We were at my in-laws' house a few weeks ago and my SIL Laura (Aunt Lolo to some, who moved home from CA a few weeks ago, YAY!) showed me this amazing jewelry display/organizer she had made and hung on her bedroom wall. She had taken an old window with a screen, painted it, and stretched pretty fabric across the back. She hung her earrings in the screen holes and attached a small cork trivet for a place to display stud earrings. Brilliant! The whole thing was gorgeous and I vowed to recreate one myself.
I was delighted to find the old shutter at the
junk shop my mom, cousin, and I visited a few weeks ago. I knew it was perfect for my future jewelry organizer. I had been looking for something (be it a window or shutter) long and narrow to hang above my dresser in our bedroom.
I started out with the intact shutter in my driveway. Poor thing, do you think it knows it's about to be attacked by a crazy lady with her husband's multi-tool thingy with the saw(ish) attachment?!
Forgive the blur! That thing was wild!
Don't worry, I saved the wooden slats... you never know!
I decided on painting the wood with a leftover dark grey from Mac's room adventures. I started with full-strength paint, using a brush. The result was definitely too heavy for the look I was aiming for, I wanted more of a "wash" so the chippy paint would show through.
I mixed together about 1 part water to about 2 parts paint...
and used an old rag to basically wipe the paint/water mixture all over the wood. So fast and easy!
The paint/water mixture absorbed into the wood quickly and I was left with a "stained" grey look... perfect!
Then as the paint dried I took no less than 1000 pictures of my kids. I still have daily moments of "I-can't-believe-they-are-mine-and-I-get-to-be-their-mom"... breathtaking.
Brother was so engrossed with Sissy blowing bubbles that I couldn't get him to look at me, let alone smile! Even Aunt Leah (who is visiting for almost a week... we are so spoiled by all these Kirnan visitors!) couldn't get Boo to look!
After I let the paint dry and I whisked the kids upstairs for naptime, I got down to business, and took zero pictures of the next few steps. I had purchased a roll of screen at Lowe's and cut it down to fit in the empty spaces on the shutter. I then got out the staple gun and attempted to attach the screen to the wood. My first attempt at doing so was a perfect example of trial and error, error being the key word. I tend to be so rash in doing projects, mostly because A. I usually don't have a lot of time and B. I am not patient. I know patience is a virtue but I usually save up any patience I can muster for things like parenting and general human interactions, so I don't have a lot left for silly projects. ANYWAY. It's kind of hard to explain, but I had originally wanted to staple the screen to the inside of the front of the shutter (gah, that makes no sense) but I stapled way too close to the edge and stapled through the front of the shutter in a few places. So I ended up ripping all the staples out (and repainting a bit) and just stretching it across the back and stapling it to the back. Wow, this really doesn't make sense. Pictures next time. Anyway, it ended up looking like this with the screen attached to the back:
I had tons of fabric left over from
Alyssa's baby shower that was just BEGGING to live in our bedroom (where I've used a lot of yellow and grey).
The winners.
I stretched the yellow fabric across the back where I had attached the screen and stapled it on. Then I cut out a couple pieces of cork, stacked them, and covered them with the medallion fabric. I nailed the cork circle on and covered the nail heads with a few pretty flower cabochons.
Somebody approves. He also almost ripped the cork circle off in about two seconds flat.
Pretties!
Voila.
{I apologize for the poor lighting, I tried to get as much daylight in the room as possible but living surrounded by trees hinders my lighting situation a bit. Plus I am so not edit-savvy!}
A girl can never have too much pretty jewelry storage (or jewelry)!
I am so happy with how it turned out. It's exactly what I had envisioned.
