Alternate Uses for Jewelry Boxes
The primary use for jewelry boxes is right there in the name: to store and organize your jewelry collection. However, it is possible, in a pinch, to use your jewelry boxes for other purposes. That is, of course, assuming that you have any room to spare in your jewelry boxes for anything other than necklaces, rings and other beautiful trinkets. If you’re a pragmatist who uses whatever is to hand to solve your problems, you might find this advice useful. Jewelry box purists might be horrified, so be warned. These are only ideas. We never said they were good ones.
Extra Hardware: At the best of times, many of us have at least a couple of screws loose, or a nail or a bolt or two. If you’ve got an extra couple of drawers available in your jewelry boxes, you could devote them to storing the extra hardware you accumulate from putting furniture or toys together, or simply the ones you buy because you think you need them and then need a place to put them that will keep them from being on the floor and then being stepped on by your bare foot. Jewelry cases are great for keeping small things like earrings from going all over the place, so they will keep all your nuts and bolts squared away also.
Memory Loss: If you have a digital camera or another data storage device, it likely uses one of those powerful but annoyingly tiny and thin SD cards. They are slim, fragile and possibly your closest equivalent to a family photo album so you need to keep them somewhere safe. Jewelry boxes are perfect for this because, once again, they are perfect for storing small, fragile items. The soft suede or velvet lining in many jewelry cases will keep your memory cards (and by extension, your memories) safe.
Power Source: Batteries, like screws and nails, are other small things that are necessary but sometimes troublesome to store. Some are quite large, like Ds, while others, like those for watches, can be frighteningly small. Jewelry boxes can help out with all of these, keeping them all stored, organized and ready for when they need to be plugged into a device and power it up. The smaller batteries can be stored in rings rolls or the small compartments you will find in jewelry cases while the larger ones can be kept in one of the larger drawers or in some watch compartments, once you take the pillows out. Wait, now what do you do with the pillows?
Well, it looks like there are lots of things that could be kept in jewelry boxes. You could even use them to store office supplies, like paper clips and staples, or hot beverage items such as sugar packets and tea bags. However, it’s probably best to use them the way they were intended to be used, to provide dignified and safe storage to jewelry that is just as beautiful as the boxes themselves. Using jewelry cases to store something other than jewelry just seems wrong, somehow, as though it diminishes the boxes in some way. Better, in this case, to leave things the way they are.