♠The oh so girly earring organizer ♣

One of my favorite places to go to in Durham, NC is the "Scrap Exchange", which is a store that sells literally scraps donated to them by various people and companies.  The store is strongly in support of recycling and is famous for it's cheaper than normal goods.  Today, I went shopping there with my mother who is seeking some fabric to make handbags for my grandmother.  Since I had couple of projects in my mind, I also got some goodies to make one and a half earring organizers.  Earring organizers are especially important to me because I own more than 40 pairs of earrings and lose about 3 pairs a year because the lack of organization (and lose more due to the lack of backs to my hooks Q_Q).  Although it might seem that losing 3 pairs of earrings out of >40 pairs is not something to be upset about, I do feel like a part of my body is taken away whenever I lose one earing...and yes, sometimes I would even shed tears over it...(I know...;>.>)  My point is that I really needed something that could hold my earrings better.  

Well, here's the process I went through to make these holders:

One that will only hold earrings with hooks:

  

Here are the "ingredients": 

An old photo frame -- $1.5

A piece of white cross stitch Aida (?) -- $.25

Roll of shelf /contact paper -- $5-10 from Home Depot

Cardboard folder (the orange thing...can be any color)

Scissors or X-acto knife 

Pliers 

Not photoed but a glue-gun is needed

and pieces of decorative stuff...

1.  Cut the folder into the size of the photo frame's glass.

2. Cut a piece of contact paper larger than the already cut folder.

3. Turn the contact paper with glue side up and take off the backing for the glue side, then place the cardboard of the contact paper's glue side.

4. Cut the corners of the contact paper and fold the extras inward.  

This is what it will look like when the board is turned over, make sure to eliminate air bubbles.

5. Cut the Aida into the size of the cardboard.  Also cut small pieces that are the same lengths as the boarders of the Aida.  

The smaller pieces are going to function as cushioning so that the hooks will not be blocked by the cardboard backing.  

6. Hot glue the small pieces to the front of the cardboard.  

7. Assemble everything!  In the photo frame, put the Aida piece first, then the cardboard, and last the backing that came with the photo frame.  

Ehem...excuse the mess in the back.

8. Decorate!  I put a flower and a feather for a more vintage/Gothic lolita look.

Voila!

The second one that will hold studs as well.

I made an earring holder with a photo frame and wire couple years ago and it didn't work as well as I wanted it to, so I decided to change it up a bit.

This is the old one that kinda sucked.

In order to do change the old frame, I bought some fabric from the Scrap Exchange for $1.  It is a netting-type of fabric with golden stars that kind of reminds me of the black version of Star Night Theater from Angelic Pretty.  

So basically all this required me to do was some glue-gunning.  I cut a piece of the fabric larger than the frame.

The gluing process was like stretching a canvas.  I started with four dots of glue in the mid-point of each side and worked around the corners.  It helps to pull the fabric while gluing and hold for a while until the fabric stays at where you glued.  

Glue at the mid-points

Gluing the sides

Trim the extras

Here it is!

Don't forget to put some handmade goodies on the frame to make it cuter! (...I kinda ran out of hot glue...so no deco for me)

at this point you are probably wondering why I'm still posting pictures since I've probably killed some computer's loading ability already...but I'm almost done >.< )

Last but not least with awesome earrings!!

The big red price tag of EVERYTHING

I haven't had any ideas in my head to write about anything after the MCAT mainly because I wasn't really inspired after the trauma.  I'm not looking forward to finding out my score.  On the same depressing side of things, I have found some ridiculously expensive "useless crap" online hence the title of this blog post.  Below are some examples of these expensive crap (the numbers don't mean anything.)

1. A USED plastic headband -- $50

 This item is taken from here
For those who know anything about Lolita fashion, this item is from the famous Baby, the Stars Shine Bright.  I will admit that I think this headband is rather cute, but $50 spent on a piece of plastic seems awfully ridiculous.

2. The new iPhone 4G in China -- $2000 or $1200 for one that cannot be used.

Chinese people are not the richest in the world no matter how much better China's economy has gotten over the past several years.  However, assigning a price tag of $2000 (USD) for a modded iPhone, or even better, $1200 for one that is not modded therefore literally useless is outrageous.  *FYI, an iPhone 4G 32GB costs $299 USD

3. College textbooks. -- could be over $500

Picture taken from Amazon.com


College education is expensive, most private schools would cost at least $15,000 per semester.  On top of the expensive tuition and housing, students/parents also have to deal with the pricey textbooks.  Here is a list I found of the most expensive college textbooks, it is amazing how some could cost up to $1000, no wonder graduate students are poor.  (The textbook depicted above is $500 on Amazon.)