Hi, my wife needed a new jewellery box, because the old one was broken. Where the jewellery box lives there is limited space including limited height, so I decided it would be easier to make one to match the dimensions of the old one. Rather than just get some wood and fix it together I thought it would be a good idea to make one out of a solid piece of wood, the only problem with this idea was finding a piece of wood the right dimensions to start with. In the end I went to a wood merchant and bought a railway sleeper, obviously this would be far too long but had the required height and width and would give me plenty of spare if I made a mistake.

Step 1: Starting Block

Once I had my sleeper I then used a large chop saw at work to cut off the block that I wanted to work with, even though the chop saw was large I still had to cut it in stages by turning the sleeper round as it wouldn't go through in one go.

Step 2: Hollowing Out

After cutting the top part of the block off to use as the lid I needed to hollow out the main part of the box, I did intend to use a router to remove the inside of the box but this was taking to long so I switched to using a drill and a 20mm spade bit which proved a lot quicker.

Step 3:

After the bulk of the inside of the box had been removed with the spade bit I removed the rest of it with a router and straight bit, this left the sides and bottom pretty clean and smooth. I then used some sandpaper to smooth of any rough bits. The inside corners where rounded because of the way the router cuts so by using a straight edge (I used a 10cm ruler) wrapped with sandpaper and a bit of chisel work I was able to square them up.

Step 4: Making the Removable Tray

To make the removable tray I used some 5mm plywood and cut it to size as close as I could to get a good fit. I started with the base of the tray and built the sides up around it, I glued the pieces together with wood glue then when this was set I cut the inside sections to size slotted them together and glued them in too. I was surprised to find how sturdy it was just by using glue.

Step 5: Shaping and the Lid

Having completed the basic construction of the box I cut off the front corners then fitted the lid to the box and cut off the front corners of this too, I then sanded these corners to make them rounded, by doing this with the lid in place I was able to line up the edges perfectl. When the lid was cut from the main block it curved like a banana due too a split running through the wood, I corrected this by clamping it flat which opened up the crack even more and then filled the crack with wood filler which held it straight.

After filling this crack it made the lid a couple of mm longer I was going to shave this off and make it flush with the rest of the box but decided to leave it as it acts a way of opening the lid.

Step 6: Painting and Decorating

To go with the decor in our bedroom and being my wifes favourite colour I painted it Purple all over.

I wanted some sort of decoration for the box so I asked my wifes friend who makes bespoke jewellery and trinkets for something, she supplied a name tag for the front of the box and some bracelets etc to go inside, (check out her website: http://www.trulysentimetal.co.uk ) These items were the finishing touches that I was looking for and really made it complete.

Oh and one more thing she loved it!