Wrangling in the Shades

I dislike, very much, when I can't find something. I'm generally very organized but sometimes my processes need some fine-tuning. I, after momentarily misplacing my sunglasses a few times, decided my sunglass placement/storage needed a face-lift. As per my usual, I pulled together some things I had on hand to create something to store my sunglasses.

Materials Needed:

• Balsa wood
• Sand paper
• Superglue
• Foam sheet (like this, I used white)
• Picture hooks (mine are from the FIXA Ikea set)
• Foam brush (for staining the balsa wood)
• 3M Command Strips

Begin by staining your balsa wood. I stained the front and the sides. The back will only see the wall, so it's not necessary to stain that side. After staining the wood, while it was drying, I cut out little foam pieces to glue to the picture hooks. The foam "grabs" the sunglasses and helps them to stay in the picture hooks better. Below is a close-up of the hooks so you can see how and where I attached the foam. I used superglue to attach the foam to the hooks.

After the foam dried, I lightly sanded the back of the hooks, so the glue would hold better when I glued them to the balsa wood. I checked out the general size of my sunglasses and determined I would need 3.5 inches of space in between the hooks on the wood. I measured and marked (in the center of the front of the wood) every 3.5 inches on the front of the balsa wood. The wood was 4 inches wide, so my center line was 2 inches in from either side. I used a regular pencil to mark the wood. To glue the hooks to the wood I put a dab of superglue on the back of each hook and glued the hooks to the pencil marked spot, covering up the pencil marks neatly in the process!

After waiting an hour or so for the glue to set, I used the 3M Command strips, hung my wood strip up, and loaded it with sunglasses. See the finished product above. Funnily enough, the colored sunglass frames pull out some of the colors in the art we have hanging on the wall in our hallway. 

Shine bright everyone, I'll be here with my shades on. 

Baubles, Organized

I've been looking for some way to organize my jewelry for awhile now. I knew if I organized it better I would wear different pieces more rather than wearing the same things every day, which is my default. Inspiration struck one day. I had a random, leftover piece of wood from an Ikea dresser I bought years ago (so old it doesn't look like they sell it anymore) and gold nails from a picture hanging kit (FIXA, also from Ikea). The wood piece has a white veneer on the front and back but the sides were unfinished so I knew I had to cover those up.

Enter my go-to: yarn. I have this mustard yellow yarn (the company calls the color gold but it's mustard yellow), Red Heart Super Saver Yarn. I figured it would be a good contrast to the white wood piece, would set the white wood apart from the white wall it would hang on, and I really like the mustard yellow color!

Materials Needed:

• Twine (used to hang the wood)
• Yarn
• Glue gun and glue sticks
• Nails
• Piece of wood

Here is a picture showing the sides of the wood that I needed to cover up:

First I measured across the wood and divided it up so I could place five nails evenly across the wood (this required dividing up the wood into six segments). I ended up staggering the nails on the wood front so my bracelets wouldn't overlap each other when hung up. Two important points regarding the nails: I picked nails with a large head and angled them down a bit so my jewelry would not slip off. Next I glued the yarn around the sides using the glue gun and finished the piece by nailing two smaller nails in the top of the wood. I then tied a piece of twine around those two nails so I could it to hang the whole thing up.

Here's the finished product, adorned:

And here's a bit of a close up of the side so you can see the angle of the nails better:

I've had this for about a year now and it works great! This is another project you could vary the style of greatly. Use a piece of antiqued wood for a more vintage feel. Paint the wood a color that fits in with your room decor. Use a different color yarn or twine. The options are endless!