DIY Extreme Jewelry Organizer

A couple weeks ago a number of my necklaces got in a knot. A big one. I mean a it-took-me-almost-two-hours-to-undo knot. I was, needless to say, extremely frustrated with it all. I don't know how many people have this problem but I do. Part of the reason I have this problem a lot is probably because I sell jewelry on etsy, with almost half of my items being necklaces, so I have more around me than most. Most of these have very delicate chains, making it much easier to knot and much harder to undo.

Now, I have a beautiful frame jewelry organizer for my store jewelry that looks like this:

And even two I recently made and did a tutorial for my own personal jewelry like these:

Heck, I even have a beautiful jewelry jewelry box my husband got me when we were first married.

But alas, it was not enough. While these were great for someone who has lots of earrings, which I do, I just have too many necklaces! What's a girl to do? So the solution came to me. Hooks, LOTS of hooks in one extreme jewelry organizer that ended up with 39 hooks and two bars to hold earrings!

It was very simple actually, all inspired by a Goodwill find.

I'm not sure but I believe this is one of those art cases you get for kids with different types of paint, pencils, and other art stuff. If you don't have that any wood will do. You can usually get it at Home Depot and they can help cut to size if you don't have power tools.

 

I unscrewed the hinges and handles. I probably should have filled it with putty or something but I didn't, I knew where it was going and that area would not be seen by anyone so I didn't worry about it. Because I wanted it flat I did put some E-6000 where the hinges opened so it wouldn't be flopping around. 

I then marked out where I wanted the hooks. I spaced it out every two inches and alternated every other row. On the bottom two rows I just put one hook at each end. This is where I put wooden dowels to hang earrings. Looking back I probably should have sanded but I didn't, I was just too excited!

Then I went crazy with the spray paint! I sure am loving that stuff lately. It takes an ordinary, fairly unattractive piece and turns it into something new and clean!

On the hooks you can hang whatever you'd like.

I hung mostly necklaces but also bracelets and even earrings on the hooks.

The dowel is perfect for earrings, makes it easy to see and you can fit a lot on it!


I have had this up in my office/craftroom/jewelry making area for about a week and I am SERIOUSLY loving it.

NOTE: I have had some questions about the tutorial so hopefully this helps!

Where did you get a case like that? 

First of all this particular piece of 'wood' was actually a wooden art case that I found at Goodwill and just made it work. It was pretty thin and not a solid piece which was nice because it was light weight and easy to screw hooks on. Being a frequent visitor to Goodwill I have never seen anything like it but you could just use a solid piece of wood, my husband actually makes jewelry organizers with solid wood, you can find them here it just takes a little more elbow grease to screw in the hooks. Make sure you do a hole first with either drill with a smaller bit or you could even hammer in a small nail. A pre-done hole makes it much easier to get the hooks in.

How do you put on the hooks? 

The hooks are just screwed on, easy peasy. Ok not so easy because it takes a little bit of work the screw them all in but in the end it's totally worth it. I did them in two batches because my fingers got sore. To start off the hook I punched a small hole to get it started (you can use a nail or something similar).

What are the metal hooks holding the earrings? 
 The earring holders are actually two (maybe three) hooks with a wooden dowel resting in the hooks. You can find them at Home Depot or online.