Spiffying up my shelf display

It’s been a year and three months since I started showing at Aurora Rose Boutique, and since then my shelf has undergone a few transformations.

Owners Kim and Amber take such pride in their store and I love seeing the rearrangements they make to best display the handmade products created by more than 40 vendors.

As my shelf got moved and re-hooked and pared down, it’s been a great collaborative process to help boost each other’s business.

Last month co-owner Amber re-arranged a few things, which prompted me to create new display gadgets to showcase my pieces.

I had purchased some fabric that initially was going to be a backdrop for my jewelry, but inspired by the velvet display rectangle Amber had found I decided to copy that concept.

Michaels had plenty of low-cost pieces of wood and foam core I could repurpose. Then I looked up tutorials on covering foam core and I got some batting from Vogue Fabrics. One evening was spent stapling the batting to the substrates.

Then I had to dig up my sewing machine and read the manual. It has been 5 or 6 years since I last used a hand-me-down machine, and when I was gifted this one my interests had diverted to other things.

I learned that linen is a difficult trial fabric but proceeded with the hemming anyway, and played with tension and different kind of stitches.

While it isn’t perfect, for the purpose of this project I am fine with the hemlines, and look forward to finishing that UFO quilt in my drawer.

After ironing again (which I never do for clothing, btw), I covered the wooden pieces with a staple gun.

The necklace stand was too thin for staples so I used spray adhesive quite messily and got that covered.

The foam core became a blend of spray adhesive and a few finishing staples. The easels came from the ‘project presentation’ section of Michaels.

Now I have a nice cohesive set of display pieces that will hopefully help my pendants, bracelets and earrings fly off the shelf.

Aurora Rose is actively engaged in Lemont’s summertime events, so pop by before the Wednesday evening Cruise Nights, the sunset soiree concerts and the farmers market.

I will be there with my art fair setup on Saturday, June 28 from 1 to 4 p.m. for Aurora Rose’s 4th Saturday Trunk Show. You can view all my inventory that day, including larger encaustic collages.

My Etsy shop is open 24/7, for those of you who aren’t near Lemont.