An Old Frame and Chicken Wire Upcycled Into a Jewelry Hanger!
I’ve been holding on to this frame since 2013. It used to be attached to this old dresser, though it was clear that it did NOT belong there and literally fell off into my hands. It used to hold a spectacular old mirror that was in tremendously bad shape and though I tried very hard to save it the shattering was just too deep so I donated it to my wonderful aunt for her mosaics. I’ve seen many jewelry hangers online made out chicken wire and it didn’t take me long to put two and two together. I have a jewelry box (like most girls) but like with any box everything in it gets all tangled up together and I’ve been wanting a jewelry hanger ever since I made my mom hers out of a mirror. So, I got to work!
The frame was in four pieces but by some kind of miracle I had not lost any of them. I took it downstairs to my workshop, washed every piece thoroughly (no I wouldn’t normally use water but this frame was so covered with dust it was literally like a nasty second skin) and then I grabbed all of my clamps.
With some wood glue and another little piece of wood added to the back for extra support I was able to get the whole frame glued and clamped together.
From there I flipped it over and added several 1″ brad nails around it before carefully removing the clamps. Phew! It worked! I added a couple more brads to be safe and was quite happy that it didn’t fall a part.
Here’s the thing, normally I would have sanded this down and stained it but the wood details were FAR too delicate and I hated how dark it was, seemed like all those pretty little details were just lost. So, I put two coats of white paint on it first and then I did a little very light and very careful sanding. A note here, when it comes to all those little details I knew I needed to be extra wary with the paint (I most certainly did not want to drown it!) so I used very little paint at a time – my brush was very dry throughout the process.
Next I cut the chicken wire to fit into the frame and carefully stapled it down. (Yeah, I know I keep using the word “carefully” but everything about this frame seemed REALLY delicate to me, I am still shocked that I didn’t break any of those petals off of that pretty detail.) Strangely enough I couldn’t find any old chicken wire so I ended up buying some new stuff as a last resort so, oh well!
I hung it up by my side of the bed in my master bedroom and covered the whole thing with all of my favorite dangly earrings! Can you tell I’m kinda stoked about this? I’m excited! I’ve never had a jewelry hanger before 🙂 This was a pretty simple project that would work with just about any kind of frame. Lots of the DIY jewelry hangers I’ve seen on Pinterest use chicken wire and old window frames!
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Love your choice of frame, very cool.
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Thank you Michelle!
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I loved your way,very well done,
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Thank you!
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Frequently asked questions
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Hi there, you did an absolutely beautiful job on this! And it looks especially great on that navy wall. I have one that's similar (and it's funny, we have the same taste in jewelry - I have several of the same earrings!) anywayyyyy my question is this... I’ve found that the metal chicken wire has discolored some of my pieces. Have you run into this? I’m trying to find out if spray painting or another treatment might stop this. I have some coated wire but I’ve only found it in very narrow rolls, not large enough for a project like this. Any thoughts would be appreciated!