Picture Frame Necklace Holder

 I made a necklace holder and now I finally have a good place to store my necklaces. 

Before & after.

It was a pretty simple project and I was able to do it without a garage space, and with very few tools. 

I got this nice long octagonal picture frame at the thrift store last year. It measures 60 cm x 34 cm and is made of oak.

The back is pretty deep, and the inner part of the frame is held in with these little rubber coated spring steel arm thingies, which I'd never seen before. (I'd also never seen a frame with raw-edged ugly upholstery fabric in it.)

The original particle board insert was too thin for my purposes and also had two big holes, so I waited quite a few months between having the idea and finally making it. But this autumn I got a big sheet of 7mm plywood at an estate sale for $5, and then at another sale I got an antique hand saw for $3, so I was finally equipped to cut a new insert!

The saw was a bit dull, so I found a good video on how to sharpen them. I have metal files, but no bench vise, and had to do my best while holding the blade with my hand. It wasn't a great sharpening job but it did help.

There was already a protruding piece on the plywood when I bought it, 
but it was just a bit wider than I needed so I still had to cut the side down.

I traced the old particle board shape onto the plywood and sawed it in the kitchen, pinning the larger piece of the plywood sheet to the kitchen table with my foot as I worked, and making certain the part I was sawing was safely away from the table's edge.

I had to cut the end out as a rectangle and then saw off the corners.

I sanded the edges with a rough piece of sandpaper, just to get rid of the little splintery bits. One side of the wood had some knotholes, but thankfully the other was smooth so I didn't have to fill anything.

I then traced it onto a piece of black cotton velveteen which I got at a thrift store.

I cut it out with just a few mm extra around the edges, so as to make it easier to line up with the wood.

I hadn't glued fabric to wood with wood glue before, so I tested a scrap just to make sure it wouldn't seep through, which it didn't. It's quite thick and gloopy and I didn't expect it to, but it's always good to do samples.

I squeezed a good amount of wood glue all over the smooth side of the plywood and spread it out with a sponge brush. I wetted the sponge with a bit of water before starting and I don't know if it made the spreading any better, but I think it at least made the sponge quicker to wash afterwards,

I had to add more to the edges after this.

I carefully laid the velvet on top, going from one end to the other and smoothing it out, and only got one very tiny inconspicuous wrinkle. I left it to dry overnight before doing anything else.

I didn't want my necklace chains bumping into any hooks, but I also wanted hooks at different heights, so I worked out the spacing by putting the wood in the frame and arranging skewers on it. (If you have a wider rectangular frame then just doing a single line across the top should be fine, and seems to be the norm for most necklace holders.)

I traced a piece of wrapping paper to the size and shape of the inside of the frame, though I really should have done it the other way - with the frame on top of the paper. I tried to get the grid on the back of the wrapping paper as symmetrical as I could.

I laid the paper carefully on top of my skewer arrangement and rubbed it with a pencil to mark where all the blunt ends of the skewers were.

Using the paper grid and my clear grid ruler I marked all the points on symmetrically. I poked holes in all of them.

I laid the paper back on the velvet board (still in the frame) and marked through all the holes with soft blue fabric pencil.

I put a + at all of them to make them easier to see.

I don't have a drill yet, but screwing hooks into this plywood required pilot holes, so I asked my father to please bring over his drill. I drilled the holes while he held the bottom of the board down on my table, so the end I was drilling was hanging over the edge of the table. I didn't get any pictures of this because all available hands were busy at the time. Normally one could also clamp the piece of wood to the table, but in this case that would damage the velveteen.

I brushed off the sawdust and gave the front of the board a good lint rolling, which also got rid of the + fabric pencil marks.

Then I screwed in a bunch of brass hooks I got from Home Depot. It was $8.54 for a pack of 40 and I only used 15 of them. 

The last bit of screwing was fairly tough, so I used a scrap of leather to help protect my hands and get a better grip.

Then I just popped that board back into the frame, which was very easy due to the aforementioned spring steel thingies. The screw ends do stick through the back, but only a little bit. 

I would like to someday strip the frame and stain it a darker colour, as it's a few shades too light for my taste, but that will have to wait until Spring when I can do it outdoors. I will of course update this post when that happens.

Then I hung it up on a nail on the wall and put all my necklaces on it. I really like how well octagonal frames work with slanted roof areas on walls.

Since it's just hung up with picture wire it does wobble a bit when touched, which is not ideal, but it's not too bad and not in danger of falling.

Right now I have fewer necklaces than hooks, but if necessary I could hang several on one hook.

I thew out the particle board & yucky fabric, but I still have the glass and am not sure what to do with it.

Most of the necklaces are also thrifted, except for a few inherited ones.

All in all it was a fairly low cost project. I don't remember how much the frame or the velveteen cost, but I think they amounted to less than $10, and I only used a small portion of the fabric.