Difficulty: Easy
Cost: $9.75
Cost: $9.75
I have been struggling to find a way to store all of my earrings for quite some time now. They sat in a box or I would have a pile of them on my bedside table and they would get all mixed up. So I said enough is enough, I'm going to figure out a way to keep these organized. I headed to the dollar store and I didn't have a plan for how I was going to do it but I find the wheels start turning when you see what you have to work with. I found some wooden dowels, an artist's panel and a t-shirt and thought let's try this out.
So what are you going to need to make your own?
The artist's panel that I purchased was 8"x10". You could purchase any size you like and if you can't find an artist's panel you could use a wooden box or a jewelry box and do a slightly different version of this DIY.
I used 5/8" dowels but you don't have to get that exact size, something around that size would be good. You could even use pencils. It doesn't matter what you use, be creative! If you use pencils just be careful about what colour they are as it might show through the fabric.
To cover all of your dowels or pencils or whatever you find you'll want some sort of fabric. I originally wanted to use felt for my fabric but my dollar store didn't have any. I ended up finding a t-shirt to use. You can just use whatever fabric you find in the dollar store that you like. Just make sure it is a nice flat woven fabric and that you will have enough to cover all of your dowels. I was able to cover all of mine with one large t-shirt.
I spent a total of $9.75 on all of my supplies, not too shabby!
- Artist's Panel
- Wooden Dowels
- Ruler
- Pencil
- Back saw
- Vice
- Sand paper
- T-shirt
- Scissors
- Hot glue gun
- Hot glue sticks
The artist's panel that I purchased was 8"x10". You could purchase any size you like and if you can't find an artist's panel you could use a wooden box or a jewelry box and do a slightly different version of this DIY.
I used 5/8" dowels but you don't have to get that exact size, something around that size would be good. You could even use pencils. It doesn't matter what you use, be creative! If you use pencils just be careful about what colour they are as it might show through the fabric.
To cover all of your dowels or pencils or whatever you find you'll want some sort of fabric. I originally wanted to use felt for my fabric but my dollar store didn't have any. I ended up finding a t-shirt to use. You can just use whatever fabric you find in the dollar store that you like. Just make sure it is a nice flat woven fabric and that you will have enough to cover all of your dowels. I was able to cover all of mine with one large t-shirt.
I spent a total of $9.75 on all of my supplies, not too shabby!
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So first order of business is marking your dowels for cutting. We'll be putting the dowels in the back side of the artists panel so flip that bad boy over. You'll want to cut the dowels slightly smaller than your opening to account for the fabric that will be wrapped around the ends of the dowel. Don't make them too much smaller though cause that'll look silly if you have gaps on the sides.
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For safe cutting I recommend putting your dowels in a vice so you have all of your fingers by the end of this. I used a back saw for precise cutting.
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After you've cut all of your dowels you'll want to sand the ends and edges.
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Now you're going to cut our fabric to wrap around your dowels. You'll want to leave about half an inch on each end of the dowel so you have some fabric to wrap the ends. I just cut long strips of fabric the width I needed.
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Now you're going to whip out your glue gun. I ran a line of glue along the dowel and glued it to the edge of my fabric strip. I then rolled it once and put another line of glue to hold the roll. I found it looked a tad bumpy in the spots where I had glue under the fabric. Try to put both of the lines of glue in the same spot along the dowel to minimize the amount of bumpy parts. The part of the dowel that is bumpy will be our backside of the dowel. When the glue dried I cut my dowel roll off the strip of fabric.
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To cover the ends of the dowels put a dot of glue and wrap the fabric down towards the back side of the dowel. Trim the excess fabric. Try not to put too much glue, you don't want to lengthen the dowel too much so it fits into our opening. Repeat this process until you have covered all of the dowels.
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When you put the covered dowels into the back of your artists panel make sure that the bumpy back side of the dowel is not showing. I didn't have to glue my dowels in because it was snug enough with the fabric on each end of the dowel, however, if you have to glue yours so that they stay in in that is fine. You want your dowels to be really snug and close together so your earrings don't fall out of your earring holder.
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To make your earring holder into a stand you will use another dowel. I cut mine to be about 2 inches long. I wanted mine to lean back a little bit so it wasn't standing at a complete 90 degree angle. I achieved this by rubbing the end of my dowel on the sand paper at a little bit of an angle. Make sure that the end of the dowel is flat. Flip your earring holder back around and measure where the middle is and mark it with a pencil. Glue your dowel in this spot.
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This step is optional. You could just have it lay down and be a jewelry box. Whatever floats your goat!
And there ya have it! You now have a way to beautifully display and organize all of your earrings!
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