Necklace organizer

Easter came around to my house with, well, a certain amount of stress.  See, my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law fight over which one gets Thanksgiving and/or Christmas.  That is, they both want to hold the family time at their own home.  I am more than happy to let them duke it out and tell me what I need to do and bring.  But that means that I get Easter.  And this, too, works out fine for me, since I generally am in my slow time at work and have vacation, etc.

The problem comes in because my husband goes CRAZY.  Mostly, I just hide at work and let him get on with the fanatic spring cleaning and fixing and whatever else he feels is necessary, but there's only so much of that that I can get away with.  Hard to have sympathy for a woman that has a husband that will spring clean, isn't it?  Yeah, yeah, yeah. . .

And, the annual DISCUSSION came up again.  Let me see if I can't get a picture for you:

See, I have a designated place for my woman stuff.  Which I rarely use, sigh.  But I don't want to get rid of my precious stuff, see?  Now, I took this picture today, which means this is BETTER than it was for Easter.

Anyway, the DISCUSSION.  Early in the week preceding Easter, we have a discussion on my area.  But since we have this discussion every year, I decided this year that we would survive Easter and really FIX it. 

Obviously, we DID survive Easter with a little judicious flinging of blankets.  But, true to my word, I also started investigating a solution.

And the problem lies in the fact that there are so many elements.  So I decided to tackle one of the messiest (and most dangerous to my stuff) -- the necklaces.

PInterest to the rescue!  I typed in "necklace storage" and got a LOT of hits.  The problem with most of them is that they took up so much space with very little value and even less sustainability.  You could get something artistic, but once you started using your necklaces, are you really going to replace them just so?  But one hit was perfect -- an artists case, stripped of supplies, with screws and stuff, pretty paper backing the insides, and something decorative on the outside, and HUNG ON THE WALL.  And so I hit the craft stores (we have 3 big-box types within a mile of my work).  But, unless I wanted to pay a LOT of money for an artists' case, I seemed to be out of luck.

So, first lesson -- be prepared to improvise.  I had an idea that maybe I would use a basket instead, maybe, maybe?  But the aisle before the basket (in Michael's), was a faux-book box aisle.  Pretty boxes that look like books, in all kinds of sizes.  My bathroom is supposed to be nautical themed, and I felt lucky to find that the books were in a travel theme.  Good enough for me.

I picked up 3 boxes (and should've waited and gone back 3 times with 40% off coupons, but didn't, bah) with the intent to have a necklace box (big to let the necklaces hang down), a bracelet box (medium size because I'm a bracelet girl), and little to handle the rings.

I grabbed some scrap bits of wood from the husband's stash, had the neighbor (or work friend or father (in-law) cut them to fit inside the book, and screwed one into the top cover.  I used gold #4 @ 3/4" screws, but the heads literally broke off -- I would suggest #6 instead.  And the length of the screw is dependent on the depth of the box and the scrap of wood.  I'm afraid that the whole process is so much easier with a hand drill, preferably with special bits and screwdriver heads and all that kind of stuff.  But you'll notice that we still did some of it manually.  But pilot holes (drilling a slightly smaller hole before placing a screw) is mandatory.  Also, be careful where you place the piece of wood -- you need to be able to close the cover!  Here we did two to hold the cover-side holder in place:

Now, mark  how far apart you want the hooks to be.  I think I used one inch, but left 1/2" on the side margins.  Do this with the inside bit and the one already affixed to the cover.

Drill pilot holes for the hooks -- try to NOT drill all the way through to the cover of the one already attached -- the drill is a powerful creature and knows not it's strength (and will rip up the pretty cover, given half a chance).

As you can see, we used other scrappy bits to provide stability when doing the cover.

Add your hooks.  Again, I picked gold, but whatever you want. . .  And, this is the finger-breaking task.  We DID do these with our fingers (though towards the end, I figured out how to use a shorter shanked screwdriver to leverage on the turns), but there is actually a special bit that you can buy.  Again, though, the drill is a mighty monster and will push through the paper.

Now, the next step was a MISTAKE FOR ME.  It all depends on the scrappy wood bits, and the hooks and the depth of the books.  But it may work for your project.  The problem is that the hooks wouldn't let cover close.  See below.

So we twisted it so the inside hooks hang down.   Put in some pilot holes to attach it to a wall.

Start the screws so you have less work on the vertical.

Place on the wall where you want it to go and start screwing through the wall.

If it's a thin cupboard wall, you will want to secure it on the other side with another scrappy piece of wood.

 This is what it looks like from the side.

And this is what the final project looks like, open and closed: