Hang Stuff Up

I am just covered up with jewelry I love. I have filtered through and gotten rid of some, but the rest is mine, and I’m not sharing. One of the downfalls of jewelry is that we rarely get to see our own; when you’re wearing it, everyone sees it but you, and the rest of the time it’s in a jewelry box, purposely tangling itself up with all your other jewelry. Well, no more! I decided to make a necklace holder, not for charms since I already have one, but for necklaces and bracelets.

I went to Home Depot and bought a pretty piece of wood that was 6 feet long, 2 inches wide, and a half inch thick. It was about $3. I measured it into 1.5 foot segments. I also bought nails, which apprently only come in boxes of 18,000 nails. Fortunately, they were about $3 also, although it was slightly embarrassing asking if Home Depot had any “prettier” nails.

Fortunately, we have a saw, and I have Hubby who protects me from my own clumsiness. Now I have 4 short boards, and all my fingers! Hooray! I marked where I wanted holes drilled in the corners to hang these up:

You can see again, my sweet Hubby does quality work. I was literally headed outside to do this myself when he saw me with the power drill. He gave me his “disapproving look”, and said “Where are you going with that?” I said “Outside. I just need to drill holes in the corners”. He sighed and took it from me, and said something about accidentally drilling through my own hand, and how he didn’t have time to drive me to the hospital today, and then he did it in about 4 minutes.

So you can see I tried to do it myself; he just has more first-hand experience with my clumsiness than anyone else on the planet, other than me, and he prefers to prevent trouble before it starts. My brain seems to be in denial about the constant injuries I inflict on myself. And Hubby. And the pets, sometimes. And friends standing nearby.

I used a measuring tape to space my nails out evenly.

I space mine 1.5 inches apart. When measuring this out, take into account what you’ll be hanging on this rack. For necklaces, fairly close together is fine. For belts or purses, not only should you get longer nails, spacing them further apart makes them easier to use.

Look! I hammered a nail in! By myself! Because Hubby wasn’t home to protect me from myself. Let’s all pretend I didn’t smash a two fingers, then swear like a sailor. Let’s also pretend I hammered that nail in securely, and it didn’t fall out when I hammered the next one in, and this did NOT happen repeatedly, like a freaking cartoon.

Finally! Success! Although it took awhile to find an angle for the picture that wouldn’t show how horrifically crooked my nails are. They appear to be doing the wave.

I spray painted it glossy black to go with the frame it will be hanging next to. There are lots of design options, though, to make it match your style and tastes.

You could glue beer tops to the end of each nail!

You could use tops from your favorite brand! Here I have several varieties of Shiner Bock. You could use all the same kind, or use only tops of similar colors, or whatever you like.

I don’t know about you, but I have buttons and pins galore at my place. You could glue some of those bad boys on there, or use ticky tac if you don’t want them on there permanently.

Here’s an idea of what this would look like with beer tops. You can see that they make the space between the nails rather small. If you were making this to hold ties, belts, scarves, or purses, you should probably space the nails out some.

Here it is, in all its sparkly glory! You can see I very cleverly hung bracelets on the left, so I still have access to the outlet.

Variations:

For kind of a country, quaint look, you could either leave the wood as is, or paint it white and sandpaper the edges a bit. You could glue buttons to the ends of the nails to “class it up”.

This one I completed as a necklace holder. I plan to make the others into a tie/belt holder for Hubby, a key/leash rack for the front door, and a scarf holder for the hall closet. For all of those I will space the nails out further than I did on this one. I definitely won’t decorate the nails on the key rack, since that will make it hard to get the keys on and off.

When you are making something like this for yourself, think about what your needs are, and plan accordingly. If you’re going to take the time to make something for yourself, you may as well make sure you’ll want to keep it. Don’t make something a specific way because you think you should, or because that’s what you’ve seen before. You can just get a piece of junk at Wal-mart if that’s your goal. Make something that will meet your needs, be nice to look at, and that you’ll be proud to show off to people.

 

September 9, 2011. Tags: belt holder, cheap, cheap crafts, cheap decorating, cheap redecorating, clutter, declutter, decorating, DIY, key holder, key rack, make your own, necklace, necklace holder, necklaces, organize, redecorating, reorganizing, skull necklaces, tie rack. Arts and Crafts. 4 comments.