Carousel Jewelry Holder: A How-To Post

I meant to put this up a couple of months ago but did not for some reason. I put up my Ferris Wheel Jewelry Holder How-To. Well this goes along with that post and it is also an easy alteration. I made this to go on my dresser to display part of my somewhat big handmade jewelry collection.

You'll start with buying the cupcake holder on Amazon. Once you get it-put it together per the instructions.

Other things you need:

-glue

-felt

-marker

-empty cereal box

-something to measure your circles( I used a roll of tape)

-scissors

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Step 1: Put the cupcake holder together

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As you can see from the picture, after I put it together I was measuring the holder trays to figure out what I could use to measure what material I was deciding to use. I started with cupcake liners. Too flimsy. I tried paper and plain material. Fell through the bottom. Then I thought of felt. I realized I needed something to make it more sturdy but not too thick. And that's where the cereal box comes in:

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Step 2: Draw circles with whatever size you decide to make your pieces.

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Step 3: Draw the circles on the felt too.

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Step 4: Cut them out. Cardboard and felt. This is pretty hard for me. I am terrible at cutting circles. But I trimmed them down and got pretty close.

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Step 5: Glue them together.

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Step 6: Love yourself. (I wrote myself notes on the bottom when they were dry)

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Step 7: Put your circles into the trays.

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Step 8: Fill with Pretties

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A few months later and I still love my little set-up!

Girly Geek Chics

A few more customer photos of pieces I made ! Love getting pictures of them!

Forgotten Passions

I've spent the last few weeks cleaning out my office from top to bottom. Folders, nooks, crannies, over stacked piles. As I've been doing this I've been finding fun things I forgot about. One of these things is my sketch notebooks full of clothings designs. I haven't done this in a long time and having come across my drawings (from 1997-1998) I am thinking to start designing again. Just for fun. I don't have any plans to do anything with them but I certainly have a lot of ideas nonetheless. Here are some of my first sketches from so long ago.

Girly Geek Chics

The first time I knew of someone writing about something I made was very exciting. Here is a link to the lovely Hannah's blog musing about the earrings she bought from me. I've recently been collecting photos from friends who have purchased things from me and I love seeing my pieces on them. Have a peek at these beautiful ladies. (Some photos by me, others taken by customers)

My First How To Post: Ferris Wheel Jewelry holder

So this is my first post about doing a little craft. It’s not very complicated and I thought it would make a cute project. This all came about as I’ve been remodeling my bedroom over the last 3 months. I wanted a new way to store and display jewelry. I have a lot of jewelry. I have been collecting handmade pieces for a very long time now. Additionally I make a lot of things for myself and I am lucky enough to have friends to make things for me as well. I searched and searched for display pieces but nothing was really striking my fancy. There’s plenty of pretty things out there they just were not what I was looking for. I came across some circus themed boxes on ETSY and loved the idea of a carnival. I adore the book The Night Circus and well, pretty much anything to do with magic, magicians and carnivals. Which got me started looking for carnival themed display pieces for my jewelry and there are pretty well none. What I did keep coming across was carnival themed party items and more importantly cupcake holders. They are tremendously cute for cupcakes but I don’t have cupcakes on display every day in my house although that would be quite spectacular. I started to consider if I could somehow make these work for my display pieces. I decided to order a couple from AMAZON. A carousel and ferris wheel, respectively. When they arrived I altered them a bit and I am in love with the results. Here is the alterations I did for the Ferris Wheel cupcake holder to turn it into a jewelry holder. I will post the carousel next week.

Things you will need:

-pliers

-Ferris Wheel

-paper flowers -these can be found at most craft stores often in the wedding decor section 

Optional: you can paint these no doubt, I wanted mine black and white to stick with a Dark Carnival/Night Circus theme and to go with a painting a friend made for me but you can do yours whatever colors match your room/display

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This is how it comes and what it's supposed to look like.

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Out of the box with all it's baskets attached. Also, see all the things I make in the background mess? This is why I need organization. 

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The paper roses I used to decorate the ferris wheel. The "stems" are made with very malleable wire so it is very easy to wrap these any way and anywhere you want. I got mine at Micheal's Arts & Crafts store.

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I used my pliers to remove most of the baskets. I left two on for counter balance and to put bracelets in. You could remove as many or as few as you want I would think.

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Add flowers where you like and earrings. Easy peasy. 

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And thus I began to build my own carnival.

Gifting GirlyGeekChic

I'm so happy to say that my little jewelry line and I had our best year so far. I sold nearly a hundred pieces and easily made twice that many. I have some bigger goals for this year but for now I thought I'd share some snapshots of things I sent out and some cute packaging I did for gifts. If you have time to stop by I'd love it! GirlyGeekChic 

Have a great day!

Happy Birthday!

I am having a birthday very soon and one way to celebrate is to have a coupon code running in my shop. It's 25% off your entire purchase. All you need to do is is enter code: BDAY25 in the coupon field upon checkout and it will be deducted. The offer is good until Oct. 23rd. Thank you Thank you! I love having a birthday, I'm so grateful for so many things!

I would very much appreciate it if you stopped into my shop and had a look around!

~~~~~~Have a Wonderful Day~~~~~~

The Early Days

I’ve taken on the daunting task of organizing my iPhoto library for many reasons, including being able to have an entirely separate library for jewelry photos for my ETSY shop. As I’ve been going through them, all 35,000 + I’ve come across old memories as well as pictures from the start of my jewelry crafting. Little things really. Simple pieces that gave me great joy to create and shipped many off to new homes or gave as gifts to the people I love. It’s fun to see what things have changed or how some of the things are the same except more well defined. I'll say this, I’m so happy that I have better cameras and know more about lighting.  I continue to learn to light better and understand photography, especially when I live somewhere like Minnesota where the weather can be very dark for many days, I’m more and more pleased how my things turn out. 

Here’s some past pieces. I’ll share more of them on my Facebook page as well. Have a great day!

Fairy Tales and Science

I thought I would share with you a few new pieces available in my shop. Please stop by!

Shop Status Sunday!

I've been working on new updates for my shop. I hadn't put much work into it beyond the basics since Dec. I got busy with New Year's Eve and then got sick and then went out of town! Phew!

Now there's a new ABOUT page: Girly Geek Chic that I think is great! I love the layout. ETSY is still the best!

I have also begun lisiting new pieces; including things safe for sensitive ears:

Pink Legos, Edward Gorey and Pegasus

Lots of new pretties going into my shop!

The Fairy Garden Party by Deborah on Etsy

New Pretties!

New Pieces. What is it about spring time that gets you so motivated?