Recycled Jewelry Hanging Mirror

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?

...I think its Barbara, my coworker (she's pretty fair - maybe even paler than I am, and that's saying a lot).

This mirror, which is lovely enough for the evil queen (not to brag or anything), was made for Barbara to hang her jewelry from.

Next time you're browsing the gift wrap section in a store, take note of the scotch tape.  It comes from the warehouse on a plastic strip with a metal hook for hanging.  The jewelry hooks on this mirror are made from the metal hooks of empty tape strips.  One day at the retail store we both work at, Barbara and I were unpacking a box of tape and she said, "I could use these hooks to hang my jewelry," and that's how the idea was born.

I realize that not everyone can just go into a store and pull the clips off some tape strips to bring home, so this isn't exactly a tutorial post for you to follow.  I'm just going to tell you what I used to make it.  If you happen to have similar supplies laying around, you might be inspired to make your own version.

I used eight metal hooks, a pretty framed mirror from Goodwill, one of the empty plastic tape strips, paint, and a fabric scrap. To start, I took the mirror out of the frame and painted it black.

While the paint dried, I covered a section of the plastic strip in pretty fabric and attached the metal hooks.  I set the glass mirror back in the frame and glued the fabric covered strip with hooks to the bottom of the mirror with high temperature hot glue.  Because it seemed a little plain to me, I added black plastic beads to the tips of the hooks with superglue.

Adding beads gives it a polished look.  You would never know this was made from junk and scraps.  If i can find more hooks, I just might make another one to hang by my front door for keys.

Soooo... I just discovered that Barbara also has a blog, and its really cute: theoriginofwonder.blogspot.com (you should probably check it out).


<----Here is one of the suggestions Barbara had for jewelry storage: tea cups! I think this is SUCH a cute idea.  I find gorgeous tea cups all the time in thrift stores, and this is a great way to show them off.

Another clever idea from her blog is to pair up earrings the holes of a button to keep them together.  Genius!

I definitely need to this.


(photos from theoriginofwonder.blogspot.com)