"I gotta have the sparkly"

A quick look at the last post shows this account has been dormant for almost a year. Not that we're complaining because that means we're not up to our eyeballs in house reno work. But we did do a small woodworking project that we thought we'd share.

One of us has been expanding their jewelry collection--necklaces and rings--and needed additional storage. (Hence the title of this post, inspired by this movie.) Out to the workshop we go. 

We still had some of the Kentucky coffee tree lumber from the laundry hamper and thought it would look nice. Not in its original state, maybe.

We cut the board into 2 x .5 inch strips with the table saw. The 2 inches would give us a finished height (with the lid) of 2.5 inches, and the .5 width would keep the whole thing light.

Once sanded and cut to the right lengths we had our four sides (well one of the long sides is still uncut in this picture.

Naturally we mitered the corners at 45 degrees to give us nice 90-degree corners all around.

Then we got a little fancy. We didn't want to use any hardware (nails or screws) but worried that glue just at the corners wouldn't be very secure. Also, we planned to use plywood as the base but didn't want the ugly edges to show below the coffee tree sides. What to do? We decided to notch the side pieces to: a) hide the plywood base and b) provide more area for glue. First we had to get the depth right on a practice piece.

Then we ran the sides through the saw at the same setting.

To produce this:

We made the edges of the lid in the same way, except they're .5 x .5 inches.

Next we notched out slots to hide the hinges. We tried to use a mini-router but the wood is very hard, so the router jumped around too much. So instead we set the table saw at the right depth and ran the pieces over it (hence the groove marks that we later sanded out).

Then we put all the pieces together and clamped it in place with the newest addition to the collection.

With everything secure, we gave all the parts several coats of our favorite wood finisher to add luster and durability.

We drilled pilot holes for the hinges and were about 5 minutes from being done...

...when adversity struck. The brass screws on one side went in fine but on the other the heads broke off both of them.

Heavy sigh. We tried to glue the hinge in place because we weren't sure about drilling the broken screws out, but the glue didn't hold. So we used a drill bit that could handle wood or metal and made a new pilot hole. We had exhausted the brass screws that came with the hinges and didn't trust them anyway, so we went with a small steel screw. It's a little wonky, but it holds.

The whole thing is lined with green felt (someone's favorite color) to protect the jewelry.

And here's the finished product. It should do the trick.