Jewelry Hanger

Previously, my jewelry was organized like this. I decided that I wanted to do something that wasn't attached directly to the wall because then I could never move it to somewhere else in the room. Plus, I had been adding to my collection a little and needed some room to grow.

I made a trip to the thrift store to see what I could find. I found these two things. I don't know what they are. Baskets/trays of some kind. One would have probably been fine but since there were two, I got them both. Now what?

First, I primed them because I certainly couldn't leave them gold. And painted them white.
Then I grabbed a piece of half inch board that I had laying around. I have been doing so much painting lately that I refused to paint the board. Plus, I am impatient like that sometimes. I played around with the arrangement and tried to use the hooks from my old jewelry solution.
I had to rig a way to hold the baskets on the board. I drilled a hole right behind the upper corners of the baskets and threaded some picture hanging wire through the hole, around the basket and back through the hole.

Then I twisted it around a washer to hold it in place.
What are the odds that I had two more of the EXACT same hooks collecting dust in my tool drawer? I had to throw them on too.
I have plans to do something in the middle so I left a space there. Probably put some knobs on there or something to hang bracelets and what not.
I hung up what I had. I still need to pick up some s-hooks so that I can hang some necklaces from the sides of the baskets or wherever I feel like it.
My earrings with just hooks hang nicely wherever I want them. The ones that clip closed, i.e. hoops, hang well on the wire of what would be the middle of the baskets as well as at the edges.

A convenient bonus is that since the baskets protrude from the board, I have little "shelves" at the top to hold things that won't hang well...like larger hoops with funky closures or wide/flat bracelets, as well as my little container that holds all my studs.

I did recently see someone hang studs with lace. I will have to consider that. I don't really have a lot of studs anyway so I probably will just stick with the little plastic container.

I like this solution better than when it was right on the wall. When I want to rearrange my room, I can just remove the holder (which I just screwed right into the wall) and move it to it's new location.

Giant Magnet Board

I am helping my sister (age 17) redecorate her room. She had a lot of stuff hanging up all over her room so I thought a big magnet board would be nice to have. Then she could corral all her pictures, notes, certificates, ribbons, etc in one place.

I went to Orange and looked around for something metal to use. First I tried magnetic paint which was a dismal failure. It was just never strong enough no matter how many coats I did.

Then I looked at corrugated roofing material. Great cost wise, but the ridges made it kind of impractical.

I looked at the sheet metal they had there but one little 12 inch square was like 4 bucks.

Then an employee helped me look at other options. I finally ended up in the plumbing aisle. They sell "panning" which I guess they use to make pans for under water heaters and such? No idea. Anyway, it was nice and thin and magnetic and a decent sized piece was just a little over 6 bucks. I bought 4 and decided I would adhere them to a piece of luaun I had in my garage (free for me, but about 11 bucks if you go and get yourself some).

I cut it to size (giving a 2 inch border around the sheets of metal).


Primed the edge with spray paint.
Painted the edge with spray paint.
Used this spray adhesive. It works okay but I probably should have roughed up the smooth surfaces a little. The metal seems to lift up a little on some of the edges. By the way, I really needed my daughters help to get the sheets in place after they had been sprayed with glue. It was tricky. If you are off just a little, you can pull the metal up but it will be bent and pretty much unusable after that.
Here is the finished product. I would say it is about 3 ft x 5 ft or so.
The panning has a little fold at the bottom. I thought it worked out perfect because she can stick photos (or whatever) right in the channel without a magnet.
I need to look at it again because I might screw down the metal in some spots just to be sure it is all secure. I probably should have glued it down with liquid nails instead.

Any easy one: Frame re-do

Don't you hate how expensive frames are? I needed one for a big photo of my kids. I picked this one up at my Goodwill. They are committing highway robbery over there. This one was $10 thanks to the 50% off color tag. Otherwise it was 20 bucks! For a beat-up, ugly old frame. Whatever. Even $10 was too much, IMO.

I just took it apart. Once I bought it, it was mine to do what I wanted. So I had my way with it.

Then I got it ready to paint (removed the glass).

Sprayed some primer on it (I used gray because I was painting it black).

And then I sprayed it with black spray paint. Voila!

Classy-lookin' frame for only $10 since I already had all the paint! Don't even ask what the picture cost me. Here's a tip though, take the photo yourself and upload it to Costco. A print this size would probably cost you $5.99.