DIY Necklace Organizer

Home made birthday presents are quickly becoming my favorite thing.

At Christmas, when I mentioned to John that I'd like to take up a musical instrument, he designed and built the world's greatest music stand:

So awesome.












So for Birthday Week, John devoted a day to helping me build a jewelry organizer. The idea came from here, which is another one of my favorite place on the Internet. (Also just found out that she's related to Jordan of Oh Happy Day. Aesthetic perfection in the genes. Must be nice.) But I didn't have a cool vintage frame like she did, and since it's currently -20 degrees in the District of Columbia, chances of me finding a fabulous yard sale any time soon are not good. So we had to build our own.

We started with raw moulding board from a home improvement store:

John took it to a wood shop to cut it, but I think you could do the same thing at home with a hand saw and some careful measuring to make sure all the inside and outside lengths matched up.

Then we stapled it together on the back to make a frame:

(Sorry about the bad lighting. I got lazy and took all these pictures with an iPhone.)

Then we stained it blue with some easy rub-on wood stain. Then took a piece of pegboard and covered it with printed paper:

Then stuck some Anthro knobs through the paper:

And then cut said Anthro knobs short with a pair of bolt cutters.

We stapled it together and that was it!

(Note: The necklace on the far left was made for my wedding by the ever-fabulous Sola Biu: her site and blog. Everything she makes is beautiful and 15 percent goes to Invisible Children.)

So I know that doesn't have anything to do with dinner parties, but I thought a DIY project would be good at a time when so many people are snowed in. New dinner decorations coming soon.