Jewelry Display Canvas Tutorial for Unscripted Sketches 249

You read that right! Not only do I have a home dec project for you today, I even have a tutorial! I’m afraid I’m not very good at remembering to take photos for every little step but it’s so easy, I promise you will get it. So, project and sketch first then the tutorial! This is also for The Shabby Tea Room Anything Goes!

This is a dollar store lover’s dream project! The (wonky) canvas, wire mesh and dowels were all purchased there. I’m sure you could get beads, wire, flowers, washi tape, ribbon, foam squares, charms, lace, paper and paint though I’ve no idea if you can find things that approach the look you see here. I know in the US there are way better stores than here.

Here’s a close-up of some of the pegs, I’ll have more extreme close-ups later. Aren’t the beads pretty? Each peg is slightly different and they are functional as well as lovely. I wanted to make sure that necklaces and bracelets didn’t fall off the pegs!

Everyone knows that earrings go through the mesh right? I still plan to embellish it more, I just ran out of time. I think I’m going to add Tim H’s Grunge Board Printer’s Blocks to spell BLISS at the bottom with gold swirls and pearls/rhinestones/sequins etc. Cool right? I also want to colour the mesh gold. Not sure if I’m going to try to use my Krylon pen or buy some model paint designed for metal.

I had a blast with this sketch as you can see! Please visit the other gal’s blogs and leave them some lovin’ (comments) and be sure to support our challenge at Unscripted Sketches by making’  somethin’ groovy and linking it up! And don’t leave now! Please stand by for more close-ups and my tutorial!

Jewelry Display Canvas Tutorial

Need to sort out all your jewelry? Need a place that won’t leave it in knots and tangled with other pieces? Can never find the second earring? Need a great customizable gift for the gal who has everything? Bridesmaids’ Gifts? Tada!

What you need:

Artist Canvas in your choice of size. Unless this is for a girl I’d recommend no smaller than 8x10”. If you want to cover it in full sheets of scrapbook paper, no larger than 11 or 12x16” or you will have more than one seam.

1/4” dowels

a way to cut the 1/4” dowels, I used a small hand saw

1/4” drill bit (in any drill bit set) and drill or ideally a drill press but NOT necessary

sandpaper or rough emery board for sanding the ends of the dowels

rubber or rawhide mallet or hammer if no mallet

metal mesh for opening, you could use sturdy open lace if you can’t find mesh, I know craft stores have it

die or stencil to create shape for opening (optional, you can draw your own shape if you want)

fine tipped scissors or an xacto knife

strong glue or hot glue

22 or 24 gauge craft wire, I used 24 g Antique Bronze Artistic wire

Your choice of small roundish or chip/nugget beads 3-5 per peg, 2-6mm do not recommend doughnut shapes like rondelles or long oval shapes

wire cutters, preferably jewelry flush cutters

some sort of jewelry plier like a chain nose or a flat nose or even a round nose will help but optional

Paint or paper to cover canvas. This is so up to you that I really can’t make a list for you. I used MME paper and Golden Fluid Acrylic paint in Titan Buff. Before that, I added a layer of Gesso over the questionable layer on the canvas when purchased. You could add anything you would to the front of a card or to a scrapbook page, the possibilities are endless. An inspiring word, quote, monogram or her/your name might be nice.

1. Decide on the placement for your pegs. Note in the photo above that you may not be able to add dowels in the corners because of how the wooden frame is put together. Other than that you can wing it or measure precisely.

2. Drill through the frame to the other side. This allows you to remove a peg if you need to. Be sure to place something underneath if you are working on a surface you won’t want to mess up. Keep the holes as vertical as possible or your pegs won’t sit straight. (We own a drill press and I own a husband, I’m not going to try to fool anyone here. Though if my garage wasn’t a disaster, I could do it myself. The spiders are still asleep here.)

3. Cut the dowels to your preferred length. Mine were 1 1/2” long and my canvas was 3/4” thick so that amount was also what was showing. Unless the necklaces are very thick even right at the back of the neck, that is plenty, even with the wire wrapped beads we will add. Sand them smooth on one side. Do not add the dowels yet!

My hubby asked how I will see what I have on the left when they will be hanging on top of one another. There are two possibilities. If you are a quirky gal, hang it on an angle. If not, hang bracelets there or necklaces that aren’t likely to tangle. If the top necklace hangs on one side of the pegs and the second on the other and vice versa, I think you will be ok. Of course, if you aren’t making this for a sketch challenge, feel free and add more pegs wherever you’d like, just being careful of those corners.

4. Decide what shape your opening will be and trace it onto the back of your canvas. I used the largest Labels 8 by Spellbinders. Make a slit in the opening and cut with scissors or if you are good with an X-acto, use that. Be very careful not to stretch the canvas around the edges. I chose one large opening but you could do more than one small opening too like several small hearts or the centers of flowers.

5. Next add your lace or mesh to the backside of the hole. I used Glossy Accents but you could use hot glue. Just be careful with the latter as the mesh will heat up with the heat of the glue. {{You can see here that the drilled holes did hit some of the staples. Didn’t seem to hurt the canvas or the drill bit so don’t worry about it!}}

OK, so the structure is done so we are on to decorating right? Uh, but what about the dowels. Don’t worry, didn’t forget those. When you add them depends on how you are decorating. If you are adding paper, add the dowels last*. If you are painting, add the dowels now. Stencilling-later… you get the idea. If you are doing any kind of technique which requires a flat surface, leave the dowels to later. If you want them to meld with your surface effects, add them now. You could even paint them along with the canvas, remove them (pound a short piece of scrap dowel in from the back about 2/3 of the way then remove the scrap with regular pliers), number them, do whatever other surface treatment you’d like, then replace them. Anyway, whatever you choose, here’s how to do it.

* poke a needle through the holes from the back. Then jab fine tipped scissors (closed) through from the top and press the excess paper into the hole. Unless you have many layers, it will just make it a bit tighter fit. If the dowel won’t go in, remove the lowest layers, keeping the top one intact as best you can. When it folds inwards as the dowel goes it, it gives the nicest finish. Make sure all glue is dry or it will tear.

6. If your dowels aren’t painted or finished, do that now. Pound the dowels into the holes with a mallet until they sit flush with the back of the canvas. A mallet will ensure the wood is not marred and neither is the finish. If you only have a metal hammer, wad up some scrap cardstock, 4-6 layers,  and shape it into a kind of a cup shape over the head of the hammer and tape it on. Now pound it in gently. Unless you wiggled your drill bit, they should fit perfectly and not even need glue. If they are a bit loose, never fear, add a bit of white glue and let that set checking that your dowel is at the correct angle while it dries. A clothespin may help here.

7.  Now, the best part! The beads! I worked with the spool of wire here and it may seem weird at first but it’s great. These were the first two I did and I was still experimenting with the best way. The left one was not the best at all! You are going to use a lot more wire than you’d think. Add your beads to the wire in any order. Begin by adding wire along the length of the peg, starting near the base of the canvas and working up to the top of the peg. This seems like the wrong way but trust me. Now bend the wire 90 degrees and start wrapping it around the peg near the top. When you come around to where you started going around, make sure you wrap around the straight wire you started with and be sure it is tight. Wrap around twice more being sure to catch the straight wire every time.

8. In the photo above #7, you can see the right peg doesn’t have the beads distributed very evenly which wasn’t my aim, these three are much better. Now that you’ve secured the beginning of the wire, you need to slide your first bead along the wire and place it where you want it on your peg. Make a full wrap then add the next and so on. Keep your wire taut the entire time. Don’t worry if it doesn’t end up super tight, many of mine weren’t. We will fix that later. It does need to be tight enough to not spin freely though. You can try tightening the wire, unwrap and start again, or start with new wire, it isn’t expensive! In the photo below, you can see that there isn’t a lot of excess wire.

9. When you finish adding beads, wrap the wire three more times. Then cut the wire leaving a 1” tail near the bottom but try to still hold it tight so it doesn’t uncoil. Next, this is where jewelry pliers come in handy as we want to find a little spot in the wrapping on the side to tuck the end into. If you only have regular pliers, don’t use them just leave two extra inches and work with your fingers. Just thread it in, pull it tight and trim that wire, and the one you started with, closely. If the ends stick out, press them close and out of the way with something metal like the tip of a metal ruler.When working with your fingers, if you are having trouble threading the wire through a small space, magnification might help if you have it and so might putting a small hook shape on the end of your wire. Try threading the wire into a large eye needle and bending it slightly then slipping it in a bit further, bending it again and so on until you have a small hook shape. This will hook under the wire wraps more easily.

10. Your wrapping may cover more width of the peg than you might like. Use jewelry pliers or your fingers to squeeze the wraps together and make the wires closer like a more tightly coiled spring. Add a couple drops of a strong glue like Glossy Accents to the very bottom of the wire, in between the wires if you can, if you feel the wire may slip. Don’t want to lose that baby!

11. Last but not least, this is a home dec project. I highly recommend that you seal all paper layers with some sort of spray sealer or gel medium for longevity.

Enjoy, Rebecca