Fancy Jewelry Box built by my daughter and me

Submitted by wowmom_cs on Tue, 05/07/2019 - 09:25

My 10 year old daughter is always creating. She recently decided that she wanted to do a woodworking project with me. We started by searching online for a design that looked doable and came up with the Fancy Jewelry Box from the Ana White website.

We decided that using the full thickness of 1x stock gave the piece a bit more of a clunky look than we were after. And since I have a thickness plainer, we milled our stock down to just under 1/2”. But that meant that we had to rework many of the measurements on the plan. This also made the drawers deeper and wider. Which is nice. A happy mistake happened when, while rough cutting the individual pieces before milling them down, I inadvertently cut the pieces between the drawers too narrow. We ended up turning them 90 degrees which allowed them to fit. This is why you see the end grain on those pieces. But we like it.

We also altered the plan a bit so that the edges of the plywood on the faces of the drawers and doors do not show. We added a nice border to the top of the box with a curved router bit. We lined the drawers with felt and then added some dividers here and there using some scraps of oak which we sawed thin with a bandsaw.

The original plan was to paint the box, as opposed to staining it. It wasn't until after I had nailed on the top and the drawer fronts that my daughter decided she wanted to stain it. That's why you can see those nail holes!

We had such fun making this Jewelry box. 

Built from Plan(s)
Estimated Cost
I don't remember. Not much.
Estimated Time Investment
Week Long Project (20 Hours or More)
Finish Used
Stain and water based polyurethane. We used 2 coats of poly "sanding" it between coats with fine steel wool.
Recommended Skill Level
Beginner

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