It's that time of year again - the homemade Christmas present review. Except it might be rather short this year. You've already seen the monkeys, which were 6 of my gifts! After this, I only have a couple more to show you.
Every time that my Mom sees one of those jewelry organizer boards made with drawer knobs and pulls, she gets all excited. So I thought I'd make one for her. I've been planning on it for a while, but I finally got to it for Christmas. I kind of jumped headfirst into this project without a lot of help other than my basic knowledge of Mod Podge and drilling holes, and this picture:
I'm not a fan of burlap (maybe a rant sometime?), so I thought about choosing a different fabric, but then I didn't know if the drill would tear that up. My next idea was paint, but I didn't want to choose a color that clashed with my parents' bedroom walls. Then it hit me (ouch!) - decoupage!
But first, I needed a board. I used a piece of one of our old cabinet doors that had been torn out. I asked my Dad to cut it for me - it's just under 12" x 12". After stripping 7 layers of paint from the back and liberally sanding all the sides and edges, I decoupaged this paper (from Hobby Lobby, I bought 3 pieces of paper and used parts of all of them) onto the front and sides:
I'm glad the board was just under 12" x 12" so that the top paper could bend over the edges just a bit. I used Mod Podge underneath and also over the paper. When it dried, I also sprayed it with an acrylic sealer.
I purchased the knobs, pulls, and hooks from Menard's and Hobby Lobby. (If you purchase from Hobby Lobby, make sure they have all their hardware. Some items from Hobby Lobby come without screws, which is very annoying and will make you seem like a very silly girl to the Lowe's employee when you have to ask him what size screws you need.)
After choosing a layout I liked, I marked drill holes with a pen, and then got to it. I haven't really ever drilled anything other than guitar picks, pop tabs, and the occasional bassoon reed. I already knew that I needed to pre-drill the holes and I did a little research on which drill bit size to use for my screws, which were, of course, many different sizes. Everything went in easily except the cup-pull in the very top corner. The screws that came with this one were not long enough for my board. I ended up taking screws from our stash of extras from our old cupboard doors. These were just long enough, but required turning with a wrench because I ended up stripping the screws (they weren't a perfect fit for the cup pull).
The two knobs from Hobby Lobby (the one that looks like a water spigot handle and the delft one) had very long bolts, so I cut off the ends of those with a hacksaw, then smoothed down the ends by hitting them with a hammer (very scientific, I know). A few of the screws for other pieces were just long enough to have a little poky end pointing through, so I also hammered those ends down.
My last step was to nail in two self-leveling picture hangers and then put some tape over the screw ends that had been sticking up just in case I didn't get them quite smooth enough. (My mother has cut herself on a feather pillow; I don't want to think what a sharp screw would do to her.)
Here's what it looks like on the back:
Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you had a wonderful day!
Love and Hardware,
Leah Joy
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