Tutorial: Shabby Chic Dangly Earring Display

This fun little shabby chic earring stand, made from an altered picture frame, is a great way to hang and display all your beautiful, dangling earrings. I had the idea for this project after we talked about my love affair with dangly earrings and how to display them. I don’t know about you, but I just love seeing them all hanging in a row! :)

The next day I made this earring frame, and it was so quick, easy, and inexpensive to put together, I knew I had to share it with you! :) I spent a grand total of $5.34 on this project. Plus I got to work with a staple gun. (Thats about as close to a power tool as I get!) ;)

Cost: Less than $10
Time: 30 mins
Supplies: picture frame, 12′ of picture wire, acrylic paint & brush, staple gun (or nails/tacks, etc)

I started out with a black 8×10 picture frame from Walmart, $3. They also have 8.5×11 document frames which would be good too, for a little extra space. On the same aisle, I picked up some picture hanging wire. They sold them in packages of 6′ for $0.97 and I used two.

Since the frame wasn’t real wood, I was a little concerned with how it would turn out once I painted it. I definitely wanted it to have the antiqued look, where you could see the previous color underneath the white paint.  I was afraid the only way to do that would be to use a real wood frame, so the wood would soak up the paint and show the grain underneath. I thought this frame, since it was completely flat with no texture, would just produce a flat, solid color when I painted it…

But as you can see from the above images, this little inexpensive frame did great! :) I was very pleased with how it turned out.

I gave the frame a couple coats of paint with this almost-but-not-quite white acrylic paint using the brushes pictured. I used this type of brush because it’s what I had, but I really liked how it turned out because, well, honestly, it didn’t do a very good job! But in a good way! It would wipe away some of the paint as I was trying to paint more, giving it that faded, shabby look. I just painted the frame, I didn’t have to sand it, wipe it, or distress it in any way.

Next, I took a piece of wire and laid it across the back of the frame. I folded it over twice so that I had three strands folded together that were just a little longer than the width of the frame (this was to make the hanging wire a little thicker).

Twist the wires loosely so they hold together, but loose enough so you can stick a post earring through there if you want! :)

On the back of the frame I used a pencil to mark where to hang the wire. I started with 1/4″ from the top opening of the frame,  then spaced the remaining wire 2.25″ apart.

Here’s what the back looks like.

I stapled the wire to the frame, then folded and tucked the wire so it wouldn’t come out. If you don’t have a staple gun, you could also use small nails or tacks to wrap the wire around and hold in place.

I gave the knots a few taps with a hammer to make sure there weren’t any sharp wire edges sticking out.

And that’s IT! :) So quick and easy! It looks beautiful on a dresser or chest of drawers.

Let me know if you try it! :) Have fun and thanks for looking! :)

Filed Under: Crafts & Projects, House & Home, Tutorials • 113 Comments

Blogger Tutorial: Different Backgrounds for Different Pages

Now that you can easily add multiple pages to your Blogger or Blogspot blog, you might have wondered if you can have a different background for each page, thus giving your pages their own unique look. Good news! You can! And this tutorial will show you how to do it in just one easy step. This tutorial was shared with me by Carolyn M. @ Pat Loves Carolyn. Thanks so much for the cool tip, Carolyn!! :)

{ demo }

See this tutorial in action on my Blogger Test Blog. Click on the Home and Recipes links up in the top navigation bar and see how they have different backgrounds! :)

Ready to try it yourself? First you’ll need pages on your blog. Here’s a super quick tutorial to get you all set up. It also includes tons of page ideas to get you started! :)

Next you’ll need a background. Here are my top 4 favorite free background sites:

Shabby Blogs
The Cutest Blog on the Block
Allie Brown’s Layouts
My Style Backgrounds

Or you can make your own personalized background using my tutorial right here! :)

{ tutorial }

From your Blogger Dashboard, click on Design, then Edit HTML. Look in that box of code and scroll down until you see </head>

(Quick Tip: Click CTRL-F to search for </head> to easily find it in all that code)

Just above that, copy and paste this:

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == &quot;http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/p/PAGE.html&quot;'>
<style>
body {
background-image: url(http://DIRECT_LINK_TO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE.com/IMAGE.JPG);background-position: center; background-repeat:repeat; background-attachment: fixed;
}
</style>
</b:if>

Two things to change:

1. http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/p/PAGE.html

Change this to your page’s link – the link to your new blog page where you want the custom background to appear. This is the address up at the top of the screen in the address bar.

2. http://DIRECT_LINK_TO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE.com/IMAGE.JPG

Change this to the link to your background image. If you are using Photobucket to host your background, it’s the Direct Link.

Click SAVE TEMPLATE and that’s it!! You’re done!!

Note: As always, be careful- one tiny little wrong space, quotation mark, or typo in the code can cause the whole thing not to work, so if it’s not working for you, double and triple check your work for typos! :) Make sure your code looks exactly like mine, except with your page and background links! :)

If you got it working on your blog, leave me a link! I’d love to see it! :)

Thanks for looking! :)

Filed Under: blog design • 59 Comments

Scarves. How I wear ‘em.

So, last week when I was talking about my current love affair with scarves, somehow in the excitement of all the commenting, and what I can only imagine was some sort of scarf-induced high, I let myself get talked into making… a video. That’s right, a real, live video documenting a few of my favorite ways to wear scarves.

Not that I’m an expert scarf-wearer or anything.

But today, right here on kevinandamanda.com, I am posting that video.

Before you watch, you should know- yes. I am a dork. A complete, and total dork. There you have it.

So, in conclusion, and in addition to me being a dork, while those certainly aren’t the only ways to tie a scarf (and you probably already knew most of them) they are the 5 ways I most often wear them. They’re quick, they’re easy, they’re relatively pain-free… and the looks could work for either winter or spring.

A couple of questions I meant to answer in the tutorial… but forgot.

How do you store your scarves?

Mine are just wrapped on a regular clothes hanger- tied on just like the first method I showed you in the video. You can kinda get an idea from the picture below- I just took the hanger from my closet and hung it up on the hook on the back of my door to take the pic. I meant to hold up the hanger and show it to you in the video, but I took all the scarves off the hanger first. You know, to make it easier to put them on while taping myself. Oops. Way to plan ahead there. Anyway, one regular-sized hanger holds about 10-12 of my scarves (they’re pretty smooshed on) – and I have about 15 scarves, but at any given time, the other 3 are usually either on me, hanging on the coat rack in the foyer, or strewn somewhere else about the house.

I did see this hanger the other day in The Container Store though. It looks pretty cool for a real scarf collecting enthusiast.

Where do you get your scarves?

The scarves in the video, in order of appearance are from Coach (striped scarf), LOFT (pink & white floral scarf), LOFT (purple paisley scarf) and Old Navy (solid white scarf with poms). All of my other scarves are from either LOFT or Old Navy- except for the pink one I got @ Gloss in Birmingham for Valentine’s Day. :) Now uh, hook a girl up here- where do you get your scarves??

So, I think that’s about it. Oh, and, just so ya know- The making and editing this video had me so flummoxed that at one point, without my knowledge, the webcam on the iMac snapped a picture. This, in all its deer-in-the-headlights glory, is that picture.

And I am a dork.

And I look like I belong in an infomercial for Bumpits.

That is all.

***

Wear a scarf this weekend! :)

Filed Under: Fashion, Tutorials • 172 Comments