DIY Table Display - Part II

This is a continuation of this post about creating a new table display. To the right is a picture of the finished earring hangers on my table.

The other problem with my table display that I was pondering was a clean way to hang several necklaces that would also be secure (this is a euphemism for grubby hands not stealing from me). I was also looking for something that had height. Previously I had branches in a jar. This looked cool, but could only accommodate a few necklaces, the necklaces kept falling off them, they were hard to transport - they kept breaking so I'd have to find more - and were dangerously poky. I needed something nice looking, sturdier, portable and practical. I had an idea, I just needed to realize it.

The idea was to have cylinders of some sort, about the size of a neck, standing on the table somehow. After talking it out a bit with my neighbor Mary, I came to carpet tubing as the base for these new displays. It's the perfect diameter and quite heavy. Getting a free carpet tube is easy. Getting it home is another story. They are 13 feet long and I drove home very slowly with it sticking forward out the passenger side window, careful not to take out any bicyclists. The photo (above, left) is three 3 foot sections. There is also a 4 foot. To try to cover up their tubyness and to prime them for painting, I used gesso to give them a bit of texture. If you click on the picture on the right, you can see it. I don't think I successfully disguised the tube - that would have taken several more layers of gesso, adding days and weight - but that is actually fine. In the photo, you also see the spine of nails I hammered in from the top, every 2", until about a foot from the bottom. These are to hang the jewelry from. Finally, I gave them a couple of coats of paint. I wanted a dark color to offset the necklaces, but felt black was too stark. I color-matched a cloth I use on the other side of the table. It's a nice dark olive color and balances the table. The last thing I had to worry about was stability. How would they stand up to people bumping the table and touching the necklaces without falling over? To give a bit of stabilizing weight to bottom, I created little sand bags that I can carry separately and stuff into the tubes when setting up.

Here are the tubes and the earring hangers as part of my whole table. I've used the new displays once so far and they seem to work well. The tubes hold a lot of necklaces and I think they look great. The color pulls the table together. I even got a few compliments on my table from shoppers too!