A Treasure Chest for One of My Little Treasures!
3 Materials
It's my granddaughter's 5th birthday and I asked her what she would like from Grandma and Grandpa. Her response was, "A Treasure Box with jewels and money...I like diamonds, Grandma"! Oh my goodness, this little girl is a true little princess!! Well, what is a DIYer Grandmother to do?? I built her a Treasure Chest, of course
I told my daughter...I got this, I can do this. I will admit, I went to Toys R Us, because I only had two weeks before the party. They wanted $20.00 for a small little plastic box. Forget that! There was no way, I was going to spend $20.00 for a small little plastic box that will probably break, no sirreee. My little princess needed a real treasure box that will last and hold many treasures. Because I never made one of these, I had to look on line for different design ideas and then I winged it.
I knew that I had the wood for this project, along with paint, rope and chain. The only thing I had to buy to put this together were hinges, a clasp for the front with a lock (all bought at Menards), and small screw eyes from Ace Hardware.
The dimensions of the treasure chest is: 12.5 in length x 7.5 wide by 9 3/4 in height. You can make one any size you want of course, but this is what I went with.
I used the chop saw to cut all the pieces and the jig saw was needed for the rounded piece on the top.
The top of the chest was a little tricky. I had 2x2's on hand, so these are what I used. I used the round edge of a bowl to draw on the wood, leaving the lower part square to attach the bottom 2x2 to. I cut the arched piece (with my Ryobi cordless Jig saw). I will say this about the top, when I lined up the 2x2's the last one was too snug, so I had to take some of the wood off. I used a scroll saw to shave off some of the wood and for all I know, I could have just sanded the heck out of it, but I am impatient and went for the saw. I still had to sand it when I was done and it fit fine.
After cutting and sanding all my pieces, I used my nail gun and wood glue to put this baby together.
P.S. - please don't judge my work area, I DO know where everything is!
Now for the fun part...decorating and painting!
I bought the jewels for decorating the outside of the chest at Joanne Fabrics and Michael's. The jewels were stick on's that I still hot glued onto the chest.
The large diamonds for inside the chest, were in the Bridal aisle at Joanne's but were on clearance so I don't know if you would still be able to find those. They were a big hit and if you too have a little princess that likes diamonds-check on Amazon and maybe you will score.
I also bought Glitter spray at Michael's because I couldn't resist the sparkly effect it would give the chest.
Another P.S. -- The photo's tend to show my hubby's shoes and disarray in the back round. In other words, I should have done some cropping with my photo's. 
I asked my daughter about colors and she told me, "Just go with pink, purple and Princess, you won't go wrong with this theme". So that is what I did.
A few hours before the party, I was still working on this:
- I knew I wanted handles and had the rope on hand so I quickly drilled holes in the sides and added the rope.
- I wasn't happy way the top was hitting on the corners or how the hinges didn't stop the lid from going all the I got out the hot glue and glued ribbon down-yup, maybe could and should have used Modgepodge, but oh well, this is what I did.
- I quickly ran up to Ace hardware in a snow storm (some schools closed type of storm), and picked up Small Screw Eyes to attach the chains to. Whew...done!
I had already written my special birthday wish in the bottom so now I just had to fill it up and wrap.
My Treasure Chest was a hit and our little princess absolutely loved it!!
I have three other grandchildren and one on the way...so I will have to make some more of these, complete with a pirate theme next!
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4 of 16 comments
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GREAT GRANDMA! I LOVE IT...
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OMW, how precious. Best Grandma ever!!!
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Thank you so much, how nice of you to say!!!
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