Cartonnage Jewelry Box

I recently made a cartonnage jewelry box of my own design for a family member's birthday. I didn't take a ton of pictures of the process, as it was involved and required a lot of attention, but I can show you the final result:

It's sort of a mauve color because Tasha really likes that color, but let me tell you, finding mauve fabric is not easy. I got lucky and found two coordinating mauves at two different fabric stores, but they were the only mauves in the stores. It was sheer luck that they went well together.

Here's the inside view:

The pale mauve and soft gold on the inside fabrics tie into the main fabric really well. I wouldn't say mauve is typically my color, but I think this turned out beautifully. It feels really elegant to me, which is what I wanted. Here's the cute little drawer in the bottom for larger pieces of jewelry:

I particularly love the little knob to pull it out, which I found at Michael's. It's just adorable. Full disclosure: the drawer should be 1.5 mm wider than it is. There's just a smidge too much space on either side because I was so worried about making sure it would fit that I cut the surrounding box a little too wide. I don't think it looks terrible, though. I will just be a little less generous with my measurements on future projects.

Here is the top portion of the box:

The dividers on the right side are removable, in case she wants to put larger jewelry in there. The little ring holder on the left is what I'm most proud of, though. I bought some 5/8" poly foam caulk saver, which is a long cylinder of squishy but firm foam. And then I cut it into the lengths I needed and covered each one with velvet:

I had to use hot glue to get the velvet to stick (Elmer's Glue All does NOT work), but the hot glue worked brilliantly. I also used hot glue to glue each foam roll in place. I didn't really measure the foam for the area, but somehow, magically, eight little foam rolls turned out to fit just perfectly in the space. Again, I got very lucky. But now that I know how those fit, I can calculate the measurements more precisely for future projects.

Anyway, this is finished and ready to mail off. Fortunately, it just fits in a flat rate shipping box. It's about 5½" high, 6" wide, and 7" long. If it had been any bigger, the shipping costs would have been astronomical.

But my next jewelry box will probably be larger and more intricate because it's for my mom, who lives locally, so I'm not precluded by size. She is desperately wanting one, but she's going to have to wait till Christmas. It will probably take me till then anyway. Things have been busy lately.