Too Much Stuff: The Moving Experience

Everybody who has moved has said this at least once during a move: why do I own so much stuff?  I'm no different, and packing to move across the country made it clear that I needed to be more organized and to get rid of quite a bit of extra stuff.  When I was unpacking, it was even more obvious that dumping things into baskets (my old method of organization) just wasn't going to work anymore.  It also became clear that I own a lot of earrings.  Lots and lots and lots of earrings.  So I decided that for my new place, I would make a new system for organizing little things like earrings and hair clips that take over when you're not looking.

I was inspired by a popular blog post on magnetic make-up boards.  Although I am way too lazy to wear makeup, it only takes a minute to put on a pair of earrings.  A magnetic board with small hooks would save space and make it easy to see all of my earrings at once.  I had to change several details to make it work, but I'm happy to say that the result is worth the work.

To make a magnetic hanging board, you need a pretty strange collection of things - but they don't cost very much.  I only owned the spray paint from a previous project and it was about $40 for everything else.  I had planned to do the entire project in one day but it ended up taking three days due to some moving shenanigans.  If you have the items you need, you could make this type of board in a day.  Paint and glue in the morning, wait for everything to dry, and assemble in the evening.

I ended up using:

• 2 picture frames (no glass needed)
• spray paint (primer and final coat)
• gold magnetic paint (optional)
• cotton fabric
• spray adhesive
• Goo Gone
• tin snips (shears)
• sheet metal
• magnets (neodymium)