Jewelry Hanger

I am always on the prowl for new ways to display and organize my jewelry.  And those of you who know me, know I have a LOT of jewelry.  The idea is a spin-off of something I saw in a craft booth at a craft fair: a simple canvas with ribbons strung across (like a memo board).

Well I couldn't just leave well enough alone.  It was a beautiful idea as is, but I wanted to make it more so.  I wanted it to be artistic looking, frilly and girly.  It is going on the wall of my bathroom (which is under "redesign" construction), after all.  My friend Esther and I set to Hobby Lobby for some inspiration and found all the goodies we needed:

a canvas (they even come in oval-shaped!  squeeeal!)
ribbon(s)
background paint color
trim

tools we used:
paint brush
hot glue gun
straight pins

Since I am entering this in the Crafting With the Stars contest, I will detail how I made mine (although a picture of my friend, Esther's, will be placed at the end of this post because it deserves to be shown off as well!).

First things first.  You gotta paint your canvas.  I chose a rich, espresso-like brown.  Just good old acrylic craft paint will do.  With darker colors, you're gonna need several coats.  If you are impatient like me, you can break out the hair dryer on a cool setting in between coats!

Now, I debated at this point whether or not to put a glaze over my paint.  Something like mod podge or triple thick.  I went with keeping it a matte finish, but you could go both ways.  Some of my ribbon is shimmery and I didn't want the whole thing to end up looking too flashy.  (Now I'm thinking about the episode of Friends with Joey and the bracelet he bought for Chandler - "That must have cost you quite a few dabloons!" Ahahaha.)

Once everything is dry, stencil a design for your trim, or "frame" for the ribbons you'll string across next.  I used the currently popular quatrafoil-like pattern for mine.  Hot glue trim around the pattern in a few key spots.  Remember, you'll want to be able to lift it wherever you plan to adhere your ribbons, so don't glue down all the way around just yet!

After your trim "frame" is in place, you can place your ribbons and hot glue the edges under your trim.  Straight across or slightly diagonal both work.  If you do it diagonally, make it a shallow diagonal or your earrings will slide.  Even with a shallow diagonal, I secured my ribbons in a couple spots to stop any sliding jewelry.  Make sure your ribbon is pretty taught.  The jewelry will weight it down so you don't want your ribbons to sag.  Go back and carefully hot glue the rest of your trim now.

You can put a few finishing touches on.  I used a couple fancy straight pins so I could hang bracelets and necklaces, too.  If the straight pins are long enough you can use the wall behind wherever you hang your canvas to anchor your pin.  Or, as I soon found, the weight of your necklaces will pull the straight pin right out.  I also added a ruffly ribbon to the back of my canvas, peeking out ever so slightly around the edges.

Enjoy this beautiful, indulgent project in your bathroom like me or in your closet, as my friend Esther did.  See how cute hers turned out?  And she is currently making over her closet with a lot of fun stuff like pink stencilling on the walls, and a chandelier!  So fun!

This project has been entered here:

And linked up here: