Bling Box Episode II - Completed!

I finally got around to finishing my jewelry box! You'll maybe remember the post where I first got it and was so proud of my job mounting it on the wall. Well, despite how quickly I acted on getting it up and filled, I've ignored it ever since. I waffled on what I wanted to fill it with and never got around to planning anything. Finally one day I got sick of looking at the fake smiling families printed on the place holders and decided to order a bunch of prints to fill it up.

I order my prints through Costco where they are only $0.19 each, and it's convenient to upload them through their site and by the time I get there to pick them up they are done. I like the features of their photo site where you can crop and edit photos and upload quickly to organized albums, and their prices are all really reasonable.

For this project I was able to decide pretty easily on the photos for the standard size openings (once I stopped over thinking it), and just had to eyeball it for the square ones - I ordered a few extra possibilities and figured for $0.19 I'd cover all my bases and not have to make another trip if something didn't work out.

I didn't spend a lot of time choosing the photos or go for a specific event or theme, instead I just picked a bunch of my favorites from the past 10 years, mostly events where I'm dressed up like weddings and parties. I think it turned out really cute! It's fun to have a range of hairstyles and outfits represented, and a few of my favorite people around.


I've assembled a lot of these multi-opening mats, and here's how I do it:

First I lay out all the photos where I think I want them, trying to balance colors and flow and make it pleasing to the eye.

Then I line each photo up in the openings and actually tape it to the back of the mat. I've found if I don't do this, they eventually slip and hang crooked. This also gives you more control over exactly how the photo appears to be cropped - since the mat always covers at least part of the image, you can either center the photo or pull it off to one side or another depending on what you want to show - there's usually 1/2 - 1" swing, which really changes the look.

For this mat I did the standard size images first, and then went back with the square ones. That allowed me to do less cutting, since I could tape the excess of the square images right behind the other photos and not worry about them showing. The only ones I ended up having to trim were the two corner squares where parts of the photo hung off the end.

Voila! I'm still super happy with this jewelry box, and I've worn a lot more jewelry now that it's all accessible and organized and I don't have to dig through boxes and stacks. I wish it were a little longer, and more centered on necklaces than earrings, but all in all, it was a good choice.