Earring Banner

This weekend I cleaned and polished all of my post earrings the rings I wear everyday. I realized in the process that my earrings were a mess! None had their matching backs on them and I had forgotten about some since they are all stored in a teeny cup that is hard to sift through! Once they were all clean I matched backs to all of them and separated out ones I don't wear at all anymore. I was left with quite a few still.

I have some framed earring and necklace holders I made from thrift store frames, tulle and wire. While post earrings could potentially be stabbed through the tulle on one of these, I didn't like the idea of having to remove the frame or pull it away from the wall to remove the earring. Plus these are a little full, edging on messy already!

I thought a soft felt banner style would be easier to use. I made this in less than an hour from things I happened to have already. I'm sure I could have done it better or cuter, or fancier, but for me this works for now! It gets my earrings organized and displayed which was my main goal. Plus I did this at 10:30pm so breaking out the sewing machine was more than I felt like doing!

I had some nice felt (it is thick and has a sheen to it) and some small pre-cut pieces of wood. What's with the map book? I used it as a template!

To start I used some super sticky tape. It fit perfectly on the wood pieces! This allows the felt to grip to the wood piece so you can roll it tightly and easily.

Then I pressed the tape side to the felt, and trimmed off the crooked edge. Disregard the X-Acto knife, it was just out to open a package. (FYI, this is the bottom of the banner).

Enter Stitch Witchery!

Next I rolled the wood piece until it was completely covered. I tucked a strip of Stitch Witchery in against the roll. You want to place the Stitch Witchery so that when you roll the wood piece over once more it will be between two pieces of fabric (so it can bond). Then roll once, flip and press the roll with a hot iron.

It stuck together really well! I had a little bit showing, but this is the back.

Next we do the top! It's the same thing except you add a ribbon in. I used this 6mm Offrey ribbon in black that I had.

Ok, so I added the ribbon to the wrong stage of the roll. I added the ribbon too early. Add the ribbon when on the 4th roll, right before you have fabric touching fabric. I used the Stitch Witchery to heat bond the ribbon to the fabric. Simply flip it over and press that side of the wood piece with a hot iron.

Proceed as before, putting down a piece of Stitch Witchery when the whole wood piece is rolled in fabric, then roll once more to put fabric against fabric and press with an iron.

You can see here how I added the ribbon too early, but it didn't make a big difference when I hung it up!

Here it is hanging with the rest! It looks a little out of place with the white/cream frames, but it shows off the earrings!

I clipped a few bows to the side and hung a pin on it also. So far it has been really functional! And nice to see all my options laid out instead of jumbled in a little box.