Sunday, January 22, 2012

Make Your Own Nail Polish Rack


I came across this YouTube video Shit Nail Polish Addicts Say.  There's a bunch of videos of this genre going around but this one definitely spoke to me.  I could relate to several of the stereotypes in the video.


One particular part in the video caught me off guard.  She holds up a foam board and mentions having to make another nail polish rack.  WHAT??  I have never heard of making your own rack.  I looked into buying some in the past but they're so expensive or the shipping is.  Or they don't hold very many bottles of polish.  So I Googled this rack making business and found this YouTube tutorial.


I went to work!  I wanted to make racks that fit 50 bottles so my racks have 5 tiers and holds 10 bottles each tier. So my measurements are much different than hers on the tutorial. I picked up 4 foam boards at $3.49 apiece.  The foam boards I got were 22x28 inches big and each rack took slightly over 1 board.    The math is by far the most time consuming aspect of this project.  Triple check your measurements!!  I have a bunch of different shaped bottles so when I laid out my 50 bottles for the original measurement I made sure to include a variety to get a truer size.

I don't really have any place to put these so I bought two shelves from the hardware store.  The shelves and hardware came to about $21.  If you're also buying shelves, make sure to get ones that will support the weight of all your polish!  The shelves I got are long enough to hold 2 racks or 100 bottles of polish and support up to 100 pounds.

Since the only wall space I really have for the shelves is in my living room, I knew I wanted my DIY racks to be pretty.  I was given some fabric from a friend who was destashing her craft room.  I cut the fabric as the same size as my side walls and the front "lip."  I used Tacky Glue to glue them on. So easy!


From the 4 foam boards I was able to make 3 racks to hold approximately 150 bottles of nail polish for only  $14.  Yay!  I organized my polish by color since I'm not particularly loyal to a brand or collection.  Isn't my polish pretty?  So much nicer than being shoved in several shoe boxes.



Friday, January 6, 2012

Love Bytes

One of the best things about knitters is that you never have to wonder what to give them for a present.  Yarn!  Always yarn.  Even if a knitter has bins and bins of yarn, they need more.

For every birthday, Mother's Day and Christmas, my husband takes our two boys and heads them down the The Knit Shop to pick out a skein of Malabrigo worsted each.  It's great fun for them and I know I'll absolutely love whatever they pick out.

For this past Christmas, Bailey chose colorway Purple Mystery and Silas chose Bergamota.  Instantly, I knew that I had to knit a project that used the both yarns together.  What a great combo!  My kids apparently have an awesome eye for color.

The pattern Love Bytes has been in my Ravelry queue for nearly a year.  I first fell in love with it when my friend Angie finished hers.  Robot mittens??!!  Are you kidding me?  Greatest thing ever.  I need them!  And now I finally had the right yarn to knit them.





Pattern: Love Bytes by Grace Schnebly
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted
Colorway: Purple Mystery and Bergamota and scrap blue yarn
Yardage: Approx 220 yards total
View more notes and photos on my Ravelry page.