DIY Jewelry Organizer

Somehow we accumulate a lot of corks. I’m not sure how…

I hang on to them, knowing that someday I will use them in some sort of project. I used a bunch when I made our bulletin board for the command center. And I found another use for them this week!

I’ve had the same jewelry box for about nine years. It’s cluttered and no longer working well. Updating the master bedroom has motivated me to update this storage solution to something less cluttered and fresh.

I started with two 8x10 photo frames with a silver finish. I found these at the Dollar store for just $1 each. I also picked up a couple yards of unbleached muslin at JoAnn’s for $1.19 a yard.

I cut out two squares of the muslin and wrapped it around the backing of the frames, securing it with a hot glue gun.

I folded the corners kind of like a Christmas present to keep them flat.

Once the fabric was in place, I wanted to add some corks to actually hang my jewelry from. I decided to cut most of them in half so they wouldn’t stick out too far from the frame.

Cutting corks with a knife proved more difficult than I anticipated. It was difficult to get a straight edge on the cut side. And, if you know anything about my history with knives, this project quickly became more dangerous than I’d like. Scissors worked much better.

I cut 9 corks in half and then secured them to the top of each frame with the hot glue gun. A few wine-stained corks provided a nice purple hue and added some color to the project.

Finally I added two larger champagne corks in the bottom corners to hold bracelets and round necklaces.

I found 5/8 inch cup hooks at Lowes and they screwed into the corks very easily. I added the hooks as I added the necklaces because I wasn’t sure I wanted or needed a hook in every cork. I ended up with 7 hooks in each frame. The tiny hooks are strong enough to hold two light necklaces or one heavier one. 

I hung the frames over the dresser and the jewelry became wall décor itself, but that wasn’t quite enough. The wall felt too empty. I wanted to add a mirror to the room to bounce some light around but I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of buying a new mirror especially since the cheapest one I could find was $40 and it was rather plain. 

I had a large 22x28 frame sitting in the basement unused, so I went to Lowes and purchased a new sheet of mirror glass. They cut it down to the size I needed for free. Then I just removed the glass on the frame and replaced it with the mirror. The dark wood finish of the frame didn’t really blend well with the rest of the bedroom, so I wrapped the frame in the muslin fabric as well, securing it in the back with the glue gun.

I simplified the dresser décor quite a bit, leaving only a stack of books, our sand ceremony box from our wedding, and some dried flowers I’ve received from the mister over the years. A couple dishes from HomeGoods hold earrings, rings, and pins.

Here is the dresser before:

And here is the after:

These new organizers make choosing accessories in the morning much easier because I can see all of my options at once. And with a limited number of hooks, I’m forced to keep my jewelry collection to a moderate size!

How do you organize your shiny accessories?

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Custom Floor-Length Curtains for Under $50

Since painting the master bedroom back in June, work on the redecorating in this space pretty much stalled. Now that temperatures are getting cooler outside, my focus is starting to return to being indoors and finishing up some of those projects that were ignored all summer.

This is what I started with…

The new paint color helped A LOT!

There is still much more I want to accomplish in this space and to get started, I wanted to add some curtains around the window.

When I started looking at curtain options for the bedroom, I was looking at spending more money than I wanted.  A while back, I found four 84-inch Pier 1 tab top curtain panels at a garage sale for $5. Five dollars!!!

When I bought them, I didn’t have an exact purpose in mind for them. (That happens more than it should.) But when I was trying to find a cheaper solution for the bedroom window, I remembered I had these beauties stashed away. I dug them out and knew this was the almost-perfect purpose for them; almost perfect because I was left with two issues.

First, I wanted to hang the curtains closer to the ceiling to make the room feel a bit taller, but with 84 inch curtains, that wasn’t going to be possible. Second, they were a cream color, which blends with the room well, but in such a huge chuck they felt kind of bland.

To solve these issues, I decided to add in some fabric inserts to make the curtains longer and more colorful. 

Purple is my favorite color. It’s safe to say the Mister doesn’t share that sentiment. Since we have to share the master bedroom, I decided purple shouldn’t be one of the main colors in the room. I want the room to be comfortable, cozy, and relaxing and, at the same time, not too feminine or masculine. After considering those things, I decided to focus on the blues and greens as the main color in the room and use purple and orchid as accents.

Picking the fabric for the insert was like picking waldo out of a crowd of people wearing red and white striped shirts…way too overwhelming. Instead of getting lost in a sea of fabric online, I just walked through our local JoAnn Fabrics store and collected samples of homedecor fabrics I thought might work. Then I went home and pinned each sample onto the curtain and draped it over the existing shade to get a rough idea of what the finished project might look like.

I settled on one fabric over the rest pretty quickly. I waited patiently until the home décor fabrics hit the 50% sale that rotates at JoAnn’s, and as soon as it appeared, I drove over and bought it.

Better Homes & Gardens Legatto Breeze

I decided the easiest way to measure what size I needed the inserts to be was to hang the curtains and see how far they were from the ground. To do that, I’d need to pick out my rod.

I tossed around the idea of making my own curtain rod, but then I found a rod at Hobby Lobby that I really liked. With a 40% off coupon, it was only $11. The supplies I needed to buy for a DIY version plus the time it would take me to put it together was too much for me to pass up the already made rod. So it was purchased.

I hung the rod using this crazy easy technique I found on Pinterest. Then, I ironed one curtain panel and hung it on the rod and measured how much length I needed to add.

I cut the insert fabric accordingly. I decided to cut the curtains about nine inches from the bottom of the tabs.

Then I just sewed the insert onto each cut side using a ¼ “ seam allowance. A bit of ironing followed and then I hung them up!

The curtains make the room feel more like home. They add warmth and coziness without blocking too much light from coming in.

After hanging the curtains, I finally switched out the bedding and the pillows that have been stashed in my closet for I don’t know how many months. 

I made a throw pillow cover with the left over curtain fabric I had.

Here is a before and after shot of the progress so far!

I still have a project list that includes remodeling the nightstands, adding new lamps, and adding some décor above the dresser, but the room is finally starting to come together.

Are you picking up on some projects that stalled over the summer? How have you customized an item to make it your own? I'd love to hear your stories!

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A Tale of Two Frames

There is a running joke among Michiganders that we have two seasons: winter and road construction. While the road construction season can be a pain in the neck sometimes, I prefer to think of that second season as garage sale season.

I love garage sales. One person’s junk often ends up as my treasure. I do try to think very critically at a garage sale though, ensuring I have a clear purpose for any item I choose to buy. The last thing I want is to buy something just to put it in my “to donate” pile at home. When I stumbled upon these two frames at a sale last year, I knew exactly how I’d use them. 

These frames are 21 x 21 inch frames made of solid wood. They were priced at $4 a piece, which is a steal in itself. But I did what I always do at garage sales – get my Mister involved. He is the world’s greatest negotiator. Truly, the greatest. I swear he doesn’t pay full price for anything. I don’t go to garage sales without him. Anyway, I whispered to him that I really wanted the frames and we walked out of there with both of them for $5 total. If the frames weren’t so heavy, I would have done a happy dance all the way home. 

My plan was to hang these frames in our master bedroom but they sat in my closet for a year while I debated what color to paint the walls. Now that that life changing decision has been made, I decided it’s time to hang these beauties up.

Originally, I contemplated replacing the matte in both frames. I had two options. One, I could have a local frame shop do it for me. Two, I could buy some matte board and a matte cutter and do it myself. Having it done for me proved to be way over my budget at $55 per frame. And, after weighing the idea of doing it myself, I decided the mattes in the frames really weren’t that bad and went relatively well with my new décor plan. So after all of that contemplating, I decided to leave the mattes alone.

The next decision was what to put in the frames. We’ve been married almost two years and still have zero wedding pictures hanging in our house. I’m not usually a procrastinator but when it comes to decorating, I tend to drag my feet a bit. I went through our engagement and wedding photos and picked one of each for the frames.

The current opening in the frames for a photo is 8 x 8. I learned that not every photo print shop offers 8 x 8 prints, and some of the ones who do charge quite a bit. Walmart came in at $2.84 a piece which I thought was really reasonable. Before I clicked “Order Prints” I checked out the Sam’s Club website and was pleased to find the prints for just $3.10 total and I was able to pick them up the next morning. Even more reasonable!

I pulled the frames apart, laid in my prints, and reassembled them. I knew which wall I wanted to hang them on and I knew I wanted them side by side but I wasn’t exactly sure what height to hang them at or what spacing to use between them. I revisited my own blog post about hanging art and used a couple of those techniques to find my perfect arrangement.

I traced the frames onto some brown mailing paper and then cut them out. I taped them up on the wall and played around with the spacing until I was happy with their location.

Because these frames are so heavy, I drilled my holes and put in some wall anchors first and then added some screws. 

Both prints fit the theme of the room: the first is romantic, the second is comfortable. 

I love how they turned out, and I love even more that they were only $8.10 total.

I plan to put something between them but haven't set my heart on exactly what that something is yet. I'm excited about how our master bedroom is evolving!

What’s your favorite garage sale steal?

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Painting 101: Be Patient

I like to paint until I actually have to paint. For some reason, I get this idea in my head that painting a room will be quick and easy and then as soon as I start the process, I'm in agony about how long and tedious it is. 

After I settled on the lead piece for our master bedroom, I gathered a couple additional patterns and textures and settled on the idea of painting our room a light blue. I trekked off to Lowe's and grabbed what seemed to be an illegal number of blue paint sample chips. Back at home, I held each chip up to my lead piece and quickly got rid of about 7/8's of them. Blue is not always blue. It can be turquoise, purple, gray, green.... 

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Once I had about ten chips left, I taped them up on the wall for a few days. At different parts of the day, my Mister and I would comment on which ones we liked and didn't like until we thought we had picked "our color." I went back to Lowe's and got a paint sample of the color. I came home, painted a square on the wall, and let it dry. After a couple hours, I went into the room, expecting to see the beautiful blue color I had in mind and I was appalled. It looked like a blue fluorescent lamp had exploded on the wall. Ugh. Back to the drawing board. 

Four paint colors later, I had my just right color. Yes four. Our room looked like a pastel checkerboard. 

The first blue was very purple. The second blue was really white. The third blue was too bright. The fourth blue - just right. I settled on Benjamin Moore's Quiet Moments. 

The name fits our room theme well (Calm - Romantic - Comfortable).

My advice: Be patient when picking a color and always buy a sample to test out first.

Once I had my color selected, I went to the paint store to buy paint and I was confronted with more decisions. What kind of paint and what sheen? Apparently, satin sheets are for the bedroom but satin paint is not. I learned that flat paint is generally best for ceilings. Eggshell paint is good for bedrooms and any other areas that don't need to be cleaned very often. Satin and Semi-gloss are easier to clean so they work well in kitchens, bathrooms, kids rooms, etc. I settled on an egg shell finish and Valspar Ultra Low Odor, Zero VOC paint. 

Turns out, low odor paint still puts off a lot of odor. And one coat coverage means two coats. 

My advice: Be patient and do your homework when picking a paint.

My next decision was brushes and tape. I have used a lot of different brands of painters tape in the past and I've learned that you certainly get what you pay for. This time around, I went with the green Frog Tape that comes in a resealable plastic container. Frog Tape rocks. It worked perfectly. If you're my dad, you don't need to use tape. If you're anyone else, buy Frog Tape. 

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Adhere pieces that are 8 - 10 inches in length at a time around trim, windows, doors, and any other surface you want to keep paint free. 

Like tape, you get what you pay for in a paint brush too. For cutting in around trim and ceilings, an angled brush is a must. The Mister didn't believe me and tried to help out using a flat bottomed brush and quickly realized it was impossible to get into corners without making a mess. Pay for a good quality brush. If you take care of it, you can use it over and over and it will be well worth the money. I also picked up a couple roller brushes with a 3/8" nap. 

My advice: Be patient when picking a paint brush and be willing to spend a little extra on a good one.

When I get a gallon of paint and a brush in my hand, I'm ready to hit the ground running. But I've learned quickly that this is not a good idea. Taking the time to prep before painting will save tons of time and headaches later. 

To paint our bedroom, I opted to leave all the furniture in the room and just scrunch it all together in the middle. It was cramped for a few days, but it was worth not having to move everything to other rooms in the house. To protect our pile, I put an old towel down on the floor and a drop cloth over the furniture in the middle of the room. Then, I scraped off any spots where the old paint was flaking or bubbling and patched up the nail holes that remained from the previous owners. Once the patches were dry, I sanded them down and wiped off the walls with a damp cloth. 

My advice: Be patient when prepping the room for paint. It will save you on aspirin down the road.

My dad gave me some great advice. He said, "Don't drink coffee before painting." I avoided the coffee but consumed three brownies while cutting in the first coat. Bad idea. Just for the record, three brownies anytime is a bad idea but it's especially bad when painting. The caffeine and sugar made me jittery and when the shakes wore off, I was super tired and ready to be done painting. 

If you don't know this already, I'm a bit of a control freak. Nevertheless, when my Mister offered to help paint, I accepted his generosity because, quite frankly, I wanted to get it done. We blasted some classic rock music and his singing (mostly made up words) really encouraged me to keep painting. 

My advice: Be patient and enlist a partner. And always listen to classic rock music while painting.

A few other lessons learned:

1. Don't push too hard when rolling paint. This will cause the paint to splatter a lot more.
2. Watch your feet. Twice I dripped paint on my stool and didn't realize it. I stepped in it, then walked across the room. You can guess what happened.
3. Use a nail to put some holes around the rim of the paint can. This allows the paint to drain back into the can instead of drying into a rubbery mess and preventing the can from resealing. Another important note: be sure the paint has drained back into the can before hammering the lid back on the can. It's a good thing my counters have blue specks in them already...
4. Use a stool. Even if you can reach the roller to the ceiling, it's so helpful to have a stool that allows you to easily reach. This prevents you from accidentally hitting the ceiling with the roller (for the most part). It's also helpful to sit on a stool while painting the lower part of the room. Squatting and bending will cause you to feel like you've been hit by a paint truck the next morning.
5. Store your brush or roller in a resealable bag in-between coats or when you break for another brownie. This will keep the brush soft and allows you to use just one roller for the entire job. When you're done, slide the roller brush into the bag, grab it from the outside (to keep your hands clean), and pull the brush off the handle. Seal up the bag and toss it in the trash. 

Here is a before shot of the pinkish beige room.

I'm pretty pleased with how well the room turned out. 

I love the color and I finally got my wedding bouquet hung on the wall. The next step is to bring in all those new colors and textures and patterns. I should get a free weekend to do that sometime in August.... I'm mostly kidding. Patience is a virtue. 

So the next time you find yourself ready to paint, remember - Tape. Cut in. Roll. Repeat. And most importantly... be patient. 

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