Earring Trees for Lovely Earrings

I LOVE earrings. Truly. They are by far my favorite accessory. Until about four years ago, I used a butterfly earring tree that had been passed down to me from my sisters. At some point, I realized that the poor butterfly had become laden with too many earrings. Resourceful and somewhat impulsive, I found an old picture frame and purchased a piece of wire mesh that one would use in a screen door. I whipped the two together and had a new home for my earrings. Sadly, this creation has not survived the test of time.


Above, a profile view of said busted earring tree with cat toy and flip flip in background.

To the left, a front view of said busted earring tree with earrings placed much too close for comfort.

So, what to do? Make a new earring tree! I've been thinking about using a shadow box frame instead of a tabletop frame, as it would provide more structure and less wobbliness. I went out to Joanne Fabrics, picked up a new frame, on sale no less, and got crafting. Official steps are below.



Shadow Box Earring Tree

Materials:
Shadow box frame, any size (This really depends upon how large you want your earring tree to be. I chose a frame that is 10"x10".)
Wire mesh (I purchased a roll of this stuff at Lowes for about $7 and now I will be making earring trees for everyone ever--which is okay because I like to do it. If you don't want to do that, go to a smaller hardware store where you can usually buy smaller pieces.)
Hot glue
Paper for the background of the box
Scissors (Try to use a pair you don't care about too much. Cutting the mesh will dull the scissors somewhat.)
Mod Podge
Foam brush
Sharpie

Directions:

1. Take apart the shadow box and set all pieces aside except cardboard insert included with box.

2. Measure the piece of paper or picture that you chose for the background of the box against the cardboard insert. Trim off edges.

3. Glue the piece of paper to the cardboard with the Mod Podge and the foam brush. Set all aside.

4. Unroll a decent-sized piece of wire mesh. Lay the piece of glass from the shadow box on top of the mesh.

5. Trace around the piece of glass with a sharpie. Lay something underneath the mesh as you trace! Do NOT make the mistake I did in the above picture and then scramble to scrub sharpie from the floor.

6. Remove piece of glass and cut along traced lines.

7. Place piece of mesh against the inside front of the shadow box frame. Apply hot glue to all edges of the mesh.

My earrings are still a bit crowded. Good thing I have excess wire mesh to make another tree!

8. Put the frame back together again without the glass. Hang your earrings in the frame. Yay! Look what you made!

A Home for Paper Flowers

As I mentioned late last month, I've been working on cleaning the office in our apartment. In order to make room in a closet for a stack of records, I had to relocate a box of unfinished paper flowers. These flowers have quite a history. Basically, I went crazy about the decorations for my wedding. Erik and I were married at the Fuller Craft Museum. Subsequently, I decided that I wanted the decorations for our wedding to have a crafty feel. I researched every different kind of paper flower I could find on the internet, in books, by word of mouth--anything. I found directions for origami flowers and began making about a million of them to put together in bouquets for table centerpieces. A few months into this endeavor, I realized that I probably would not have enough time, even with the extraordinary help of my friends, to make ten bouquets. I settled on another paper flower idea, which still took quite some time, but made more sense for the centerpieces. I ended up making an origami flower bouquet for the table where Erik and I sat at the wedding.

Wreath for guest centerpiece

Snazz centerpiece for me & Erik

Months later, I still have about a million origami petals and flowers to use up. They were living in above said box in said closet. This weekend, I decided that I would make a new container for these petals that I could look at on a daily basis in my living room. I've wanted to make a basket from magazine pages since I saw a picture of one in The Big Ass Book of Crafts. If you're interested in looking at specific directions for how to make this basket, and for general crafty joy, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of The Big Ass Book of Crafts. Below is a description of how I made my basket.

To begin, I cut magazine pages from two Martha Stewart Living magazines into thirds. You can use any magazine you want. I just happened to have these on hand. The pages are nice and wide, too, so you get more strips from them.

Next, I grabbed a bamboo skewer from our utensil drawer. I picked up a paper strip and, starting at a corner, rolled the paper around the skewer until I made a straw shape.

I used Sobo Craft Glue to glue the last corner around the straw.

I then flattened the straw. Smoosh!

After flattening the straw, I wrapped it tightly around a pencil.

Holding the now curled straw, I slid it off the pencil and allowed it to loosen a bit. I then hot glued the end of the straw to the newly made ring.

I made probably about 600 of these rings. I watched a lot of Grey's Anatomy while doing this. You can watch whatever show you like while making these. It should not be something that requires you actually pay attention, though.

I chose a decent sized trashcan as a form to place the rings around. I hot glued the rings together starting at the base of the trashcan.

I went around and around the trashcan gluing the rings together. More Grey's Anatomy was watched.

For the bottom of the basket, I hot glued many, many more flat straws in a spiral until it was the correct size. I removed the trashcan from the center of the rings and glued the rings to the spiral. I painted Mod Podge on the inside of the basket to help hold it together.

Here is a rather shadowy picture of the finished basket!

Here is a more colorful picture of the inside of the basket.

So far, it has held together pretty well. I haven't picked it up and swung it around, and I try to carry it by the base. It fits all of the flower petals, and it is quite pleasing to the eye. I'm already thinking of the next one I'll make!

Mail Needs a Resting Place, Too

A mail graveyard on our living room floor has been gathering dust and claiming the lives of other pieces of mail for the past couple of weeks. I've been wanting to make something to organize our mail overflow issues, and I attempted the project last weekend. I wanted to use materials I already had on hand in order to save some scratch and use up some fabric remnants. I took a bunch of pictures of the project to show how the project evolved from start to finish. Enjoy!

Ack! It's a horrible mail graveyard!

To begin, I flattened a box and cut it in half.

I used the structure of the cardboard to guide the design of the organizer.

At first, I tried to cut the cardboard with scissors. I ended up switching to a razor blade, which offered me much more control and precision when making cuts.

I kept my measurements very simple, using the width of the ruler to measure where I needed to fold and/or cut.

This is a view of the early organizer from the bottom up.

And now we're looking top down...

To put the mail slots together, I decided to go with masking tape. I basically folded the pieces together and then used the tape to bind them.

Mail slots one and two!

I decided to change up the top of the organizer and create a place for magazines.

That top space is all ready for magazines!

I then ironed fabric scraps I've had laying around and cut them to fit the areas I wanted them to cover.

I used my go-to glue Mod Podge to adhere the fabric to the cardboard. I wasn't quite sure how well the Mod Podge would work with the fabric and cardboard, but it ended up being a good choice. The fabric bonded smoothly to the cardboard with no issues.

I used two different types of fabric to break things up a bit.

At the back top of the organizer, I attached, using hot glue, a fabric hanger. I then glued a piece of newsprint to the back of the organizer to help smooth it out.

To finish things up, I printed out labels on my computer, laminated them, and used fabric glue to adhere them to the organizer. And voila! We now have homes for magazines, Erik's mail, and my mail.