I have a LOT of necklaces. Big ones, dainty ones, and all hard to store ones. I’ve been pinning them on the large cork board behind my desk for years, but it just wasn’t cutting it anymore. Cue a left over Hobby Lobby gift card and some extra time on my hands, and poof! A new
You’ll Need
- Cork Board (I bought an 11×17 framed one)
- 1/4 yard of Fabric
- Stapler
- Paint (to match fabric)
- Pins
1. Lay your fabric over your cork board. You’ll want enough to cover the board and wrap around the frame.
2. Pin the corners of your board down. Use your finger nail to create the crease inside the frame.
3. Staple the inside of the frame. I did four along the short side, five along the long.
4. Flip your cork board over, and staple the additional fabric tightly.
5. Place pins into the back side of a paper plate & paint to match your fabric!
SO EASY. I actually painted my frame first, but decided to cover it with the fabric instead! Overall, the project cost about $15.
If any of you have ever lived in a sorority house, apartment or dorm room, you understand what a pain it is to fit all of your stuff. I will never figure out how on earth Kait & I managed in that puny little room at A-Phi our sophomore year, but somehow we did. Yes, you’ll always find a way to fit everything, however, that doesn’t mean you’ll like it. This is where my closet comes in.
I failed to take a before photo, but just assume it was bad. I was presented with the task of removing my over the door shoe rack due to inconvenience and annoyance. OK, but where the hell was I going to go with all those shoes?
So, first things first, I cleaned out my closet. I went through and took out ALL of my tees, tanks, dresses and jeans. The ones I wasn’t wearing or didn’t fit went in one pile (I wound up with a huge pile of hangers), and the ones I wanted were color coded and placed back in the closet. The back row of clothes you see was originally just my winter items, so I went ahead and added my tees and tanks, and color coded the lot [tanks, tees, long sleeves/sweaters - white, roygbiv, gray, black].
This left me with the opening you see on the left. When we moved in, I shoved the bottom row up so that I could hang things. This worked out to my advantage, because it left me with two rows to play with. I put my higher heels at the top (it just worked better) and the lower ones at the bottom. On the shelf are my boots, and my flats are on my three-drawer shelves (not pictured). Lucky for me, I also have a bin in my entry way with the rest of my shoes, and I keep my winter-esq boots (note, Uggs) in the coat closet. I plan on buying this little gem from Ikea after Christmas to replace my plastic bin. Then, I strung my scarves through the additional slots on top and bottom.
Here’s a better shot of that corner:
Note, the side of the wall on the left has little cork boards with my necklaces pinned. Seriously, you can pick up four for like $5 at Hobby Lobby, and it’s genius.
This may not work for everyone, but it is proof that you can get organized within a small space.
Not to make excuses, but some of my recent blog disappearance can be accounted to my Christmas decorating. This is my first Christmas in my own place, so clearly I had to take after my mother and make everything look fabulous.
Starting with the tree…
With a new puppy (he had to make a cameo), I couldn’t do as much as I wanted with the tree. He has already destroyed my first tree skirt, so currently we’re stuck with a blanket around it. He also seems to think the ornaments are toys, so there is a good foot worth of space at the bottom of the tree. However, I stuck with green and red (Target bundle – greatest thing ever!) shatterproof balls. The red glittery ones are my favorite!
Now we can get into the actual craft part, starting with my front door:
I originally made a wreath(which will make an appearance in a bit!), however I wasn’t completely sold on it. So, after seeing this on pinterest a time or two, I decided to try it myself!
Materials:
Frame (Hobby Lobby sells just the frame, but I don’t see why you can’t just take the back off a regular frame! I used a 9 X 12)
Ribbon (Surprise, I actually only used two. My big bow was able to be split into strips! Again, Hobby Lobby, 50 percent off)
Ornaments (I just used my extra ones, but you can pick them up from the dollar store!)
Pipe Cleaners (Dollar Store, used this with the bow)
Wreath Hanger (3M Hooks work too!)
How To: (SO simple!)
Tie your ornaments with the ribbon, alternating heights. I also alternated colors (red with green, etc).
Create your bow. I wish I could step by step this, but as you can ask my boyfriend, this didn’t go as smoothly as I would have hoped. But, you’ll probably have better luck learning from this video.
Attach the ornament ribbons to the bow. I used a pipe cleaner to tie all my ribbons together due to cutting them too short, but if you are smart and measure things out, you should be able to tie them together. Then, just loop them around the back part of the of ribbon. You may have to play with this a bit.
Attach the bow & ornaments to the frame. This is easiest when you have the frame on the door already, as the bow and ornaments can get in the way of the hook, leaving your frame off balance. I actually tied the bow to the wreath hanger. This way, the bow and ornaments will always be centered on your frame.
I plan on changing out this for new years (party hats and noise makers), valentines (hearts), st. patrick’s (shamrocks)…etc! Super versatile which is SO important with a small space!
OK – last thing. My wall decor (also, via Pinterest)
Materials:
Wooden letters (shocker – Hobby Lobby, $1.99)
Paint (I already had red from another craft, but you could be more creative!)
Wreath (Target had the greenery for just $4)
Ornaments (Again, laying around, or the Dollar Store)
Pipe Cleaners
3M Hook & Strips
How To:
Paint your letters. I prefer spray paint, but you can hand paint them and add some things!
Create your wreath. Add ornaments by stringing pipe cleaners through the ornament top and tighten them onto the wreath. The bow I used was from the dollar store, but you can create one using the tutorial above.
Hang! I started with the wreath in the middle using a 3M hook, then arranged my letters accordingly. I used three photo strips per letter.
Who else is addicted to Pinterest? This online pin board can be used to plan a wedding, redesign your house, craft or cook nearly anything and so much more. Launched in March of 2010, this community has grown by insane proportions, yet does not feature advertising on their page. How is this possible you might ask? Let me divulge deeper into the world of pinning.
As their mission states, Pinterest works to link people all around the world to a common thread, whether that be a book, a recipe, a wedding bouquet or anything else. In the marketing world, this can be called word of mouth. By pinning something, you are able to share that item with your followers (who can be found via Facebook, Twitter, email and more). Below you can see an example of my boards.
Within these boards contains your “pins,” the images of things that you find interesting. (Get it? pINTEREST?) As you can see below, it shows who I repinned it from (via Anilu Magloire), as well as the original website the image was found on (in this case, esty.com).
Here is where the WOM begins – clicking on that top right link (etsy.com) will take you to the page in which you can buy this product. In the case of a recipe or craft, it will take you to the page where you can find the how-to. There are times when it takes you to a “useless” link, i.e. a flickr image or “uploaded by user” type thing, however, this sneaky link sharing brings in viewers (and revenue) to the blogs, web pages and stores that the item was originally “pinned” from. (You can drag a “Pin It” link to your bookmark tab so that you can “pin” anything you find online, outside of Facebook). Those with blogs are able to download a “find me on pinterest” badge for their website.
Advertising has not hit Pinterest just yet due to successful funding and investors, however, their guerrilla marketing has brought them into the social sphere. They have been recognized by Time, Mashable, The Wall Street Journal, and bloggers throughout the online community (learn more about why you should joinfrom Lisa Derus). Don’t believe it’s power? My friend Chelsea Williams posted this craft on her blog, and in turn had 177 new, unique viewers to her page. Accept it or not – Pinterest is here to stay. Use it to your advantage while you can – after all, who doesn’t love to gawk at cute puppies, gorgeous wedding dresses and delicious food?
Can someone explain to me how today was my first interaction with Pinterest? This genius of a website allows you to “pin” ideas, photos, recipes and more to categorized “boards” for future reference. From a craft perspective, this is perfect. From a productivity standpoint, it’s about as destructive as Hiroshima.
To get started, you need to request an invite, however mine came within 20 minutes. Then the fun begins . Pinterest will import followers from Twitter or Facebook to get you started. After asking for your interests, they will choose people you should “follow.” Then comes a webpage full of everything that could ever possibly interest you. Food, babies, wedding ideas, crafts – you name it. You can also “pin” things from the web.
Seriously – this is probably the best website since Facebook (and with the redesigns, probably better.) I’ve got about 20 recipes lined up to try, a billion crafts to make, ideas for my future wedding and home all in one place. I can’t think of a single girl who would not benefit from Pinterest.
This isn’t paid – I’m seriously just obsessed. And mind you, that’s after 3 hours of play time on the website. Hell, writing this post is my first Pinterest break and I’m dying to get back on.
I don’t care what you think – try it out. And if you get nothing done for the next 24 hours? Sorry I’m Not Sorry.
