Let’s Decoupage! Making a Shabby Chic Jewelry-Necklace Holder

Today I am joining with Katherine from Katherine’s Corner and Michelle from Our Crafty Mom in a Découpage Project mini blog hop. I have been wanting to make a jewelry holder to keep my necklaces from getting tangled and using découpage is the perfect medium for me to create this jewelry-necklace holder!

Years ago, my friend Kathy in California had made something similar in a Shabby Chic style, and I’ve remembered her necklace holder all these years. Kathy loves white and uses it exclusively throughout her homes, and the Shabby Chic look was new and fresh then. I still love the style and it suits my French esthetic. Although I don’t remember her jewelry holder exactly, I have an idea of how I’d like to make mine.

So I began looking at Hobby Lobby’s website for wooden pieces. I found the quatrefoil shield wood plaque for only $3.79, and it is the perfect 3/4″ thickness to be sturdy enough for what I had in mind.

This quatrefoil shield’s overall size of 9″ high by 12″ length also makes it large enough to comfortably add five pretty decorative cabinet knobs in a “W” pattern for hanging necklaces, bracelets and more.

I picked out this piece of wood, then looked for some pretty knobs and back home, I rifled through our stash of leftover chain pieces in the garage for a couple of smaller chain lengths to hang this découpage piece once done. 🙂

When I was young, I used to make all kinds of decoupage things. My mom showed me how to cut up magazine photos and use artwork from stationary cards to make pretty decorations to hang in my bedroom or to give as gifts.

When I was first setting up my household, I found two beautiful vases that I loved to decorate with on tables around our house. One has a Valentine’s theme and the other is more random, but they always seemed to go together in my eyes. Here is a photograph of one of them. Both were made with découpage decals. This is the one with the glaze on top.

Things you will need for this découpage jewelry-necklace holder project

• scrap wood or a turned piece of wood from a hobby store ~ quatrefoil shield wood plaque from Hobby Lobby (not sponsored).
• pretty cabinet knobs with screws attached ~ also from Hobby Lobby
• chain for hanging
• (2) screw eyes for mounting the chain
• sandpaper
• needlenose pliers
• drill and drill bits, for drilling out the fronts for each knob and a countersink bit to enlarge the backs to hide the washers and nuts (and to make the jewelry holder sit flush on the wall).
• Dremel or cutting tool to cut off excess screw from backs of cabinet knobs.
• Felt or some lightweight fabric to glue on back of project (not shown).

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How to make this jewelry-necklace holder

• First, decide where you want each knob to be placed on the wood piece ~ mark each center point. For me, this took the most amount of time, laying out the markings and centering the bottom two marks between the top three marks.
• Mark holes for the two screw eye screws along the top of the wood piece.
• Drill through each mark along the top and the five marks on the fronts (shown above).
• Sand the wood piece all over and around each drilled hole.
• Paint the piece of wood without painting inside each hole. Let dry.

• Choose a pretty napkin to découpage on your project (or other decals or papers). Separate the back piece of tissue off of the front printed part before découpaging. Removing the back piece of tissue makes the remaining decorated tissue thinner and easier to glue on.

• Cut out pieces you want to use either with scissors or tear edges of the tissue by hand for a slightly raggedy-look (this is what I did with my napkin’s tissue). Something fun to do while watching t.v.! 😉

• Use Modge Podge or glue thinned by half to create the découpage medium. Paint on a layer of découpage glue onto the board and lay each piece of decorative tissue onto the board.
• Gently découpage more of this glue on top of each paper, smoothing out wrinkles and creating wrinkles for a slight 3D effect. Let dry.
• Paint on a white-wash mixture of 1/2 white paint and 1/2 water for a white-washed effect. Damp off with a cloth for desired effect. Let dry.
• Drill again lightly through the dried tissue papers from the backside: My hubby, Mr. Ethereal did this just using the same drill bit in his hand and working it back and forth until the holes were reopened.

• Screw in each knob and screw in the eyes and attach the desired length of chain.
• Cut off backs of knob screws to hide inside countersunk holes. Hubby actually had to Dremel out the backs a little more to fit the ratchet thingy around the nuts to tighten them (go figure!).

These projects always seem to grow bigger as you go along, lol! It never starts out that way, don’t you think?

Okay, back to our explanation… 😉

• Add padding or felt glued onto the back of the wood piece to prevent it from scratching your wall or on whatever you hang your découpage jewelry-necklace holder (not shown).

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Easy peasy!

I liked this project idea so much that I bought a second wood quatrefoil piece and five mismatched knobs to make a jewelry hanger for my daughter (not yet finished). She and her roommate just moved into a house and they are loving having so much more space, plus a yard.

This will be a nice addition to her bedroom or bathroom and give her a place to hang her necklaces and some bracelets. <3 Her birthday is next month and I really hope she likes hers!

Here are some of the knobs I picked up for both of our projects. The bee and gorgeous Black & Cream Vintage Floral knob are for Amy’s jewelry holder. The vintage floral knob is almost like a paperweight. It has a curved glass over the flat floral piece and is stunning in person. It is a good 3″ across and I want to use it as the centerpiece of this jewelry-necklace holder.

When we went to England in 2005, we bought a vintage paperweight from an antique’s dealer at the Peterborough Antiques Faire. Amy loves that piece! I am sure she will love this cabinet knob as much as I do. It is colored with chocolate with cream with a slight green undertone, green being her favorite color. She really loves greens and browns.

I think she will love this special knob for these reasons. 🙂 Shown roughly about each knob’s size.

Other découpage projects

Here is a previous craft basket I decoupaged a couple of years ago. It is perfect for holding balls of yarn for knitting in the wintertime and for holding shells and moss balls and other things in the summer. This thrift store basket gets way more use than it ever did before it was découpaged!

Let me know in the comments what fun things you have made or have upcycled with decoupage! In our Makers Space after school club, our students in middle school are really into decoupage projects along with crochet, knitting, drawing and other fun artistic things.

I love that all of the things we loved to create with are still around and are loved by a new generation of creatives!

Here is a list of everyone on today’s mini decoupage challenge tour:

Barbara from French Ethereal (you are here!)

Thank you for stopping by today! I want to thank Kathryn from Katherine’s Corner for getting us all together for this decoupage party!

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Happy crafting, friends!