Jewelry Box Disguised as a Painting

I’m not sure if y’all know this about me but here it goes: I’m not a jewelry girl. Most days I can be found wearing the earrings Brian proposed with (they only come out for cleaning) and the silver heart necklace he bought me just before we got married. My wedding ring should probably be resized (again) so I only wear it every once in awhile (like Heather Armstrong, I sometimes wear big fake wedding rings). And every now and then I’ll bust out a pair of hoop earrings (I have two holes in each ear) or a funky necklace. I just don’t have enough style to really wear jewelry. I’m working on it though!

My lack of style has meant that I have absolutely zero way of organizing the few necklaces and earrings that I do own. Most of the time I would shove them into a drawer or my purse or leave them on my nightstand. Leaving them on my nightstand meant that little kitty paws would snatch the shiny objects and they would disappear into the depths underneath the bed where Mango would play with them all night. So in the interest of trying to treat my necklaces better so that I can find them easier, I came up with a creative way to organize my jewelry while not spending a lot of cash! Organizing on the cheap? My two favourite things! (After Doritos and Glee, that is.)

My supplies:

1. Two 16×20 canvases that are about ³/₄” deep. I got mine at Michaels in a 2 pack on sale
2. Roll of white wrapping paper
3. Cork
4. Hinges
5. Small magnets, nothing fancy like Rare Earth magnets
6. Paint and paintbrushes (1″ foam and a tiny detailing paintbrush)
7. Glue (my photo shows superglue but I really used my hotglue gun)
8. Scissors
9. Exacto knife and cutting board
10. Stencil

Now the steps!

1. 

   Carefully cut out your stencil. If your stencil has sections where there’ll be painted parts inside of a hole, make sure to leave a bridge, so your stencil is all in one piece. You can fill in these lines later. Set stencil aside

2. 
   Wrap your canvases in the paper, giving them neat edges. NOTE: The reason I wrapped my canvases in paper is because they were damaged. I’d had them for years and they had two small tears in them that I couldn’t fix. If you can, I’d recommend painting the stencil right onto the canvas.
3. 
   Position your stencil onto the canvas and either tape the stencil to the canvas or use weighted objects (like I did) to hold it in place.
4. 
   Grab your paint and foam brush and start stenciling in. Use a light amount of paint and dab it on evenly. I used acrylic craft paint that I had kickin’ around.
5. 
   When you’re finished stenciling, peel back the stencil so you don’t smudge. You’ll notice that there are lines missing in my design. That’s where I had bridged the stencil so the middle pieces would be attached.
6. 
   Grab your fine/small paintbrush and start filling in the lines using short even strokes.
7. 
   If needed, cut your cork to size. I bought 4 packs of 6 squares of corks from Dollarama and they had curved edges. I used a ruler and eyeballed it so the curved edges were even and then sliced ‘em off! NOTE: I tucked my cork under the frame of the canvas, so I only cut the curves off the visible edges.
8. 
   Line up your cork pieces in one row so they’re as even as possible. Glue them down with hot glue. Do the same for the opposite row. Start filling in the rows in between by cutting the cork and gluing it down until the whole board is covered.
9. 
   Now grab your hinges. When I couldn’t find hinges at Dollarama, Brian reminded me that he’d bought a wood treasure chest from there and I could take the hinges from that. Problem solved!

   Put your canvases on the floor so the insides are facing up. Make sure you position the frames so the door opens in the right direction. IE: if you want the door to open from the left, the canvas with the cork should be on the left and the hinges will attach to the right side of the corked frame and the left side of the uncorked frame. And vice versa if you want the door to open from the right.

   

   
   Line up your hinges and poke pilot holes. I used a thumbtack since my hinge was super small. If you used a bigger hinge, you should probably use an awl. NOTE: a bigger hinge usually requires bigger screws. Make sure the screws aren’t too long for your canvas frames. Screw in your hinges.

10. 
    Attach your frame to the wall. Now there are a few different ways to do this. You could attach a picture hanging wire at the back and hang it from that. You could get a couple of small D hooks and hang it from those. Or you could do what I did and that was to nail the sucker to the wall in the four corners! I went into the corners where the cork is but if your nails are long enough, you could go right through the frame. Entirely up to you.
11. 
    Now this is the point where I said to Brian, “Oh crap! How is going to stay closed?” And upon seeing the look of laughter on his face, I said, “For some reason I thought gravity would help me out there.” Well! Luckily I had some magnets kicking around. So we grabbed two and hot glued one to each frame to hold the frames closed. Crisis averted! And as a bonus, they make the tiniest *click* noise, so I can hear that it’s closed properly. NOTE: I wouldn’t use Rare Earth magnets or anything super strong for this. You don’t want to have to yank on the door in order to open it! I got my pack of magnets for Dollarama and they’re just strong enough to hold the lightweight door closed.
12. 
    As a sewer, I have amassed a huge amount of dressmaker pins. To the point where I have two pincushions and they’re overflowing. So I thought what better way to use some of those pins up, than by sticking them into the cork to hang my jewelry off of? I stuck the pins in at a slight angle and then hung all the shiny objects on them! None of my necklaces are super heavy but if you have some that are, you might want to use two pins or even dab a bit of hot glue where the pin meets the cork, to secure it in there.

Step back and admire your handiwork! Once all your baubles are hung safely inside, you just flip the front part closed and it looks like a cool piece of artwork on your wall!

The dollars and cents:

1. Canvas frames – 0$ (I already had these on hand from years ago. I got mine at Michaels for something like 8.99$ on sale for a 2-pack. If they’re not on sale, use a 40% off coupon!)
2. Roll of white wrapping paper – 0$ (already on hand but I bought it at Dollarama)
3. Cork – 4$ (4 packages of 6 squares from Dollarama)
4. Hinges – 0$ (already had the chest on hand but these are usually anywhere from 1-3$ from Dollarama or Home Depot)
5. Small magnets – 0$ (already on hand but I did get mine at Dollarama)
6. Paint and paintbrushes – 0$ (already on hand, but Dollarama sells paint and brushes for a buck a piece)
7. Hot glue – 0$ (alread on hand)
8. Stencil – 0$ (I printed it at home on my printer)
9. Dressmaker pins – 0$ (already on hand)
10. Total cost: 4.20$ (with tax)

I’ve never looked for them there, but I’m sure you can also find dressmaker pins at Dollarama. If not, any store with a fabric section should carry them for a couple of bucks. You could use pushpins but make sure they aren’t too long for your cork. My cork was fairly thin so the dressmaker pins being pushed in at an angle worked out well.

So there you have it! That’s how my jewelry went from being cat toys to having its own secret spot on the wall of our bedroom. And for less than a fiver! Can’t go wrong with that.

Tags: Dollarama, organization

How We Organize Our Keys

It has taken us a year of living in our condo to figure out its little nuances and how we wanted it to function for our lives. One of the things that I was desperate to organize were how we stored our keys.

For Brian’s birthday last November, I gave him two bowls I’d made from records. For awhile they sat on our kitchen counter and it became a drop zone for us to place our keys. But then as time went on, the bowls became a drop zone for more than just keys. Pretty soon loose change, lightbulbs, cat treats, rubber bands and a myriad of other things collected in the bowls. Yet we still dropped our keys in there! So every morning, the hunt was on to dig into the bowls for our keys. I finally got tired of it and decided to come up with a better solution.

Enter our new key hooks!

These babies have saved our lives! And for a twoonie to boot! I don’t have any during pics for this how-to but the steps are pretty simple.

What you’ll need:

• 
  These picture frames from IKEA (or another wood picture frame)
• 
  As many screw hooks as you have keys for each person. For instance, B & I each have two sets of keys and we have two cats so we bought 6 hooks. We got ours at Dollarama (a pack of 6 white hooks was 1$) but you can also find packs of these hooks at any hardware store.
• Paint (spray or acrylic) and a brush (if necessary)
• Nails

Something extra you could pick up (we didn’t) would be polyurethane (brush or spray on).

To assemble:

1. Print the pictures you want to use in the size for your frame.
2. Paint your frames. You might have to do a couple coats. I did two coats of white acrylic paint and left it at that.
3. Mark on the frames with a pencil where you want your key hooks to be. I left 2.5″ from each end and 2″ between each hook. I eyeballed it so that they were screwed in a bit closer to the edge of the frame. (You don’t want it to come through the back of the frame where the glass sits.)
4. Screw each hook into the frame at the position you marked. Be careful so the frame doesn’t split. Mine split a tiny bit but because it was at the back, I didn’t worry too much about it.
5. Put the pics into the frames.
6. Measure the space where you are going to hang the frames. Once the frame is in position, put two nails into the two upper corners of the frame. *Note: The IKEA RAM frames have a hole in the center of the back where you can hang it on a nail. We originally did that but because we each have two sets of keys, if we took one set off, the frame would lean to one side.
7. Hang your keys on the frame and admire your awesome work!

The dollars and cents:

1. IKEA RAM frames – 0$ (we already owned ours but they’re 1.99$/3 pack!)
2. Screw hooks – 1$
3. Paint & brush – already owned
4. Nails – already had on hand
5. Pics – 0.60$
   

6. Total Cost: 2$ (roughly with tax)

If you don’t already own picture frames, paint, a brush or nails and went to IKEA and Dollarama, a three frame project like ours would only run you 7$!

One thing I love about the frames is that we can easily pull the frame off the wall, replace the picture with a different one and slide it back into place. And at 0.19$ for a 4×6 from Wal-Mart, we can swap them out whenever we like! I forsee us taking pictures in Halloween costumes so we can have those pics up for October. And dressing up in reindeer sweaters for December.

Here’s a pic to show the wall in relation to the rest of the space. We’re planning to hang something above the key hooks, so stayed tuned to see what we end up putting there!

Images courtesy of IKEA & Home Hardware.

Tags: DIY, Dollarama, IKEA, organization, spray paint