DIY Book Jewellery Boxes

I’m always looking for interesting, organized, and visually appealing ways to store things. However, for me to love them, they have to be simple and free of clutter. Enter hollowed out book jewellery boxes! While they are fairly time consuming to make, the result is beautiful and can be customized to suit any space or design. I was inspired by a tutorial for a book clutch, and thought that they would be able to store jewellery equally as well.

For my personal jewellery boxes, I wanted a set of 3 so that I could separate them into categories - rings & earrings, necklaces, and lastly bracelets. I chose books that were similar enough that they would work well together, but not so close in appearance that it was just the same book three times over. I tried to choose books that were of varying widths and lengths to add some visual interest to the set. I did, however, choose books that had the same colour scheme of black and gold in order for them to match the existing decor in my bedroom.

I started by sourcing books from my local BMV. The books here are great quality, but are cheaper because they are gently used! Most of the time, especially if the book is hard cover, you can’t even tell if the spine has been cracked. This is definitely a way to save money for the project!

Once I had my set, I glued all of the pages together to the back cover and made sure to leave the front cover open. This will be the top lid of your jewellery boxes.

Once dry, I opened the front cover and marked a one inch border on each side of the book.This is where you are going to start cutting. Using an exacto knife, I began cutting away the centre of the book. After what felt like years, I had an inch and a half deep rectangle cut into my book. Don’t worry if your rectangles aren’t entirely perfect. Just have patience, and if they don’t come out quite the way you wanted, don’t sweat it, you’ll be covering them with patterned paper anyways. You do however, want to try and make sure that the corners are cut fairly well as this will make for a more professional looking finished product.

To finish the books, I chose different patterned papers for each of the insides of my necklace and bracelet books.  I measured the size of paper that I would need, and made mitred corners for a nicer finish. After cutting, I glued the paper to the book and allowed it to dry.

The earring and ring book however, was slightly more work because I covered cylinders of cotton batting in velvet in order to make holders so the contents can be organized. I simply shaped the cotton into a cylinder and used a hot glue gun to attach the velvet. Alternatively, you could sew the velvet around the cotton batting, but it’ll take a bit more work! I also used the hot glue gun to attach the velvet rolls into the book.

Here’s a look at how the insides of the other two jewellery boxes look:

Overall, it was a bit of a labour of love, but I’m really happy with how they turned out! Don’t get discouraged by how long the cutting takes, it will all be worth it in the end!

xo, tess.