Valentine Jewelry Box w/ Drawer

Design, modify, and adjust your project for your desired end results. The attached files are for 3mm thick basswood. When resizing or using different thickness of material, be sure to adjust all tab sizes. For best results, you should measure the thickness of your material. 3mm wood is rarely 3mm thick.

Once you have a basic box created, you can then modify the design using your favorite graphic design program. I use CorelDraw and attached my design file to this project. 

Be careful when creating intricate details, or cuts. Too thin of lines will make your project too fragile. 

When ready, start to cut your pieces. With some careful planning, you can reduce waste and save material. 

Before assembling your box, be sure to clean out any cut pieces that may have got stuck. For intricate work, I use a dental “explorer”, or probe, to help punch these small pieces out. Be careful not to break these fragile designs.

This may not be the fun part, but it' time to glue your box together. I've found using a little wood glue spread with a Q-tip on the joints, then adding a drop of super glue to each joint works best for me. The super glue dries quicky, holding the box together while the wood glue takes longer to dry.

For boxes, I use a “Box Squaring Jig” on all corners, held together with rubber bands. For larger boxes, like this jewelry box, I found some large assorted sized, silicon bands used in cooking. Just search Amazon for “cooking silicone band”.

Once all is dry, you can place your drawer into the jewelry box. If you have too tight of a fit, you may need to sand the sides of your drawer to help it fit better. I've also found using wax on the lower sides of the drawer will help it slide easier.

Depending on your desire end results, you can either paint, stain, or just seal your jewelry box. If using stain, I've found to test it out on a sample piece of the same wood first. Too many times my stain came out much darker than I preferred.