Impromptu DIY Project

I'm off work for the move. Don't go back until next Wednesday, and couldn't be more thrilled. While my time would be most productively spent packing up my house, I still wanted to get some last minute visiting in with the friends that I'm moving far away from. 

MFN (My Friend Natalie) and I decided to meet up for lunch at Red Robin today, and as always, had a FABULOUS time. After we had finished eating and were just sitting around talking, I somehow mentioned that I've been wanting to make a chicken wire earring holder. My earring situation was a HOT MESS up until today, so it was definitely something that needed to be done. I'd seen some on Pinterest that I really liked:

Source: Pinterest

And showed it to Natalie. She really liked the idea, so I half jokingly said, "Let's do it today!", and to my surprise, she agreed. Off we went to find the supplies. 

Neither Lowe's or Home Depot had small chicken wire, so we opted for "wire cloth" instead. And we found our frames at a local Meijer. (Which is a grocery store/supermarket chain here in the midwest if you didn't know.) If you do this project make sure to buy a wood frame. Natalie bought a cute plastic one and we realized later that there was no stapling into that. Luckily, she had a couple extra frames sitting around her basement, so she ended up using one of them. 

DIY Framed Wire Earring Holder

Supplies:

Frame (I bought an 8.5 x 11 frame and it is currently holding about 20 pairs of earrings with a tiny bit of room to grow.

Chicken Wire or Wire Cloth - you can find this at Lowe's, Home Depot, or any home improvement store.

Wire cutters

Staple gun (In our case, the staple gun wasn't working so we ended up using the heavy duty staples and a hammer. Worked like a charm.)

Take the back off the frame and take out the glass and mat. Then cut out a piece of wire cloth bigger than the frame itself. We decided to put the wire cloth in at a 45 degree angle to give it a little style. I highly recommend this. 

Stuff the chicken wire into the frame. Gloves are highly recommended for this part. We didn't have gloves and now we have scars. Womp womp. Cut out "V" shapes from each corner. This will help you get the wire into them. 

Use a staple gun to staple the wire to the inside of the frame. As I said before, our staple gun wasn't working, so we ended up hammering the staples in place. It worked pretty well. Oh, and we used pliers to hold the staples in place while hammering. 

Once you've got the wire secure, trim off the excess and voila! You've got a super easy, super quick, super cute earring holder! 

Here's mine after I got all my dangly earrings in it.

Too cute, right? My frame was $13 and the wire cloth was $11, but we have enough wire cloth left over to make at least four or five more of these. Love it!