Hi! It is almost the time of year to start thinking about Christmas presents, so I wanted so share an easy project that I made for my sister last year. (Madeline – I mean it was super hard and I spent ages working on it…) She has lots of cool jewelry, especially earrings, so I wanted to give her something that she could use to display them, as well as be decoration for her room at school. She likes natural, casual things, so I thought a cool stick might work well. This is what I came up with!

Materials

• Sturdy stick – should be at least an inch in diameter
• Hand saw
• Sand paper, hand sander or sanding belt
• Gold paint
• Cup hooks
• 16 x 3/16″ brass screw eyes
• 15 x 1/2″ cup hooks
• 2 x 1 1/2″ cup hooks
• D-ring picture hanger

I found the stick at Sam’s grandmother’s farm. I was on the lookout for a fairly large one that I could cut down to exactly the size I wanted. I had not been planning to use one with a fork, but once I saw it I loved it; I think it looks more sculptural.

Once I got it back to my Dad’s shop, I sawed the ends at an angle, sanded off the rough edges and painted them gold. I screwed the eye hooks in pairs on the upright section of the stick, with the idea that those could hold earrings. I screwed the half-inch hooks along the horizontal part of the stick so that necklaces could hang straight down. Finally, I added the two 1.5-inch hooks at the end to hold bracelets and bangles.

(PS – how smart is she to use a curler to keep her necklace from getting tangled???) To hang the stick, I used my dad’s belt sander (you could also use sand paper or a hand sander) to flatten the back of one section at the top of the upright part of the stick, and screwed in the d-ring to hang it.
And there you go – a really cool present that anyone can make, as long as you can find yourself a stick. We had Christmas in Florida last year, so I brought a (blurry…) photo of it to give her – here it is with some of my stuff.

XO,

Julia

PS Thanks to Nate for the close up pics!!