DIY earring holder and art

Welcome to my blog!  As many of you know I LOVE to make things and I'm always coming up with new ideas for myself, my apartment, and my friends.  For my inaugural post, I thought I'd write about one of my favorite things, jewelry!

I have a ridiculous amout of dangly earrings (my mom makes me tons of them) and I unfortunately don't have a jewelry box large enough to store all of them.  Yesterday, I got inspired to make my own earring holder out of items that I already had around. Bonus, this also doubles as cute artwork for your bedroom or bathroom.

Items needed:

1 stretched canvas ( I used 10"x10")
   -these can be found at any craft store, I buy them when they're on sale to keep on hand
Acrylic paints
  -I buy the small bottles from the paint section of the craft store, they're very affordable and come in great   colors!
Paintbrushes
Plastic paint palette
  -Coffee can lids work great!
Needle
Ruler
Picture hanger kit
Hammer

Step 1:  Decide what design you'd like on your canvas.  As I'm not an accomplished artist, I find that abstract shapes and patterns work best.  If you're stuck for ideas, peruse your favorite websites for inspiration on colors and patterns. 

Step 2:  Mix your paints on the palette.  You can use the paints straight out of the bottle; however, I prefer to mix my own colors.  The best way to not waste paint is to go slow! Squeeze a large glob of white paint in the center of the palette (about the size of a quarter.)  Squeeze a pea sized drop of color around the edge of the palette, not touching the white.  Dip the corner of your paintbrush in the color and slowly mix it into the white paint.  The colors are highly pigmented so it won't take long for you to get your perfect color.

Step 3:  Paint! If you're like me, I'm antsy to just start painting, so, go to town!  Some people prefer to sketch their design with pencil first, which helps!  For my piece, I didn't want any white background to show so I applied a thin coat of pale gray to the entire canvas first.  (It's important to let the canvas dry inbetween your layers of paint or else you'll end up with a muddy mess.  Acrylic paint dries quickly so you only need to wait about 10min. inbetween each layer.)

My artwork

Step 4:  Now it's time to turn this into an earring holder.  Turn the canvas over and measure how wide the edge of the frame is.  This will give you a gauge of where to start your first hole.  Using a ruler to keep a straigh line, make your first hole just inside, and below, the edge of the frame.  I made holes 1/2" apart all the way across and ended up having 14 holes, enough for 7 pairs of earrings.  I measured down 1 1/2" and continued the same pattern until I got to the bottom, just above the frame (if you're earrings are longer, make the holes further apart.)  When you push your needle through the canvas, wiggle it a bit to ensure the hole will be large enough for an earring to hook through.

A ruler helps keep things in line

Step 5:  Attach the picture hanger to the back of the canvas on the wooden frame.  Alternatively, if you don't have a picture hanger, you could nail a flat thumbtack into each side of the wooden frame and string some thread or yarn tightly inbetween.  Since this is a light object, that would keep it hung well.

Step 6:  Tada!  You're finished!  Hang this up where you keep your jewelry and hook your earrings through.  If you have trouble pushing the earrings through the holes, put your needle back thoruhg and wiggle it around to enlarge the hole. 

Fun and functional!