Beginner Woodworking: Simple Jewelry Box

1. Intro: Hello and welcome to beginner would work in class number ten, building a simple jewelry box. I've been seeing this beautiful faux pearl inlay on mirrors and dressers lately. And I thought a small keeps sake box would be the perfect place to trial this effect. I'm amped to make this easy build with you today and I hope you'll join along as we learn step-by-step how to build and paint a simple jewelry box. I'm so cow would girl and I'm a creator in sunny Los Angeles. I've been building and crafting what an object's large and small for over a decade. And I am obsessed with passing on my love of carpentry through accessible, fun, and engaging classes that will help you tackle whatever project you dream of. I've been featured and family handyman for my one woman kitchen remodel and I've been teaching on Skillshare since 2019. I hope you'll join me on a journey of empowerment and skill building as we create what we've imagined project by project. In this beginner friendly class, we'll learn the following types of jewelry boxes and modifications we can make. Designing our box, materials and supplies needed, making our cuts, assembling our box, finishing our box and final thoughts. This class is aimed at students with a basic understanding of woodworking. Access and experience using power tools is recommended, but it is not required. Some basic tools are necessary. I, yr, lung protection, sander or sandpaper, gloves, paintbrush or sponge brush, miter, jig or hands-off. Brad Naylor or hammer and nails, drill and drill bits would glue, clamps, paint, and stain will also be using a pearlescent mixing medium and stencils, either homemade with a paper cutting machine or trace by hand or purchased. What are you waiting for? Let's dive on in and learn how to make a simple jewelry box. 2. Types of Jewelry Boxes: Before we launch into this project, let's take a look at common jewelry boxes to find the style we like and any modifications we might want to make. Their jewelry boxes that use a drawer system. Well, that's a cool concept for our purposes and simplicity, I'll be steering clear of that. But apothecaries style, all the heart eyes. Stay cool. Britney, stay cool. There are ones that have a bunch of dividers on the inside to separate your items. This is certainly a modification you could add in at anytime, even down the line. You have ones with fancy velvet on the inside. But for some reason, that kinda takes me back to my childhood and tacky kitsch from gift shop. So for me, I'm going to pass on that. You of course have ones with intricate jewelry like dovetails and box joints, but those are all finicky and require far too much patients that I do not possess. I think for today, since the delicate faux pearl inlay is going to be the star of this project. We'll keep it simple. Two sides, a front and back attached by nails, a thin bottom annelid that rest on top, attached by tiny hinges in the back. Super simple. That way, the lid of this baby can shine. You'll also need to consider what you plan on storing in there that will determine the type and size of box you'll make. Will it be jewelry? Guitar picks, a secret stash of cash. Tell me where maybe your dog demands the royal treatment and wants you to store their treats inside. Whatever the case, you'll want to design your box around your needs and requirements. And fortunately, since you're making it and not buying it, you can have it any way you want it. 3. Design: Now that we have an idea of the type of box we want, it's time to fully design this bad boy. For me, I'll be storing buttons and my craft room so it doesn't need to be huge. But I also want to make sure there's enough surface to paint the pearl inlay, so I don't want it to be tiny. Taking a measuring tape to some similar style boxes, I've landed on a box that is 7 " wide, 5 " deep, and 4 " tall. This will allow me room to grow. Should I become button obsessed at some point in time? No judgment. The bottom can be a thin piece of one-eighth inch wood for the sides and front and back, as well as the lid. I'm going to use just one cedar fence picket fence pickets are great for small projects because they not only give a nice cedar sent, they're cheap and easy to work with. A cedar Pickett is about five eighth inch thick, so we'll need to account for that in our design. The lid is symbol. It will cover the whole top of the box. So it will be our base measurement at 7 " long by 5 " deep. For the back and front, I'd like it to be a solid front without the end of the slides showing. So we'll let the sides be inset between the front and back pieces. That means our front and back piece will be 7 " long by three and three-eighths inch tall. This is our total height of 4 " minus the five h thickness of the lid. The front and back thickness, or five-eighths multiplied by two, that leaves us with one and a quarter thickness. We'll subtract that from the depth of the box 5 " to get three and three-quarter inches and the same height as the front and back, three and three-eighths. This is the measurement for our sides sandwiched between our front and back. For our bottom, we have two options. You can make it the same size as the lid and just nail it to the bottom of the box. Super easy. Or we can route a dado into the sides and insert the bottom into the slot. This is a bit more advanced, so I'll be demonstrating both. If you'll be routing, then account for a one-quarter inch route. The interior of the box, accounting for the thickness of the sides and front and back measures five and three-quarters wide by 3.3 quarters deep. We'll add one-half inch to that width to account for a one-quarter inch route on either side piece, making the bottom three and three-quarter deep by six and one-quarter wide. We won't be routing the back and front because there's simple route I'll be showing you on the table. Saw is not a plunge cut. Therefore, the route in the front and back would show up on the sides of your jewelry box. This keeps the route hidden. Now that we know the dimensions of our box, we can plan our stencil. For this, you have options. You can choose from the following freehand the design. If you have artistic abilities, print out a design and cut out the shapes, leaving a stencil. Purchase a stencil online or from a store, or use a paper crafting machine like a cricket to design and cut out your stencil. I'll be going the cricket route for this project. But if you'd like some instruction on some of the other ways, you can always just take a look at my making a wall plaque class where I go over a few of these. I'll go into cricket design space and make a rectangle shape with the dimensions of seven by five, the length and width of my lid. Then I'm going to pull in the design I found and size it to my lid. I'll then cut it out with the cricket as a stencil from stencil vinyl. Once this pencil is cut out, all weed out the pieces that I'll fill in with paint later on. Just so you know, this took close to 25 years. So prepare yourself up next. Let's talk supplies. 4. Materials and Supplies: Aside from the tools needed mentioned in the intro, will also need the following. One, cedar fence Pickett, the five-and-a-half inch wide by 6 ft long kind. You'll also need a small piece of one-eighth inch wood at around five inch by 7 ". I'm using a piece from my scrap pile. You'll need some wood glue paint or stain. I actually advise paint here as your base layer because the stencil layer will adhere better to that. But if you're bent on stain, It's okay. I'll be using a light gray as my base paint because I like the way it looks with faux pearl inlay. For the stencil design, I'll be using a basic white paint will coat the whole thing and either polyurethane or wax for protection. We'll also be using pearlescent mixing medium. You can find this in craft and hobby stores or get it online like I did. This is optional, but I've heard that it adds a nice pearly sheen to your paint stencils. As mentioned, you can do this freehand, purchase stencils online or in store, print and cut, or use a paper crafting machine like a cricket to design and cut your pencil. At the end, we'll use these tiny box hinges. Optionally, you can use a clasp to keep the lid shut. 5. Cuts: Now it's time to make our cuts. The bill today is going to be super simple. It's the painting that will take up the most time, but I promise you will still have some fun building. To begin. Let's cut our lid. Will cut the length first at 7 ", measure and make your mark, then bring it to the miter, saw a jigsaw or hand saw, and cut just to the right of the line. Next, let's cut our lid width wise. It needs to be 5 ". So measure and mark, then make your cut. If you're saw, won't cut 7 ". Just flip your piece over, match up the blade with the line and continue your cut from the other side. If you have a table saw, you can just take the wood through to get that five inch width. Now, let's cut our front and back first measure and mark a piece at 7 " long and make your cut. Repeat with another piece. Once again, let's cut the width, measure and mark three and three-eighths and make your cuts. If you have a table saw, you can just cut the width for the rest of the board at three and three-eighths, then make your link cuts at the miter. Solve for the remainder of the cuts. Next, let's cut our sides, measure and mark 3.3 quarters and cut to pieces, measuring and marking in-between cuts. Then cut them with wise at three and three-eighths. If you're nailing the bottom piece onto the bottom of the box, go ahead and cut your one-eighth inch thick wood at five by 7 ". If you're going to route your bottom in, now is the time. Take your side pieces to the table saw the width of the blade will be about the same size as your one-eighth inch bottom. So we'll only do one pass. Make a mark at the bottom of your side piece, three-eighths of an inch up. Line that up with the table saw blade. Now, you need to lower your blade so that it's peaking just above the table saw top slightly over one quarter of an inch will be routing the wood without a through cut. So you'll have to remove the blade guard assembly. Please don't do this unless you're really comfortable on a table saw, this is more dangerous than a usual cut. Now with the push guard, place your side length wise against the table saw offense and push it through all the way with medium pressure on the pushcart, make sure it stays solidly against the fence. Inspect your cut. Does a piece of one eighth inch would fit in the slot. If so, move on to the other side piece. If not, push the fence over a fraction of a millimeter and make the pass again, widening the slot. Just make sure when you cut the second piece, you cut in the same way. Start with the original line at three-eighths inch cut, then move the fence in the same direction as before to widen the slot. Optionally, if you have experienced with a router, you can do this on a router table. Dry fit the pieces together, sides between the front and back. Measure the interior. It should be about five and three-quarters by 3.3 quarters. Add that quarter-inch on either side for the route and cut your bottom piece at 3.3 quarters by six and a quarter. Dry, fit this with the box assembly. If everything is flush, you're good to go. Otherwise, shave off little bits with the salt until the bottom fits snugly in place. 6. Assembly: Alright, we're on to the fun part and my favorite part assembly. This is dead simple. First, we will send all of our pieces as there'll be a little bit hard to mess with once assembled. Makes sure your wood is nice and smooth by starting with a rougher grit and graduating to finer grits as you go. Clean up your area so you have a nice place to assemble without sawdust clogging your joints. Now bring your front and back and sides to a flat surface. We'll start with one side of the box. Run a bead of wood glue along the end grain of your side piece. Both ends line the side piece up flush with the front and back, adhering together with the glue. Clamp this in place. This is super-simple with a Brad Naylor take 1 " brad nails and nail your front and back into the side pieces. Three to four will do. If you don't have a Brad Naylor, take your hammer and nails and carefully pre drill a tiny hole to get your nails started in the right position. Then place your finished nail in the hole and hammer in. Due to more. You'll want to insert the nail head if you can. Do keep in mind if you have routed sides not to make a nail go into that route because it'll keep the bottom from going in place. Once one side is in place, if you were out at the sides carefully insert that bottom piece into the slot, put some glue on both end grains of the other side piece and place it in between the front end back, allowing the other side of the bottom piece to sit in the routed slot, clamp it in place and nail as before. If you didn't route, don't put the bottom piece and just place the side piece with glutenins into place and nail. Choose the bottom end of your box assembly and place your bottom flush with the front back and sides. Then glue and nail into place with either the broad Naylor or hammer and nails. Here, I added sparkling because my wood filler was dried out always to the holes and edges of my box. Since we're painting, I am not worried about it messing with the finish. After it dried, I did a light sand. You can let the set a bit to let the glue dry or go ahead and move forward with the painting up to you. 7. Finishing: Wipe your box and lid clean. Next, we're going to paint or stay in the box. Water-based paint might have a hard time adhering to oil-based stain. So do keep that in mind. Painter, stay in your box with the color of your choice. I've watered down a gray colored paint. If you need more than one coat, let it dry in-between coats with what's recommended on the can to get the look. I wanted I tried several things but dipping a napkin and the paint and then wiping it on gave me the result I needed. We'll be using water-based latex paint in white for the inlay detail. We'll mix it with some pearlescent mixing medium so that it has a bit of a sheen. With this, you just need to add as you go until you get the iridescence you're looking for, it's probably gonna be a lot more than you think. Make sure to make a medium-size batch for consistency. If your free handing, then you draw your design in pencil on the lid, then carefully paint your design with the white paint and a small, small paintbrush. If you printed your design and cut out the design, place it on the lid and trace the design onto the wood, and then paint the design with a tiny, tiny paintbrush. If you purchased a stencil that isn't sticky, use painter's tape to tape the ends of your stencil onto the lid and very carefully paint your design, attempting to not bleed under the stencil. For mine, I'm taking my cricket stencil vinyl and placing it on the lid. It is sticky so I need to very carefully place it where it needs to go and then ensure it adheres to the lid and there's no bubbles in the stencil. Then I carefully paint the pearly white onto the stencil, making sure not to bleed under. Now I tried several methods so you don't have to the paintbrush seemed to bleed under the makeup sponge was too spotty. A sponge brush seemed just right for me. And I only did one coat. Carefully pull up the stencil as soon as your last coat goes on. I then went in with a toothpick dipped in the paint to touch up areas that needed fixing. If you care to do more, you can stencil the sides and front and back as well. It's up to you. After all is stencils and dried. Put a layer of polyurethane or wax over it. I did wax. After this has dried, you can install the tiny box hinges on the back of the box. Place your lid on top of your box body, put some thin cards in-between the lid and the box so the hinges don't bind. Perhaps two or three playing cards on either side. Mark 1.5 " over from either side of the lid on the back. Hold up one hinge to that mark, make sure it's level and mark the holes of the hinge. Do the same for the other hinge. Now pre drill tiny holes where you've made your marks. Put one hinge in place and carefully screw the hinge in. Do the same for the other hinge. Optionally, you can add a class to the front. As I could not find a class at my store. I'll just take you through the steps and with the power of your imagination, you will envision what this looks like. Measure halfway over 3.5 " and center your clasp marking the holes like you did with the hinges than screw or nail it in whatever your class became with. Now, take a look at that beauty. You just made a faux pearl inlay box and you can use it for whatever you like or give it away as a special gift to friends or family. Whatever you do with it. I hope you're proud of what you've just created. 8. Final Thoughts: Way to go. Now you know how to build a jewelry box. Congratulations. I encourage you to keep building up your shop fine. Use tools off of Craigslist, pen, inspirational photos to a Pinterest page with pictures that inspire future projects. Dream up new ideas and ways to grow in your woodworking journey. Most importantly, post a picture of your finished project here. I love to see what you made and how you made it your own. Lastly, if you dug this class, would you consider leaving a review? Reviews? Let me know that you're liking the classes I upload. And it also helps other students find these classes. And thank you for watching. It really means a lot to me that your journeying in the shop with me, lesson by lesson. Now let's go build something fun.