John crafts his boxes made out of wood and epoxy. He creates a mold, assembles the wood burl parts, and very slowly fills the mold with epoxy. When dry, he slices the lid off, designs the inside pockets by hollowing the sections out by hand with routers — the deeper, the more difficult. He then re-polishes the box, designs the outside, and attaches hidden barrel hinges so that the design of the box is emphasized. He sometimes inserts abalone, pearls, and gemstones such as garnet, amethyst, malachite, lapis lazuli, and ice flake quartz for a sparkle on the inside.