DIY Jewelry Storage

DIY Earring Display +
bonus Christmas Decorations!

Last night, on New Year's Eve Eve, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to become one of those enviable uber-organized people in 2013. One thing that I have been struggling with in my apartment is how to store my jewelry. I don't own many valuable pieces, as I'm mostly a costume-jewelry girl. But I do have a desire to organize what I do have so that it will be easier to mix up my jewelry selections on a day-by-day basis.

I am incredibly picky when it comes to things like jewelry boxes--I don't want anything cutesy or impractical. And I like the idea of storing jewelry in plain sight so that it adds to the decor, rather than being hidden away. But I don't want it to appear cluttered. (Now you get what I mean when I say I'm picky).

One coat of paint

I toyed with several ideas, and finally decided to order a ring box with a glass lid (for both my rings and stud earrings) and a three-tired black velvet stand for bracelets. But for my earrings, which comprise the largest--and my favourite--part of my collection, I decided to do a DIY earring display. Being back at my childhood home for the holidays, I enlisted my mother to help me assembly the necessary supplies.

I picked up an old frame from Goodwill, grabbed some leftover white paint that was lying around the house, bought a metal grate at a hardware store (I have no idea what the intended purpose for this was, and it had to be trimmed down. The store did it for me at no cost, but you could also pick up some shears at the store for about $15 that would do the trick.), and dug out the old staple gun. If you don't have a staple gun, I think that a hot glue gun will suffice.

After taking the backing and the glass out of the frame, I covered it with two coats of paint and proceeded to staple the metal grate onto the back of the frame. I had expected the staple gun to go through the grate with no problem, but in reality it was trickier than expected and I had to use a hammer to tap in the staples, as they didn't want to go all the way into the frame initially. After I had stapled down all four edges, I reenforced the staples with duct tape running along all of the edges.

It was as simple as that! All in the course of one afternoon and I am now left with exactly what I had envisioned! This can be easily customized by choosing any number of different frames to match your decor--and you can skip the step of having to paint the frame by choosing one that it totally ready to go!  This is definitely one of my favourite DIY projects--and one of the simplest! If you are struggling to find a way to store your earring collection, I would definitely recommend this!