Two Kids, Two Weddings, Two Keepsake Boxes

Originally posted on November 14, 2017 (LumberJocks). Both of my kids celebrated their fifth anniversaries this year.

There's also an interesting story about the side rail hinge tutorial I mention. I was not impressed with Woodcraft's installation instructions, so I wrote my own in a blog post at LumberJocks. A product manager at Woodcraft saw it and asked if they could publish the tutorial on their site. I toned down some of the criticism, and they published it. They even sent me a gift certificate (for $75 if I remember correctly) for my efforts; it was my first and only paid writing gig.

Both of our kids got married this year (son in August, daughter in November) to wonderful spouses, and I (in consultation with my wife) built these keepsake boxes for them as wedding gifts. They're made of walnut and ambrosia maple, finished with boiled linseed oil and shellac. The hinges are Highpoint side rail hinges. (If you're interested in using these hinges but haven't used them before, I wrote a detailed tutorial about them.)

The genesis of these boxes was a sketch of Burritt Mansion, a historic house and now museum in the mountains in eastern Huntsville, that my wife and I bought over 30 years ago when we moved to the area. When we learned that my son and his fiancée chose Burritt as their wedding venue, my wife wanted to find some creative way to give them that sketch, and we eventually came up with the idea of integrating it into the inside lid of a keepsake box.

I designed the first box around that sketch. Its dimensions dictated the box's length (11 1/4") and width (8 3/4"), and some SketchUp work led us to the right height (3"). Those dimensions influenced the thickness of the sides (1/2") and top/bottom panels (3/8"). The top/bottom panels float in slots in the sides with their surfaces flush with the sides' edges.

We didn't have a historically significant sketch for my daughter and her fiancé's box, but we still wanted something equally meaningful. I was fortunate enough to be at their wedding venue (Cedar Grove Acres near Durham) on the day they chose it, and I used Picassa to convert one of the photos I took into a sketch. It shows them walking through a trellis leading into the meadow where they would later be married.

I wanted their boxes to share common elements like the sketches and the wood. I was even able to make the sides of both boxes from the same board. I like the idea of the boxes having a common origin, just like our kids.

I don't have illusions about the quality of my woodworking. I try to build functional pieces that are as beautiful as I can make them, but I don't see my pieces as being of heirloom or museum quality like many of the projects I see posted here. In this case, I hope these boxes outlive me and that one day, long after I'm gone, my kids will open them and think of their old dad, and remember that he loved them and was proud of them even though he didn't say it a dozen times a month like their mom did.

Sorry for getting so sentimental, but these boxes are very special to me. Thanks for looking.