This project started with the preparation for my wedding.
My wife and I, being DIY people who like to do as much as possible ourselves, decided to extend this philosophy to our wedding.

She designed her own ring, I went with a maker inspired gear ring and we thought our ringbox should reflect that.
Aside from being diy'ers we also collect videogames so I proposed to make the ringbox in the shape of a controller.

The NES was the console to start our collection and super mario bros was one of the first of many videogames we bonded over since we started dating. So my decision wasn't very hard to make.

I also decided to hide a geeky wedding message in the box to suprise her with at city hall.

As of the publication of this instructable I have been happily married for 9 days and I hope to inspire you with your own game related ring box project.

In this instructable you will find my process and the files I used to make this ring box, I hope you enjoy it!

If you like this instructable and/or thought it was usefull please vote for it in the wedding and fandom contests! It is much appreciated! ^^

Step 1: Materials and Tools

Materials

- Small wooden box €2,00 : I found mine at the xenos. It's a simple balsa box from which I had to remove the handle.

- Acrylic paint: I went with black and white since I couldn't find a good grey paint.

- Foam inserts for the wedding rings: I used two stamp sponges and black foam protection sheet from my drill bit box.

- Sticker paper.

- Super Glue

Tools

- Ruler

- X-acto knife or craft knife

- Scissors

- Printer or nearby copy shop

- Photoshop or other image editing software.

- Screw driver

Step 2: Paint the Box

Since my box had an annoying handle, I first had to remove it and fill in some of the holes it left with wood filler .
After letting the wood filler dry overnight it was time to start painting.

Since I couldn't find any decent grey paint, I decided to mix my own.

I highly advice you to start with a lot of white paint and only add in a small spot of black otherwise you'll end up having to mix in a lot of white paint like me to make it a light grey.

A brush was used to paint the box and then I went over it with a roller to ensure everything was smooth.

After the first coat of paint I let it dry for about 2 hours and when I inspected the box I wasn't really satisfied. The grey was a lot darker then the original controller I had so I decided to apply a second much lighter coat.

Although still not as light as it should be I liked the color I came up with. If you want I'm sure you can find out the color code of the real controller and match it more closely, but that wasn't really important to me.

Step 3: Design the Stickers

For the design of the stickers I used everyone's favorite search engine: google!

In pictures I searched for "nes controller" and used the extra option "size" and selected "big". You can also select over a certain amount of megapixels and I can highly recommend doing that. The more pixels you have the less blurry the image will become if you expand it. This makes it easier for larger projects but these images may be harder to find free of charge.

In photoshop I sized the image of the controller up to the width of my box and pasted it onto an A4 paper size document.

The same process was used for the other images. I searched for "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this" and "link zelda sprite. Then I photoshopped those together into one image and added my own text: "It's dangerous to go through life alone! Take these wedding rings!"

Only after coming back from the copy shop having it already printed on sticker paper and applied, I noticed I made a spelling mistake... (not pictured in this step) Luckily I managed to quickly fix this but remember kids, check your spelling!

You'll find the editable photoshop file as well as the ready to print pdf here. Word of caution, these files are set for A4 size paper!

Step 4: Putting Together the Box

Now that the box is painted and the stickers designed and printed the box is ready to be put together.

I used a ruler and X-acto knife to cut out the stickers then positioned and applied them.

For the controller buttons I wanted them to extend from the box to give it a cooler effect. My first thought was to use a modelbuilder bandsaw to cut it out from mdf but this proved to be difficult and didn't give a nice clean result.

Therefore I decided to sacrifice one of my reserve NES controllers. I opened it up with a screw driver and used my knife to shape the buttons. Be carefull doing this as you can easily slice through the buttons or worse your fingers!

After that they were glued on using superglue and the hinges and lock were reattached.

Step 5: Making the Foam Ring Inserts

This step proved to be much more difficult then I thought which is why I gave it a seperate step.

The first hurdle was finding the required materials. When I bought my ring it came in a nice foam insert but it was way to small to fill the whole box and my wife's ring would be way to close to mine.

I'm sure that with some google-fu you could easily order this on the internet but with two days before the wedding that wasn't an option.

Luckily my local copy shop provided me with two stamp sponges and my drill bit box had some black foam protection sheets to give it a nice finish.

To keep everything in place I used some scrap mdf strips and a lot of super glue. Then I recreated the ring slit into the sponges with my X-acto knife and glued these in place as well. Before glueing the sponges in place make sure the ring sits nice and secure in the sponge, you don't want it ratteling around in there!

For the finishing touch I cut the black foam to size with scissors and glued this over the sponges and mdf. This gave the box a nice clean finish and it was ready for the rings!

Step 6: Finished and Final Thoughts

What more can I say? It was t'ill now the happiest day of my life.
We had done a bunch of other projects but I didn't have the proper time to document it all. Luckily I did with this one.

It certainly was a conversation piece at city hall since the city official didn't really know what to make of it. But we, our friends and family did and that is the most important part.

Throughout this instructable I showed you my way of doing it but of course there are more possibilities! If you make this ring box or something like it, please post! I'd love to see it!

Some things I thought of but didn't go through with are:

- Instead of Legend of zelda a pokemon inspired inlay (see image)

- Making the buttons with the help of a small bandsaw (proved to be too hard for me)

- Making the whole ringbox out of the original NES controller

- Making the controller work and be a ring box (could be done but I was short on time)

I hoped you have enjoyed this instructable. If something needs clarification do not hesitate to ask!

And please, vote for this instructable in the wedding and fandom contests. It would mean a lot to me and my wife :)