I am making a pirate theme cake for this weekend. Originally, I planned on buying a small toy treasure chest, but my luck, I haven't been able to find one. Any ideas on how to make a realistic treasure chest? I have done some fondant molding, but not a lot. I'm not so worried about making the box portion, I'm more worried about the lid and the realistic features. Any help would be much appreciated!!

I'm pretty new at finest molding, and I just made one! I haven't posted it, but pm me your email, and I'll send a pic. I made the box, then used gold candy coins to prop lid open. Made a pearl necklace with sugar pearls on one side. I secured the lid with tooth picks in the back, but the coins kept it open. I painted it with brown gel food color mixed with vodka to give it a wood grain. It was fairly easy to do

How big are you looking to make it? I did a pirate cake for twins and had two small treasure chests on top made out of rice krispy treats* and covered with fondant. I made the bases and lids separately, then put then together with some balled up cling wrap in between to keep the shape while it dried. Coins are more fondant sprayed with the Wilton gold. I used an embossing tool to make lines in the chests to give it the appearance of wooden boards.

*I asked about size, because these were made super-easy in that the store bought RKT was the perfect size! I used 1 of them cut in half (for top and bottom) for each chest. I hate making RKT and getting all gooey, so this made me very happy :)