Hang It Up!

All righty. First attempt at being crafty was completed about a week ago. I still had several boxes/bags left to unpack (still not quite done yet, but that's neither here nor there!), and one of the bags was full of all my jewelry. I tend to go for long, chunky necklaces, funky bracelets and long earrings...so I'm sure you can imagine the shitshow of tangled pretty things in that bag!

Before

Well, the boy had an old shadowbox picture frame, and I have been checking out all sorts of crafty websites and I kept coming across picture frame jewelry holders. So, I figured, "This looks like a pretty easy project, good beginner level..." Yeah. If you kinda have some inkling of what you are doing. Which I didn't. But that was okay. I sanded it (with my new best tool friend, the orbital sander), spray painted it, put some hardware cloth in the door for my earrings, put some pretty cloth on the back and hung it up. It may or may not have taken me 5 days. Probably should have only taken 2, and that's just to let the paint dry. It took longer, I effed up the paint on the first attempt, I got a lot of help from the boy, and I cried a little bit (but that was only because I didn't get a job I really wanted and the jewelry holder wasn't working out how I wanted it to. It was just the straw that broke the Amber's back that day), but it's done, it turned out purdy and it's something that I made!

I did learn a few lessons though:

1) When the warning label on the hardware cloth (which isn't really cloth. It's galvanized wire, sort of like chicken wire) says to wear gloves, do it. That shit will scratch you up good if you're not careful.

2) If at any point you will be sanding and then painting something, use tack cloth to clear off the sawdust. And then make sure that you don't set the tacky spray painted items on the sawdust. Kinda defeats the purpose...

3) Cup hooks are a bitch to install, especially if you put them close together. An inch apart is a much smaller distance than you may think, when you have a lot of long, chunky necklaces.

The dreaded cup hooks...

4) Spray painting small areas with stencils is a terrible idea. I couldn't attach the stencils to the surfaces, so the paint ran all over the place. I ended up having to get a new background cloth (JoAnn Fabric cloth quarters were PERFECT for this use) and spray painting the sides blue and then creating texture with a sponge. I actually like the way it turned out better than the stencils.

It was nice to be able to hang it up in my bedroom and know that I can make things for myself that I like!

Aaaaand after...

Up next: 8 foot picture frame holder and building a deck on the house!!