How I DIY-ed This Earring Holder Using Mesh and a Wood Picture Frame!
OK I’m back with another one…this time with an earring holder!!
But unlike the one I made here for little post earrings, this one is for my dangly collection.
Just my way of referring to earrings made with French hooks (do they still call them that?) And it’s made with upcycled materials too!
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Do you want to try this too? Great – get that cute earring collection under control now, and have fun at the same time !
Darice Galvanized Metal Chicken Wire Perfect for Craft Projects – Lightweight Mesh, Can be Spray Painted
Materials List
First thing you’ll need is a picture frame, second thing is some wire (more about that in a minute), and some paint to stain and decorate the frame, if you have a natural unfinished wooden one with no color. Also: a pair of pliers.
The picture frame doesn’t have to be very big – mine isn’t – previously, it was being used to hang a 9 x 12 painting I did once, so something like that or 11 x 14 will work fine.
It does, however, need to be a little bit deeper…when you go to hang it on the wall, or your door, you want there to be enough room between your earring collection and the place that will be parallel to them when you want to retrieve a pair later.
Mine is probably about an inch thick and if you look carefully you can see the notches in the middle – look for something like that if you can, as it will help serve as a guide for the grid that will be affixed there.
(You’ll understand that better in a minute when I explain it in this post further 😁 )
The wire part…. I have seen some people use chicken wire (that stuff that has the hexagon shapes in a row) for this; I can’t vouch for how well it works since I have never used chicken wire for any art projects yet, but it did look to be a good fit, so if you can get your hands on some, good on you.
Me, I am using some of that animal cage mesh wire used by people who want to DIY cages and such…yep, it is some of that wire I had left over when I was working on this project. While the quality is good, I have to be honest, I don’t enjoy working with it.
You have to have some wire cutters and good strong pliers nearby to get it to do what you need, and most of the time I wore gloves cause I kept getting scratched 😳
( * Sigh * Just blame it on my desire to not throw anything away at any cost IF working with it is doable and the quality is too good not to!! )
But if I were you, I would just get some chicken wire
Let’s Do This
Paint your frame….whatever color strikes your fancy. Now this one was already prepainted by me years ago in this bronzy color, but I wanted to add a little something “extra” to it, so I used a little sponge dabbling in some pretty metallic FolkArt colors
>>>These are great paints for wood, by the way, if you’re looking…beautiful colors and good coverage for wood
Yep, just an ordinary household cleaning sponge, brand new and cut in multiple pieces to use for art stuff. I wanted to stencil the sides but it didn’t look like there was enough room for the ones I had in mind.
To trim the piece of wire to fit the frame, you may need to place the wire piece on top of the frame to gauge the opening size needed to cut. I know it’s difficult to write on it with a marker so best thing to do is take some wire pliers and cut as closely as you can to the edge of the frame opening to mark the correct place.
Then make another cut at the other three places. Use these cuts as a guide to trim the rest of the piece to fit.You want to also allow for a slight margin of error of about a fourth of an inch to be on the safe side.
After trimming it down to a good fit for the frame, I sanded off the sharp edges of the wire mesh piece, and then spray painted it silver to make it look nicer.
OK, here it comes, the real tricky part…..I have to be honest, I almost gave up (but didn’t thankfully 😩) fitting the wire piece into the frame and lining it up, and then securing it so it stays in place without being crooked.
If you chose a frame with the middle notches, use them to guide the edges of the wire piece into place…The reason this is tricky, is because even though the wire might segue into the corner well, there’s a chance it might buckle in the middle while you try to fit the opposite side corner into the top notches (at least that is what i experienced).
If you cut the piece a good size it might behave better; it will still take some maneuvering though. I ended up having to take my pliers and bend the top and bottom sides down a little to get a better fit. Trouble is I didn’t like the way
the sides looked…but I did come up with a clever hack…
I got some of my other craft aluminum wire and embellished the sides with it and later, the other two sides, to create an even look….I know, I am a total perfectionist! 😏
When the wire piece is maneuvered in place, apply some glue (these two brands work great) in the corner area to secure it. It will probably need to set up and cure for at least a day before you can hang it up. When it does, attach a wire hanger to the back.
Behold, my dangly earring collection….
This worked out better than I thought; as I probably had about 10-12 pairs of these kinds of earrings in my collection that i came across. (I believe the rest of them that are dangly, are my leverbacks, which I like wearing more since they are the most comfy, but I’m happy to start accessorizing again with these!
Psst….Hey crafters, interested in more jewelry organizer DIYs?
Check out my necklace holder tutorial here
And my hand model holder for fashion rings…Enjoy!
Have fun , and let me know how it goes for you!
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