Pinterest Challenge – Use What You’ve Got: Jewelry Board

It started during my days at a desk job, when I’d get SUPER bored and have nothing to do and read endless articles and blogs on the Internet.  Eventually, one of the bloggers I was reading linked to Pinterest, and the scrapbooker in me freaked the heck out.  I could pin endless images?  I could organize them in as many categories as I wanted?  I could scroll through them for eternity?

I know, most of you probably don’t need a rundown of why Pinterest was so phenomenal to me.  Consequently, you’ve probably all experienced some degree of addiction, as well.  Well, it took me several months of Pinterest addiction before I realized that I was pinning, rather than doing – and I wasn’t happy about it.

So began a new attitude towards creativity.  I pushed myself to try more sewing, cooking, and couponing (although the latter was NOT courtesy of Pinterest).  One project in particular caught my eye: a cute hardware board for storing your earrings.  I’ve never had the perfect earring storage; previous solutions have included a fishing tackle box and just stuffing them inside a large necklace gift box for a while.  Neither enabled me to look at everything at once, and nothing was particularly attractive.

But when I got home with my hardware, months passed.  How did I want to install them?  I wasn’t really sure what would be strong enough other than plywood, but I was hesitant to buy a piece, especially once I realized that it would probably be too thick for the demo screws that came with each piece of hardware.  I didn’t want to spend much money on this project, particularly not on a bunch of screws, and it was starting to be too much work in general – when suddenly, I had a realization.

Several months previously, I’d gotten sick of our disorganized tool box shelf in the front closet and had created a very DIY pegboard out of finishing nails and a piece of particle board I’d yanked off a trashed furniture piece on our curb.  But I had half of that particle board left – would it be strong enough for my fancy, heavy hardware?

So I sat down with a Sharpie, my particle board, and my hardware, laying out a design that I thought would be attractive yet functional.  Then I spent several hours over a couple days drilling my holes.  Unfortunately, blogging was not on my radar at the time, so I have no photos of this process!  But eventually, mercifully (it was surprisingly tedious work), I installed my hardware.  I’d finally done a real Pinterest Challenge!

Of course, most of my earrings are posts, since I can’t wear heavy earrings or most fishhooks.  So my board was sadly naked for quite some time.  Then my sister’s mother-in-law sweetly offered me a whole box of lovely clip-on jewelry from her grandmother.  Presto-changeo!  Overnight, my board went from drab to spectacular.

So finally, I have my earring solution – an attractive, completely visible, portable board featuring every earring in easy reach.  And I tackled one of my Pinterest dream projects.  Success all around!

(Is it just me, or did this post feel like a commercial?  It’s not!  I just love Pinterest.)

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