Do It Yourself: ARTSY Jewelry Displays

For awhile now I have been saying to my Hubs, "Wouldn't it be great if I could figure a way to create a clothes-pin line kind of effect to hang some of my necklaces on?" We wracked and wracked our brain as to how to exactly do this - do we create some kind of upstanding beam that can hold the two ends of a wire? Do I nail holes in the wall? Do I gut a large frame? Do I hang them from a few table lamps? Hubs and I walked around Lowe's aimlessly a few weekends ago with a pad of paper and my sketching pen at hand - though had no idea how to even begin this crazy project. Finally we left Lowe's disappointed that nothing had sparked our creativity and that we would have to find another way to display the dozens of necklaces I had already mounted on business cards for the party. Next, while walking around Michael's, I found the cutest little clothes pins that would have been perfect for the project. Having already given up on it, we walked through the painting section of the store and had a revelation: use the back of a large canvas! I already had a simple wooden easel that I bought from IKEA years ago at home and that has been aching to be used... so it seemed perfect! Here's how we created our latest jewelry holding device!...

So we started with my trusty (and inexpensive!) IKEA easel, a 2x2' piece of plywood ($10), and a package of 2 2x3' plain white mounted canvases ($8 at Michael's)... you might recognize the dowels from last week's T-stand project where we put Oriental Trading Company to shame.

We then mounted the canvases against the piece of plywood so they don't fall over (especially once stocked with products!). We nailed it from the back so as to best preserve the canvas itself in case I ever want to paint on it (which, one day, will happen!).

We measured the height of each business card (3") and figured they each needed at least an inch of wiggle room for the mini-clothes pin. I then took some cheap floral wire I've had sitting around for decades and wrapped it around the nails to create my "clothes line."

We must have wrapped the wire around each nail a dozen times or so!

I had been packaging many of my Fall Line and silver dainty necklaces on vertical business cards and included the materials used and price on the back of each card. Then I started adding them to the canvas... And them added some more!

And before you knew it - we had another jewelry display on our hands!

I am really happy with the result, especially since it cost it less than $20 and can be used again in a different capacity. And best of all, it is light, east to store, and holds 48 necklaces! Whadaya think?