Lovely group of boxes, Mark. I particularly like the ash one.
Regarding making boxes from green wood, I have tried this and rough turned them very green, then left them in shavings for a few months, then moved them to the airing cupboard for a few more months. It's not a particularly successful method as many woods move a lot from being green to being very dry - and in an object like a small box, this can mean it's very difficult to re-chuck the item, or impossible to make into a box as the wood has moved too much to leave enough thickness once lid and box have been re-trued. I have a couple of boxes with impractically thin flanges and side walls because of this :-(
The only woods I've been successful rough turning into boxes very green are straight-grained ash, birch, and sycamore. Holly, cherry, hawthorn & apple are a disaster (all splitting badly) with this method, and oak just moves far too much. It's a shame really as hollowing them out is much quicker when the wood is very green
A better method (as Mark suggests) is to cut the green wood into suitable sized blanks, seal the ends, then either leave to air dry for at least six months before rough turning and then putting in the airing cupboard to finish off the drying, or to hurry the process up you can go from green blank straight into the airing cupboard for a couple of months - but expect to lose a quite few blanks to splitting or massive distortion if you use this method.
One tip I've found very useful with woods with a lot of "character" ie inset pith from side branches, knots etc is to rough turn the box, then apply copious quantities of thin superglue (the 4 for a pound type you get in pound shops) to any visible defect in the wood, both sides of the defect, before leaving the roughed item to dry. This seems to stop cracks developing around the defect and because it's been done to the rough turned box, you cut away any superglue stained wood as you finish turn, so it doesn't effect the look of the finished item.
