the corner from my publisher, so I liked to stop in regularly after meetings to look around and get ideas.

The tin tobacco box caught my eye at a flea market because I liked the typeface and the Sucrets box shape of it. It’ll spark something later.

I carved the smiling wooden monster at the top left corner in the larger black box; the shape of the small piece of wood I picked up determined what the monster’s shape would be. Maybe he'll be a character in one of my stories. The little blue guy with the spherical head in the same box is something I hand-carved and painted. He was a character in an animated movie that I made.

I keep these things out where I can see them. All these little objects hold meaning for me… sometimes they represent a cartoonist or toymaker or design I admire, or they jog a memory, or inspire an idea.

Amazon is taking advance orders for Steve Light’s his new children’s book, Trucks Go, published by Chronicle Books, which will be released in late 2008 or early 2009. For more works by Steve Light, visit his site here.

Congrats, Steve! Thanks for sharing your treasure boxes.

- Ugo