Americana

(this would be the blurb on the How-To contents page)

Customizing Drawers for jewelry

-the EASY way.

(picture of you standing next to the case -or a close-up of a drawer, but I'd rather you wif a big old grin)

Here is how one woman made custom padded inserts for the monster jewelry case I made for her. Easy, fun, and PERFECT.

My Beautiful Jewelry Case and Home-Made Custom Drawer Liners

by Marcia Gamaly

This is the oak jewelry case I had Bill make for me. I cannot tell you how much I so love my chest!!! But it's even better now that I made 28 padded inserts for each drawer. Here is how I did it.

1. For starters, I had Bill cut hard-board inserts to fit into each drawer. Hard-board (Bill calls it 'masonite') about as thick as corrugated cardboard, but much stronger. They were about 1/4 smaller then the drawer-bottoms. This was so I could wrap the fabric around and staple it to the underside, but more on this later.

2. I bought 1/2-inch foam and polyester batting. I placed the foam in the deeper drawers, using the spray glue - I liked it much better than the fabric tacking glue. A quick coat on the foam, and a second on the board. I'd stand them outside to dry so I didn't die from glue fumes... The more shallow drawers had poly-batting applied the same way. I found both at the fabric store and they cost all of (?) $25

3. I also I bought a heavy-duty stapler, to hold down the material. I think the way I folded it all over might be called metering. This made the materials tight at the corners. Works like this....

Lay the fabric nice-side down, then the padding and board, and trim the fabric to about 1 or 2 inches bigger then the board.

Fold up the corner and hold it in place with some taps. This is the "miter" part.

Fold over the edges -being careful to tuck the inside bit deeply into the fold and keeping it generally neat. (Think hospital corners!) Staple it all down.

This is optional, but you can cut glossy cardboard ("chrome" at the art store) about 1/4" smaller then the back and glue it all down to make the back (almost) as nice as the front.

4. The big stapler was great because it would go thru the board. Occasionally, I'd have to bend the staple points down to prevent it sticking up through the polyester batting and making puncture wounds, but it wasn't bad at all. (Besides, I'm an Emergency Room Nurse and so I like blood.)

5. Next I bought two different fabrics: ultra-suede, as Bill suggested, and the most luscious and luxurious velvet. I had one velvet picked out, then that darn sales woman HAD to show me "the better velvet." I really thought I died and went to heaven. The material is like silk & butter combined - only it's velvet! Deep, rich red. It makes me feel like I really am rich and have the queen's jewels!! So, I stapled either the ultra-suede or the velvet - using my proven tight-miter corner stapling technique I perfected on the batting. Ultra-suede for silver, deep red velvet for gold... or is it the other way!!

(WHAT COLOR WAS THE ULTRA-SUEDE?)

6. Last -and perhaps the most challenging step was put it all away. I cannot tell you how totally wonderful it was to carefully choose in which drawer I would place each piece I own. I have a gold eastern Europe/Asia drawer, and a silver eastern Europe/Asia drawer. Because my husband is Egyptian, I have lots of gold and silver Egyptian drawers. I have natural shell drawers, watch drawers, costume drawers, memento drawers, wood drawers, earring drawers, bracelet drawers, and sunglass drawers. There is one bad thing I have noticed: Unfortunately, despite all of the drawers you have provided me, I only have one empty drawer. Oh dear!! I'm serious - I've loaded them up!!!

7. I had thought I'd do one drawer a day. So much for that -I finished all 28 drawers and 3 extras in less then two days.

The shopping.....

I did it most of it in (the garage / kitchen table / where?

Clean-up was.....

8. If I were to do it over again, I think I might.....

Final pictures -you and your jewelry?

Every morning, I love to get my creaky back out of bed, into the shower, then I spend quite a few minutes carefully selecting my accoutrements for the day. The chest IS EVERYTHING I expected it to be. I have so enjoyed taking out all of my jewelry and re-storing it. It has brought back so many memories and I enjoy perusing the chest every morning. But I never thought I'd be out of drawers already

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