Jewelry Organizer Tutorial

Alright, Blog World, here is my first attempt at a tutorial!

Just the other day, my friend Jen over at Making&Baking and I got together for some crafting and created these wonderful Jewelry Organizers! We ended up with two completely different styles, but they work for the types of jewelry that each of us wanted to display. She'll post a tutorial for the blue one over at Making&Baking soon, but until then I'll show you how to build the white one on the right!

Step 1: Gather Your Materials

We started out at Goodwill and picked up some frames; mine is 11"x13" and was under $4! 
We then headed out to Home Depot, which is where we collected everything else. The aluminum sheets that we found are usually used as radiator covers and there were many different designs to choose from!

Materials:
Frame (mine was 11"x13")
One decorative aluminum sheet
Thin strips of wood
Round wooden dowel
Two wooden drawer pulls
Lots and lots of tiny hooks (I used about 30 1/2" cap hooks)
2 larger hooks (mine were 1" cap hooks)
Spray paint


We used some tools for this project which not everyone may have, but the whole thing can be done by hand with just a little bit of extra effort! I had the wonderful employees at Home Depot help me cut my wooden strips and dowels, so we didn't need to have our own saw. We just brought in our frames and the guys helped us measure and cut everything!

Tools:
Electric drill and various sizes of drill bits
Staple gun and staples
Tin snips
Glue (super glue ended up working the best for me, but I also tried wood glue and hot glue)


Step 2: Cut Your Pieces

I had my thin wooden bar cut into two pieces which fit snugly in the back of the frame. These will become the bars that I will later attach the small hooks to.

The wooden dowel was cut to be the same width as the frame. This will hang underneath as a bracelet holder.

The next thing to cut was the aluminum backing. I used the tin snips to cut this, and it made this step so easy! I'm sure that it can be done with regular scissors as well, but I would highly recommend investing in some of these.

When finished cutting, your aluminum sheet should fit snugly into the back of your picture frame.

Step 3: Spray Paint

Next, spray paint EVERYTHING! I left the aluminum on mine silver because I liked the contrast, but Jen at Making&Baking painted her sheet and it looks great either way! I painted my frame, wooden bars and dowels, hooks, and knobs.

Note: I spray painted my dowel and drawer pulls before trying to glue it together... if I were to do this project again, I would do "Step 8: Build the Bracelet Bar" BEFORE "Step 3: Spray Paint".

Step 4: Wait. 

 And wait, and wait, and wait. It took what felt like FOREVER for this spray paint to dry! But no matter how impatient you are, don't try to rush things! We ended up finishing our projects while the paint was still tacky, and it got very messy. Luckily, we were going for a vintage look and any smudges in the paint were going to add to that effect later (or so we told ourselves).

Step 5: Electric Tools!

The next step was to line up my painted wooden bars and determine where I wanted to put my hooks. I used masking tape to hold the wood in place during this step.

When I decided on a pattern that I liked for my hooks, I took the drill and the smallest bit and drilled almost 30 holes into my strips of wood.
(Note- the wood that I chose was soft enough so that each hook could have been attached by hand, but I took the easy route and drilled the holes first.)

After all of the holes were in place, it was time to attach the screen to the frame! My first experience with the electric staple gun was a bit traumatizing (that thing is LOUD), but I quickly got the hang of it. I put a staple across each corner, one in the center of each edge, and two on either side of each bar to make sure things were secure.

Step 8: Distress the Wood

For this step, I just took some sandpaper and lightly sanded the frame in order to give it more of a vintage feel. 

Step 7: Hooks 

This was the most tedious part of the entire project! One by one I screwed each little 1/2" hook into the pre-drilled holes from earlier.

I also added the two larger hooks onto the bottom of the frame to hold the bracelet bar.

Step 8: Build the Bracelet Bar

Like I said earlier, I should have done this BEFORE I spray painted the pieces! But that didn't happen, so...

All I did here was glue a drawer pull on to either side of my wooden dowel.

And that's it!

We're done constructing the jewelry organizer, and there is only one step left...

Step 9: Add Jewelry!

So here it is, my first tutorial. I'm really happy with the way that my jewelry organizer turned out and I'm glad that I chose this project to start my venture into the blogging world. I hope I included everything here, let me know what you think! Thanks for reading, and stay tuned- I plan on writing a lot more of these!