Monday, May 17, 2010

Quick & Easy Earring Organizer

If you use this tutorial I'd love to see your creation! 
Feel free to post it to the Handmade Mommy Tutorials Flickr Pool.

The more I sew and craft, the more of my girlfriends come out of the woodwork with their own craftiness. I love learning about what everyone else makes and am constantly impressed. My friend Galit happens to make amazing jewelry and she gave me a beautiful pair of earrings last Christmas. They quickly became my favorite pair and I wear them all the time. When I knew I was going to chop off all my hair, I told her that I would like to pay her for some more earrings...nice girly, dangly ones to play up the short hair. Being the generous friend that she is, she refused to let me pay her. And, going one step further, she said we should make a Girls Night out of the earring making.

So I headed over to her house after my kids were tucked in bed and we made earrings. And there were ALL her beautiful beads spread across the dining room table in tidy little trays. She told me that I would be designing and she would assemble whatever I put together. I was giddy at the prospect, but also a little intimidated. I have no experience with creating earrings. As a rule, I don't make jewelry myself because the fine movements are hard on my hands and there aren't really any "cheats" for pliers and wire cutters. But it was fascinating to watch her assemble the beads and wire and findings. Her hands moved so confidently and whipped out these perfectly crafted little beauties. And once I got started, I just couldn't stop. When all was said and done, I had six new pairs of earrings! All made in one night! She's amazing, no?

But now I had a bunch of beautiful earrings and nowhere to organize them. So I stared at them on my dresser for a couple days until I remembered my old picture frames in a box under the bed...hmmm...what to do....

So I bring you a picture frame earring organizer.
Not only does it organize them but it shows off your earrings like the little works of art that they are!
There are lots of beautiful jewelry organizers all over the web and I'm sure this isn't original (sometimes it feels like nothing I come up with is really original...) but it works for me and I thought you all might like it, too.

First, gather your supplies: any old picture frame, a scrap of fabric, ribbon and packing tape 
(what would I do without packing tape?? It's my crafty equivalent to most people's duct tape.)

Put your glass on the fabric, lining it up with the fabric design as you want it to show in the frame.
Trace around the frame (I used a water soluble fabric pen, but anything will do because the marks won't show in your frame)

Now cut your fabric about 1" bigger than the traced outline and then clip your corners on the diagonal like so.

Turn your fabric wrong side up and lay your glass on the fabric.
Pull the fabric snug around the glass and use your packing tape to secure the long edges to the back of the glass.


Now cut a length of ribbon twice the width of your glass.

Tie a couple knots in it to cute it up and help divide the earrings.
Place your ribbon about 1/3 of the way down on the right side of your fabric.

Keeping the ribbon in place, turn your glass over and tape the ribbon and fabric in place.


Here is what the front of your glass will look like now...

 Place the glass in your frame and hang your beautiful earrings on it.
Proudly set it on your dresser and admire it daily.
Now isn't that adorable?

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7 comments:

  1. What a terrific idea! I love the idea of not only organizing, but also displaying, the earrings!

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  2. so cute amy, I bet my mom would really appreciate something like this. I would but I don't wear earings for fear they'll get ripped out of my ears! :)

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  3. Great idea! Better than my tin of tangled and tarnishing earrings. :)

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  4. Hi there!

    We've featured your earring organizer tutorial. Check it out here: http://www.handmade-jewelry-club.com/2011/10/diy-lessonsorg-updates.html

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Brilliant....
    Kee of Malaysia

    ReplyDelete
  6. You have just helped me immensely!!! I can also use something like this with a solid background for taking photos of my finished work ~ this would be a major help for posting my finished pieces to several different sites to be able to sell them. MUCH more fun to look at AND cheaper to own then the molded plastic things that one finds at the major craft stores.

    ReplyDelete

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