New Craft--Turn an old Office Tray into a Jewelry Hanger!

Hey all! I'm finally back!

It's been a crazy few weeks around the Baird household. Mom, Katie, and myself had the chance to perform at the Stadium of Fire in Provo, Utah! It was lots of fun. Kelly Clarkson is fantastic!

Anyways, here's the craft that I've FINALLY finished! I've been working on it in bits and pieces for weeks, and I just hadn't found the time to sit down and finish it up! Today, I'm going to show you how to make a Jewelry Holder from an old office tray! Stay tuned after the break to see how it's done!

Last month, my sister and I made a trip to the DI. It was really weird. We got there just before they opened at 10 AM and there was a crowd of people waiting to get into the building. At exactly 10, they opened the doors and people made a mad dash into the store. I seriously saw people PUSHING PAST EACH OTHER to get at other people's old crap. Am I the only one who thinks that's just weird?

It cost me a whole 75 cents!

Anyways, Katie and I headed over to the picture frame area to see if there was anything worth buying. I found this tray among the piles of junk and thought it had a similar shape to a jewelry hanger I had seen at Hobby Lobby. But why buy something premade when you can make it yourself, right?!

I took this baby home and immediately spray painted it. Here's where things got a little messy. The spray paint didn't want to stick to the wood. I didn't consider that the finish on the tray would inhibit my need to craft. So I thought to myself, "No big deal! I'll just use the crappy spray paint job as a primer and then brush on some off white acrylic paint." WARNING! THIS DOES NOT WORK.

When I painted on the antique white, it looked super streaky and awful. I thought I would try to just put another coat of paint over it and see if it helped. IT DIDN'T. As I was painting on the second layer, the first layer of antique white was wiping off. IT WAS UNBELIEVABLY IRRITATING.

BOO STUPID PAINT

SO, I did the only thing I could do. I took a sanding block to the tray and took as much of the finish off as possible. After this step I was so aggravated with myself that I didn't touch the stupid thing for a week.

After two swipes with my sanding block, the paint came right off. The finish, however, took FOREVER to take off.

  After repainting the tray, it still didn't look great. But I resigned myself to do what I could and I guess I'll just have to get used to the weird "white-washed" effect. Most of it is going to be covered up anyways, so I wasn't too worried about it.








Next, I went to hobby lobby and bought a fabric remnant of this great chevron print duckcloth. It cost me just under 4 dollars.

Testing out to see if it works...and it does!

 I wanted to make the smallest section of the tray into a ring holder, so after looking up some ideas on Pinterest, I found this idea to roll up some felt and sardine them into the space after covering them with my fabric. A lady in my neighborhood gave us some leftover felt she didn't want, and I put some of it to use here. Luckily, duckcloth is kind of thick, so you couldn't really see the red under the fabric.

All finished! Now on to the next step!

 I did some rough measurements of the slots in the tray and then cut up a 12x12 sheet of scrapbook paper.

The longest slot was longer than 12", but I just centered the paper in the slot and thought it looked fine. Here's what it looked like at this point. I really love the colors!














At this point there's only two steps left. I found some small hooks at Hobby Lobby for $1.99 for 12. I thought that was a bit pricey for 12, but the wood is so thin, I couldn't find smaller hooks at Home Depot or Walmart. So I put on my big girl pants and got over it.










Almost done! I want to hang this on my wall in my room, so I added a back hanger thing.

DONE!

And there you have it! It got a little frustrating in the middle, but the ending result is pretty cute! The tray actually ended up being a little too short for almost all my necklaces, so I'm not sure if I will actually hang it up in my room. I guess we'll have to see! I hope you enjoyed reading!

Have a Beautiful Day!!