DIY Jewelry Holder | Organizing Jewelry

Thinking about building your own DIY Jewelry Holder? Check out this great Mother’s Day Project! Easy and would make a perfect gift!

This week I wanted to build something to organize all of my jewelry. I built a jewelry holder for my necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. All three were very simple and mostly done with only scraps. If you’re looking for a way to organize your jewelry then check out the tutorial below.

DIY Earring Holder

I started off by trying to organize my earrings. I really liked my previous holder that had a round design; however, I wanted mine to be mounted to the wall so I took the concept and modified it to work.

I first purchased a small piece of aluminum from the big box store, then I grabbed some scrap wood and used hot glue to temporarily attach the aluminum to the wood. I sandwiched the aluminum between two pieces to help cut it into strips at the table saw. This will thicken up the material so you’re not cutting something so thin, but also it’ll help with getting a clean edge.

I took it to the table saw and since I have a saw stop, I checked the owner’s manual to figure out how to put my saw in bypass mode. Then I started cutting 1/2″ strips. I would make a cut then move the fence over 1/2″ then make another cut until I had the number of strips needed. I wanted at least eight strips for the amount of earrings I have. And keep in mind depending on your space, you can make one tall unit if you prefer that look or you can break it up like I did and have two separate units side by side.

After cutting all the strips, I broke the pieces apart to get the aluminum strips out from the center. This is very easy since I only used hot glue. At this point the strips are going to be a little bent from pulling them off the strips so you can use a mallet or a hammer to just flatten them back out. Also if you have glue stuck to your metal strips then use a cheap chisel or putty knife to remove the glue.

To save some time, I made a simple jig to drill all of these holes in the center of these 1/2″ strips. I made this jig completely out of scraps so use whatever material you have laying around. I first grabbed one scrap that is the exact width of the metal strips. Then I grabbed two other scraps to sandwich around this one. I hot glued the two outsides strips down onto another scrap piece of wood so that I could easily slide the center piece left and right.

What I’m trying to make is a jig that will make drilling holes in the center of these strips easier so that all I have to worry about is moving the metal strip over 1/2″ every time instead of also having to make sure the holes will be centered. The two outsides pieces will stay put and as long as the center piece fits and is lined up straight on the drill press.

With the jig made, I took the aluminum strips and hot glued them to the scrap strips. You use the same ones that you cut at the table saw. Now grab a scrap that doesn’t have a metal strip and lay it next to your tape measure and use a sharpie to mark off every 1/2″. Make sure to make this mark in the center of your scrap piece. This is going to be your template that you’re going to reuse to drill all your holes so try not to break it; however, if you do break it you could always just make another one.

Now take your template and hot glue it to on top of one of the aluminum strips.

You can take the jig and the first strip over to the drill press and line the jig up so that your first hole is center with your drill press bit. You can clamp the jig down to the drill press table. Now you can drill your hole then move it over 1/2″ to the next hole, and drill the next hole. This might sound like a long process but it only took me roughly about a minute and fifteen seconds to drill each one.

After you drill all the holes in the first strip, then you can use your cheap chisel or your putty knife to remove the template and glue the template onto the next strip then repeat the process.

If your aluminum strip get a little bent again, you can just hammer it out with a mallet or hammer. To make everything feel smooth, you can grab a metal file and knock off all of the rough edges.

Next I used some Rust-Oleum spray paint to give everything a quick coat of paint. I painted the first side and let it dry then flipped it over and painted the back as well.

While those were drying, I cut a back from 1/2″ material and gave it two coats of paint then let it dry.

To attached the strips, I started off with the bottom first. I would first pre-drill my hole then come back with a screwdriver and screw in a screw that already had a bronze colored head. Note: I do recommend using a screwdriver here and not a drill so that you can hold on to that aluminum strip a little bit easier and it won’t want tot twist and bend.

I spaced my strips apart 2 1/2″ but before you attach your strips, I would get a gauge of the type of earrings that you wear. If you wear longer dangling earrings then you might want to space them out further.

DIY Bracelet Holder

I think that this would be a quick and easy thing to build if you do a lot of craft shows or sell jewelry. You can make several of these to put all of your jewelry on display in an organized way.

I used some dowel rods that I already had but the sizes I used are 1 1/4″ and also 7/8″. I started off by cutting a 12″ piece from the 1 1/4″ dowel rod and this will be the part that will actually hold the bracelets. Then I took the 7/8″ piece and cut a piece that was 1″ long. This will push the holder out from the wall so if you want your bracelets to be further off the wall, then make this piece longer. Then I grabbed another random scrap. This happened to be 1/2″ piece of material and I made it 5 1/2″ long.

I wanted my horizontal dowel rod to be kind of more towards the top of the base plate and not exactly in the middle so I used a forstner bit to counterbore a hole near the top of this back plate piece. Since my dowel rod is 7/8″ I used a 7/8″ forstner bit.

While I was drilling holes, I also grabbed the 1 1/4″ dowel rod and found center then drilled a 7/8″ hole in it as well.

To give the back a little bit more of a decorative look, I ran it through my router table and put a simple Roman Ogee profile on it. Then I put everything together using glue.

To make sure the horizontal dowel rod is horizontal, you can lay the bracelet holder on it’s back and make sure that the back plate is flush with your surface as well as that dowel rod. Now you can give it a quick coat of paint, or actually if you’re going to do two tone like I did, it would be better to paint it before you glue it together.

DIY Necklace Holder

This is the easiest one but the most expensive haha.

I again used a scrap piece of wood that I had that happened to be 1/2″ thick and I cut it to be 24″ long. I ran it through the router table and put the same profile, Roman Ogee, around the perimeter as I did the bracelet holder. I gave everything a quick sanding and then lined out where I wanted my knobs to be placed. I definitely recommend placing these knobs according to your necklaces. If you have a lot of thinner necklaces then you can place them closer together and put more on your holder, but if you have thicker necklaces then you might want to space them further apart. I placed mine apart about 3 1/4″ and it worked out fine.

I laid out all of my knobs and took a pencil and made marks on where they all sat. I brushed the knobs off and then took it to my drill press to drill the holes. If you don’t have a drill press, then of course you can just use a regular drill. Also, another alternative would be to use hooks if you prefer the look of them over knobs. After I drilled all the holes, I gave it a quick coat of paint and then screwed in all the knobs once it was dry.

Installing

For the necklace holder, I used two saw tooth picture frame holders on the back. One of the left and one on the right. Then I drilled two screws into the wall and just hung the picture frame hangers onto the screws. For the bracelet holder, I drilled a single screw into the base and attached it to the wall that way. I positioned the screw so that it was kind of under the horizontal dowel rod and it can’t be seen if you’re standing in front or above the bracelet holder. For the earring holders, I placed one screw at the top in the center and one at the bottom. Now these can be seen; however, I did paint the screw heads white before attached it to the wall to try and make it as camouflaged as possible. And that’s it. Now I have plenty of storage especially for my earrings to still expand onto but everything is nice and neat and organized. I can see everything and just quickly reach and grab whatever is it I am wanting to wear that day.

If you liked this project and want to stay up to date with what I’m building, then be sure to sign up for my email newsletter and you’ll get an email when I post something new. See you soon!

*Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links meaning, I may get a commission if you make a purchase. Thanks for your support in this way!