Hair accessory organiser, DIY tutorial

Do you have lots of hair accessories and don't know what to do with them ? My daughter certainly has, and since she is only 5 it is unfair to expect her to keep all the masses of hair clips and bows and bobbles tidy herself without a little help , they were stored like this. Not the greatest organisation.

Do you remember the jewellery organiser I made ?, following along those lines and with recycling bits and bobs in mind , I decided to make a hair accessory organiser in a similar way , have a look below to see what I came up with.

Looks great doesn't it ? perfect to organise hair clips and ponytail holders and cost pennies to do.

If you want to make one of your own follow along with me.

Supplies you will need the following

Ribbon odds and ends each piece needs to be long enough to span the length of your frame plus 1 1/2 inches
A wooden picture frame, it must be wooden for this project (I bought one 2nd hand for £1)
Small screw in hooks from a hardware store
A heavy duty staple gun or hot glue gun.

Now gather all your supplies together and we are ready to get started .

First of all we don't need the picture or the board or the glass in the frame, I used a craft knife to run all along the back of the frame to cut the tape holding it all together and used pliers to pull up the funny little metal clips that fold over to keep it all in place, (I am sure they must have a name, please let me know if you know)
Word of warning if your frame hangs by string on the back like mine, make sure you don't cut it, you still need something to hang your frame with.

Don't throw your glass or board away these are useful for other projects.

Also you don't need the metal clips so you can pull them out altogether, I used pliers.

You will now have an empty picture frame as shown below, hopefully yours won't come with the little added extra mine did.

If you want to paint your frame you need to do it now as the ribbon will go over the edge of the frame.

Next you need to grab some ribbon, you want a reasonably wide ribbon mine was about  1 1/2 inches wide and wrap the ribbon over the top of the frame from one end to the other . The frame needs to be the way up it will be when it is hanging , so the ribbon will be vertical on the wall.

Make sure if you have a string hanger like mine you go over the string with the ribbon not under.

Using your heavy duty staple gun or glue gun attach the ribbon to the underside of the frame , making sure it is taut, I attached my ribbon about 1 inch away from the edge of the frame.

Keep attaching more ribbons leaving them about an inch apart for getting hair clips in and out.

You will now have a frame full of ribbons, so the hair clip organising is sorted , so what about the ponytail holders I hear you say ? Read on to find out .

Remember I mentioned you would need screw in hooks , these are for the ponytail holders , you just screw them into the bottom of your picture frame , using pliers if you have them is probably easiest.
I used the hooks I had at the time , but will be swapping them to larger plastic coated ones next week that will probably be less fiddly for little fingers.

And there you have it a simple cheap, pretty and effective hair accessories organiser, these are great for your home and great to make as gifts for birthdays or Christmas , you could easily jazz them up more decorating the frame with buttons , adding them after the ribbon is attached , or adding bows and embelishments they can be as plain or as funky as you like.

Upcycling wooden drawers

A couple of weeks a go I stumbled across a set of wooden drawers that would be perfect for my new sewing supplies, key ring rings, wooden buttons etc. , it was a little gem found in my local recycling shop, for the bargain price of £2.00 , it was just plain and wooden but had a draw missing, apart from that it was perfect.
If you have a local recycling shop it is well worth a visit as their stock frequently changes and you can find some real bargains to use as they are or use as an upcycling project as I have done, I usually try and pop into mine a couple of times a month.
I am sorry but I do not have a picture of the unpainted draws to post on here as I took it with my phone instead of my camera, and it is teeny weeny you can however see them in my Instagram feed here. I post various photos from craft projects and Martisanne Handmade products in the making and finished, along with various random thoughts and ideas , feel free to follow me. If you don't have an Instagram account it is a lot of fun and you can read more about it here .

We undertook the drawer upcycling as a family project with the house elves, we used decoupage paper , but you could cut pics from magazines , and used pva glue to attach the pictures to the wooden drawers, along with some transfers designed for decorating furniture, then it was all clear varnished to seal it.
And this is how it turned out.

I am really pleased with how they turned out , and just as a little insight into me as a person, we could not leave the little drawers as they are as I have an ahem phobia of bare wood, it makes my teeth itch , wooden spoons in particular, I will leave you with that little nugget of information, so now you know if you want to chase me off at a craft fair, chase me with a wooden spoon and you won't see me for dust.