Hanging Letter and Key Organizer – No Woodworking Experience Required!

A few years ago I was in a home design store in Baltimore called Red Tree with my wonderful friend, Bronwyn (belated birthday shout out!), and while trying to talk myself out of buying half of the store, I saw some very clever and artsy key organizers. A simple concept really: a painted board with hooks in the bottom of it to ensure that you never again arrive 30 minutes late to an appointment because you were turning your home inside-out searching for a misplaced key ring that turned out to be (duh) in the freezer, or under a cereal box, or whatever other bizarre place you may have absent-mindedly placed them. I am famous for this by the way — I have had to replace my entire set of keys four, yes, four times because I misplaced them and was never able to find them again. For serious. In a stormdrain somewhere, or in a landfill, or in the lair of the evil elf that steals half of my socks from the dryer, are four sets of my keys, to this day, still waiting to be discovered….

How was that for a tangent?! Jeez, anyway, back to Red Tree. So I stood for a while, inspecting the key organizers, turning them over in my hands, and hemming and hawing over whether or not my broke-ass could justify spending X-number of dollars on something that, despite my track record with lost keys, I deemed to be a non-essential item, when suddenly it occurred to me that I could make my own key organizer.

Well, it only took me about three years, but I’ve finally gotten around to doing it. I decided to add a letter compartment to the organizer, because in addition to being the master of misplaced keys, I am also the queen of unsent letters. I’m pretty sure that I still have thank you notes and birthday cards that I wrote back in 2003 being used for bookmarks or breeding mold in boxes in the attic…

Anyway, this is a fun little creative project, and is really quite easy, and would be great to do with kids.

What You Will Need:

– A scrap of plywood or piece of board — I used a leftover piece of plywood from an ill-fated attempt to build a bookshelf but if you don’t have any pieces of wood laying around, the folks over at your local hardware store would probably be happy to cut a piece for you. Also, if you are not going to be making a letter holder in addition to the key organizer you can use a much narrower piece of wood than I did.

– Sand Paper – 3M makes an assorted grit combo-pack that is awesome

– Paint

– Whatever image(s) you’d like to use. These can be cut from books or magazines, or any other paper source. Old botanical drawings would be really cool, or you could draw your own image. I cut some of my images from an old poster I had and the rest from a beat up Alphonse Mucha book. The letter box is covered in a sheet of Art Nouveau wrapping paper.

– Scissors and/or X-acto/utility knife

– Super glue or wood glue

– Polyurethane

– Screw Hooks

– Cardboard (only if you are doing the letter box as well as the key organizer – an old shoe box will work just fine)

– Thumbtacks  (smooth head or quilting)

– A thin chain or sturdy twine to hang your organizer — I used a broken necklace!

Directions:

1. Sand your board. Start with an abrasive paper and finish with a fine or superfine to create a perfectly smooth and splinter-free surface.

2. Paint your board. Apply multiple coats if desired. Allow to dry.

Steps 3 and 4 only applicable if making a letter holder. If you are only making a key organizer, without the letter holder, skip ahead to step #5

3. Cut your cardboard into the shape pictured below. Fold over flaps and fit to the bottom of your piece of wood. You may have to trim the cardboard again to ensure a good fit.

4. Cover cardboard with decorative paper, wrapping paper ends over the edges and securing with super glue. Or, you can just paint your cardboard. Or do a collage over it…

*Be sure to fold your cardboard before gluing on the paper to ensure the proper fit

5. Select the images you wish to use and cut out with scissors or utility knife

6. Do the layout with the images you are using

7. Once you are certain of your layout use super glue or wood glue to adhere them to your board

8. Cover your board with the glued image(s) with several coats of polyurethane, allowing each coat to dry before applying the next

9. Fit your letter holder to your board

10. Use thumbtacks to secure the perimeter of the letter holder, spacing them evenly every 2-3 inches

11. Screw hooks into the bottom of the letter holder/board, making sure that they go into the direct center of the board’s width so that the wood doesn’t splinter

* If you are using plywood you should be able to screw in the hooks directly. If however you are using a denser type of wood you may need to drill holes into your board before being able to screw in the hooks

12. Screw in the rest of the hooks, spacing evenly

13. Admire your work — you’re almost done!

14. Secure your chain, twine, or string to the back of your board with thumbtacks. Use at least two tacks per side.*

*If you are using twine or string be sure to tie a knot in each end so that the tacks don’t pull through

15. Decide where you want your new, nifty, handmade key and letter organizer! It can be hung using a single nail.

How to Make Paper at Home

Yep, you read that correctly: today’s project is homemade paper! Ambitious, I know…Let me say, first of all, that this is definitely a lot easier than you would think, but admittedly does take a bit of practice to get really good at. But hey, it’s fun even while you’re getting the hang of it, and how many people do you know who make their own paper? Not too many I’d bet….Homemade paper makes a terrific gift and you can personalize it any way you like to make your very own super-unique signature stationary — dried flower petals, perfumes, leaves, bits of string, even dryer lint can be added to your paper to make something totally beautiful and totally you. Best of all, making your own paper requires no special equipment (a blender is all you need) and uses items which you most likely already have at home — the only thing I had to buy was panty hose!
Aside from being a fun and rewarding activity, making your own paper is also a great way to recycle. You can use whatever paper you have lying around — old newspapers, used wrapping or tissue paper, junk mail, construction paper, old receipts — turn your trash into something useful and gorgeous!

What You’ll Need:

– Whatever paper(s) you’d like to use
– A large bowl
– A blender
– Glue (just regular school glue like Elmer’s)
– Panty Hose
– Wire Hangers
– Something to plug your sink with
– Whatever you’d like to add to your paper (leaves, string, etc)
– Perfume or essential oil if you want scented paper
– Sunshine

Directions:

1. Assemble the paper you’d like to use. (As a general rule, every 1 cup of loosely packed paper pieces yields one sheet.) I used a combination of newspaper, junk mail, and expired coupons:

2. Tear up your paper into small pieces, approximately one inch square. The larger the pieces the longer they will have to soak before you can work will them. Also, thinner, cheaper papers like newspaper and tissue will take less time to soften and break down than printer paper or card stock. Measure your paper pieces and place in a heat proof bowl:

3. Boil an amount of water equal to the amount of paper you’re using. For example, I started with 2 cups of torn paper so I used 2 cups of boiling water which yielded two 7in x 9in sheets of paper. Pour boiling water into bowl with paper pieces:

4. Let paper sit in hot water for 2 or more hours. Meanwhile, it’s time to begin making your screens!

5. First, figure out how many screens you will need. As I said, I was using 2 cups of paper, anticipating a 2 sheet yield, so I made two screens. If you are using three cups of torn paper, you will want to make three screens, and so on….

6. Shape coat hangers into rectangles or squares. You could also use empty picture frames with the glass and back removed or something similar, but coat hangers are cheap and readily available.

7. Stretch panty hose over hangers, being careful not to tear them or create a run. Cut and tie so that hose are fairly taut and you have a sturdy screen:

8. Now that your screens are done you can return your attention to that paper! Once the pieces have soaked in water for a couple of hours (you can also help accelerate this process if you are getting impatient by tearing up the pieces into smaller bits with your hands) they should be broken down enough to blend. Add about a cup of the water/paper mixture to the blender at a time and pulse, adding more water if necessary. Keep in mind though that the more watery your paper pulp the thinner and more difficult your sheets of paper will be to work with.

9. Now you can add whatever you’d like to your pulp. I added dried rose and hydrangea petals, lavender, and rose oil. Mix well.

10. Fill your kitchen sink with about four inches of tepid water. As water is running add glue (about 4 tablespoons of glue per 2 cups of paper, but this does not have to be precise — you can eyeball it)

11. Press your first screen to the bottom of the sink

12. Spoon a portion of your paper pulp over the screen until covered and let settle:

13. Very slowly lift your screen up out of the water, try for 45-60 seconds from sink bottom to water surface, if you can.

14. Set somewhere flat and sunny to let dry:

15. Repeat steps 11-14 for remaining screens. You may have to drain and refill your sink if the water becomes too murky

16. Let paper dry completely. How long it takes will depend upon the thickness of your paper. I put my screens out in late-afternoon, left them out overnight, and then let them sit and soak up the first few hours of morning sun too, just to be safe.

17. Slowly peel paper from screens

18. Trim edges if you like (a matter of aesthetic preference), and you’re ready to write! How cool is that?!

* My paper smelled AMAZING but I used rose petals that were yellow with red tips and after the hours in the sun the yellow parts of the petals turned a rather unpleasant shade of brown. My suggestion is that if you’re going to use flower petals use ones at the darker end of the color spectrum.