Baby Teeth Box

My daughter is getting to the age where she’s losing her teeth - the bottom front two have already gone. I’ve done my role as the Tooth-Fairy-in-absentia, but now that I’ve bought these teeth, what do I do with them? Most parents keep them, but what to keep them in?

I showed this to my wife, who, in her infinitely supportive way, said, “That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like a serial killer box. I hope you’re never in trouble with the police, because if they search our house and find that, you’re going away forever.”

This was my first experiment with baltic birch plywood. I used some slightly wave 3mm sheets - minor warps in the ply don’t really matter in a design like this, because all those little dividers will act like ribs to pull everything square.

I sanded and stained the inside faces of everything with a stain called “Chivas”. This is the same stain I used on my Batman Lamp - I use it a lot, because I have a huge leftover tin of it from when I did my hardwood floors. :stuck_out_tongue: Then I applied two coats of polyurethane to the inside faces. Dark stain goes well on laser-cut baltic birch; it hides all the burnt edges. :slight_smile:

Then I put it together:

and sanded and stained the outside faces (sanding after assembly will take down any tabs that stick up a little too much, although that wasn’t really a problem), and finished it up. The lid is made from 1/8" acrylic, glued together with epoxy.

In retrospect, I probably could have made this slightly shorter. It’s unlikely any of Oriana’s teeth will be an inch tall.

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:joy: I’d love to meet your wife!
(Great keepsake box!)

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:joy::rofl::joy::rofl:

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I’m with your wife on this one as well.

I like it! I found some of my kids teeth while rummaging around keepsakes in storage, this would have been easier.

Son (age 6): Are tooth faeries a mammal?
Me: I don’t know, probably.
Son: How do they work? Are they magical?
Me: Yes, I suppose so.
Son: So, since magic isn’t a real thing, what the heck have you been doing with my teeth? Throwing them away, flushing them down the toilet, grinding them into dust? What the heck is going on here?
Wife: Maybe someone is making a creepy doll with glued on teeth.
Son: Our family is really weird.

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Huh. Four kids and no saved teeth. We’re such awful parents but we didn’t know :grinning:

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What did you use to design the box?

And if you have a son, and a circumcision was involved, most people probably don’t want to know if you built a box.

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Or you could just fill up the extra space with other people’s teeth. No wait. That would be really creepy.

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Your wife and I think alike. (Though I was going down the path of marketing the plans to the serial killer… then market your customer list to the po po! ) :sunglasses:

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It’s a fully parametric Fusion 360 model… Which, truth be told, is the real reason made this. :stuck_out_tongue: I can now make boxes of any dimension, with lids, with any number of dividers horizontally and vertically.

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5yo Daughter: Dad, what’s the tooth fairy?
Me: Oh, you wouldn’t want to know about that.
D: Tell me!
Me: Ok, but once I tell you, you’re beholden to the rules at your own peril. You sure?
D: You’re so weird! Just tell me!
Me: Ok, but I warned you! (Whispering) Now listen carefully. This is very, very important. The tooth fairy is a tiny mischievous nymph of who loves teeth, especially children’s teeth.
D: That’s weird!
Me: I know! But listen! When little boys or girls lose their teeth, they put them under their pillow, and the tooth fairy comes in and takes those teeth. She’s not a thief though, she leaves something in return for trade.
D: Like what?!
Me: Sometimes it’s a quarter, sometimes it’s a button, sometimes it’s some weird pocket lint or a toenail or a rock. Just whatever they have on hand really, they’re not people, they don’t know what’s good.
After they get their tooth and leave their treasure, they move onto the next child’s house that has lost a tooth.
D: How do they know who lost a tooth?
Me: I think they can smell it or something, I don’t know. But they only go to kids that know the rules. Leave a tooth, get a surprise. It’s rude to come in unannounced when someone doesn’t know you’re coming right?
D: Yeah, but what happens if you break the rules?
Me: Oh you NEVER break the rules!!! As soon as you lose a tooth, you have 24hrs to put that sucker under your pillow OR ELSE!!!
D: Or else what? What will she do?!
Me: Oh just obey the rules! You don’t even wanna know what happens!
D: TELL MEEEE!!!
Me: Ok, but be prepared. It’s pretty bad…She puts other kids’ teeth in your mouth. THERE! Now you know!
D: That’s creepy. Why do you make up stories and tell me this stuff?!
Me: But what if it’s true?! Don’t forget the rules!!!
D: This is like that Krampus thing you made up! Just tell me it’s not real next time!
Me: The RUUUUULES!!!

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Yikes! I’ve never heard of this.

Cool! I engraved this box for my nephew for his tooth fairy transactions.

image

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Oriana always insists that one of sleep with her. Or at least stay with her until she falls asleep. At the beginning of the month, she lost her second tooth.
She wanted me to stay with her, but she decided shewas going to stay up all night and watch her tooth, so she can see the tooth fairy. And to make sure that the tooher fairy put money under her pillow, and to make sure that mommy and I didn’t steal her money. Also, she wanted to make sure that robbers didn’t steal her tooth. But she was very insistent that I had to close my eyes and go to sleep, otherwise the tooth fairy might not come.

(And 10 minutes later she was asleep. :P)

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You can’t leave us hanging like that. Did robbers steal her tooth?

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Nice job on the parametric box! Now just pry up a floorboard and stash it.

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I don’t think MOST parents keep them. I save a lot of things, but I won’t save teeth! Clever box, though. I could think of other great uses for it!

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Great combination of materials! Your wife has a hilarious way of showing support - I bet your daughter will get a kick out of this when she’s older.

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