A Slight Departure: Jewelry Holder Design

Imagine a pick up truck with a several grade-school children in the back. No seats, no seat belts, lots of bouncing around and horsing around. How likely are they to be injured?

Until a couple weeks ago, I kept all my finished pieces loose in a single box. It was not only unorganized, it was unsafe for my children -- I mean, jewelry pieces. I was afraid that the charms might get tangled or the chains would be smashed or bent. When I thought about the horrible possibilities, I cringed like a mother imagining her kids in that pick up truck. I wanted my jewelry in a box, separated, restrained, away from dust, and easily transportable.

So I began to think of how I might make a container for them. The number one criteria was CHEAP! I chose to use cardboard and paper from around my home, and what follows is a description of what I developed to suit my needs! 

I started with the brown, square cardboard box, and made a base onto which to glue the "pillars" that would both hold the bracelets and hold up the next level, which would sit on top of the first.

In the photo above, you see the base, which is a square of cardboard with white paper glued on (just for aesthetics), 5 strips of paper to make the holders, and then my tools: a ruler, pencil, tape, glue, and scissors.

As you see below, each strip of paper is 7 inches by 1 inch. After folding them carefully in half lengthwise, I marked each inch along the length.

I made cuts through each of my inch marks, but only halfway through the paper.

I folded the un-cut half of the paper at each inch mark, so that there were 7 segments of equal size.

I taped the end segments over each other so that my strip of paper formed a hexagon with 6 flaps.

Here is a photo of the hexagon "pillar" placed right in the middle of the cardboard base. It will have four brothers soon....

I made 5 total hexagonal "pillars" and glued them, flaps down, to the cardboard base. To the underside of the base, I also added paper flaps, which will help me insert and remove the base form the cardboard box.

As you can see, each hexagon holds one or two bracelets each.

I repeated the process to make a second level to stack on top of the first. the whole ensemble can be topped with the lid of the box.

While this design has some disadvantages (if I every get it wet, it'll be ruined!), it is a great improvement over loose storage, and was easily constructed with materials I already had. I'm pretty pleased with it. No more kiddos bouncing around in the bed of a truck -- now they ride in a mini van with seat belts buckled!

I'm sure there are other innovative jewelry storage ideas out there, so I invite you to share other ideas in the comments!