"Vintage" Necklace Holder

Today I decided to share one of my favorite things I have done so far, a lovely kind of “vintage” looking necklace holder. You know when all of your pretty necklaces are just sitting there; waiting for you to put them somewhere, but you can not find anything you like?  Well, it was a lot like that! I was looking for the perfect holder that wasn’t too expensive, and that it was pretty, not easy to find in stores, so I decided to just create my own!

The coolest part is that since you didn’t spend a fortune on it buying it, you can totally redesign  it once you are tired of the design!

For this fun little project I used:

-         - 3 wooden frames. I am sure Michael s has the ones without the canvas part.

-          Acrylic paint:

*2 shades of brown

*Gold

*Pink

*Red

*White

*2 shades of green

-          I marker

-          7 construction nails per frame (I used 21 total).

-          M. C Hammer! Just kidding, a hammer.

-          Top coat or some sort of finish paint protection, they have matte and glossy.

-          6 construction nails to hang the frames on the wall. I recommend 2 per frame, for more stability.

-          7 rhinestones to doll things up.

-          Glue.

-          Gloves, if you don’t want your hand looking like you were painting an entire house.

**This photos are taken from a video tutorial I use to have and deleted, I kept the photos. (If you want to find out why stay till the end)

If you do have a place where they sell frames by their own, then buy 3 (or as many as you want) If you don’t have that nearby, just remove the canvas part (or fabric part) with some scissors and just remove it carefully.

Grab 2 shades of brown mix then and paint the 3 frames, let dry. (Why 2 shades? Because it gives a dimensional effect, you can totally use just one if you want).

Time for the “holders”. Grab a marker and a ruler and start marking! I totally used the ruler just to have a guide for a straight line and marked the spots by eye, I didn’t use it to have exact measurements from one to the next. (Precision is optional).

Take you M.C. Hammer, em..alright, your hammer and start hamering those sports with your 7 nails. If you want to, use more, but I wouldn’t recommend going over the top. Visualizing the final product with a ton of necklaces hanging would make it really hard to pick one fast, when in a hurry, turning the reason of making this organization item kind of ironic.

After that, paint them with the same paint you used for the frames. 

Give your frame that special "antique touch" by applying here and there some antique gold acrylic paint                      

Now comes the fun part! The flowers. For that You need a big dotting tool, I used the tap of an art deco for nail art, you can use coins, taps of bottles or anything that has the shape, this just works as a guide.

Using you pink acrylic paint stamp as many “polka dots” as you want, the more dots the more flowers you will get. Then use a brush to fill in/even out all the dots.  Let dry.

 Take the same pink acrylic pain and divide it into two sections (two containers). On one add some white and on the other one add some red. **Note: This is in case you want to have various color flowers, if you want them all the same shade, ignore this separations step.

Grab a brush and grab any of the containers and start “painting the flower”, is more of a visual effect than a special technique here. I drew a bunch of “C”´s wide open and in different positions, kind of trying to make “that” look like a flower. That is why you need different shapes, to make it look like its got some light on it, again visual effect from far behind, if you look up close you see its just dots, “C”´s and lines. Do the same in all of your dots, from your 3 frames and let dry.

To “seal” this I used a satin top coat, from I think Home Depot, they are matte, glossy, sating and I don’t remember what else. Satin is, as the sales associate explained not too glossy and not too matte, somewhere in between. **Note: Do this outside, this is toxic, and try to cover your nose when you apply it. Use gloves and put frames over some newspaper or plastic bags.

 To finish this up, you can add some pretty stuff, kind of important to make this new project looking a bit more home décor looking. I chose pink nail art rhinestones for this, those were the only ones I had and the size was perfect. I glued the whole thing with, quite frankly, top coat for nails, a really old and thick one but it worked. **Note: Use glue, it will last longer. Again, that´s all I had and worked good, but since I’m sharing the “how-to” I have to be a bit more pro, so glue is the pro way to go.

Right after, apply one drop of top coat on top of each rhinestone, to secure the whole thing, making the rhinestone looking like inside a bubble, it looks cuter and its, again, secure. Then let dry, I let mine dry overnight.

Last but not least, hang your new piece of art on the wall, horizontal, vertical, as you want, as your space needs, as you think looks best, after all this is room décor, make it look part of it. Doesn’t it look pretty?

Haha, as you can see, my "hanging stuff on the walls" skills were lazy that day, but I decided I like it that way, kind of more vintage, or maybe that´s just me trying to convince myself it still looks good.