Monday, June 18, 2012

How to Make a Bracelet Display

One of our stores in town went out of business.  We were sad to see them shut down but on the upside, we managed to purchase their jewelry stand.  It is about 5 feet high with 4 slat wall type panels that revolves.    It will be used to display all our jewelry pieces at the Fireweed Art Studio in Scotch Creek this summer.

    

The slat wall type panels takes the type of pegs used on pegboard.  These work really well for hanging most of our jewelry pieces but we were looking for a way to show off our bracelets on the same stand.  After some serious brainstorming I came up with this bracelet display and I will show you how I did it.


I started with this double hook that is used for pegboard.  You can find them in most hardware stores.


I then found a heavy cardboard tube that I saved from aluminum foil.  It was a little long, so I cut it.


I then marked the center of the tube and where each of the points of the pegboard hook would fit.


Using a hand drill bit (or you could use an electric drill), I made a hole in each of the outside marks, drilling all the way through the opposite side.


I then checked the fit and had to make the holes a little bigger (but not too much) so the hook would fit nice and snug.


I then removed the tube from the hook and wrapped it in some quilt batting.  I glued the batting on marking  where the holes are.


I cut some velvet-like fabric so that it fit around the tube plus a 1/2 inch seam allowance and  about 4 inches wider than the tube (do not cut it as you will see later on why I did this).


With the right side of the fabric inside, I marked where the holes were on the tube and then stitched a 1/2" seam leaving openings where the holes were marked.  On the opposite side, I made little slits with my scissors.  Because this type of fabric will not fray I didn't have to worry about making the holes.  I then turned the fabric so it was right side out.


This is a little trick I came up with to easily insert the batting covered tube into the fabric piece and keeping the holes all lined up.

First wrap the cardboard tube up in a piece of paper.  I just used plain computer paper and folded over one of the edges.  I then lined the folded edge up with the holes on the tube.


The paper makes it easier to slip into the sewn fabric tube and I lined the fold in the paper with the seam so the holes will match up.


Once the tube was inserted and centered inside the fabric, I easily slipped the piece of paper out from between.  I then inserted the hook into the tube through the seam side first.  I still had to wiggle the hook around a bit to find the holes in the cardboard tube but it wasn't too hard as they were lined up fairly close.


 Once the hook was inserted it was easier to poke it out the opposite side.


I just tucked the fabric at each end inside the tube to finish it off.


And now our bracelet display is ready and fits nicely on our display stand.  The bracelets fit fairly snug so they will not fall off when the stand is rotated.  This display could also be used on regular pegboard.  I plan to make another one using different hooks that will fit on our grid wall next.  I will show how that turns out when it is finished.


1 comment:

Marlene Brady said...

Great idea- thanks for sharing.