Little Heart Box

My daughter's 10th birthday was coming up and I was wondering what to make for her when I chanced upon the DIY Small Furniture by redboxdesign and knew this was it. Full credit goes to him/her for the original steps, which I adapted slightly.

I won't spend much time on the actual steps since Redboxdesign's instructable lays it out very nicely but mention some things I did differently.

The box is a 2" cube as my scroll saw can accommodate a max 2". Glued two 1x2 pieces of scraps, taking care of the grain to create the end-grain pattern you see.

The template was copied and cut on a piece of paper and then scroll sawed the shape out.

I saved the left and right cutouts from the lower part of the heart to build the base (more on that later.)

Cut out a slice off the back, which will be the back of the box.

I realized that I didn't take pictures of cutting out the drawer from the box, so would encourage you to view the Redboxdesign instructable for that.

This picture is the inside cutout for the drawer and I sliced out the front and back, to be glued back later. The completed drawer was again filed ans sanded to give it's final shape.

Food color stained and 3 coats of poly used to finish.

I was racking my brain for the handle of the drawer when I came upon this heart locket that my daughter had lying around from a necklace-making kit. Couldn't have been happier. Shaped an 'eye' with wire, put the locket through and glued it to the drawer front.

The base was built from a 2" x 2" piece of 1/8th inch ply scrap and the two cutouts glued to it.

Used food coloring (diluted) for the stain and then finished with 3 coats of water-based poly with light sanding between coats.

Thought this looked good, too, and almost applied the poly for a natural look (one could stop here.) Then decided to stain it different colors before finishing.

So here's the final product. Let me know what you think.