Hey Ya’ll! Whose daughter has a plethora of bows and hair accessories with no great place to store and/or display them? I’m not the only one am I?! Then this post is for you! I DIYed a simple macrame piece that my daughter can clip her hair bows to so she can easily see what she has and pick the *right* one. Previously, we stored her bows and hair ties in an open wooden box, but it was constantly being dumped on the floor during the process of finding the perfect accessory. As you can imagine, this got very old, very fast.
I’ve seen many versions of these bow organizers, some made with felt and ribbon, others with wood and yarn, so when I had an old macrame plant hanger that I wasn’t using, I decided to make one of my own.
I had this plant hanger and some extra macrame cord (above) left over from a Pinterest party, so my first step was to deconstruct the macrame knots in the plant hanger and return it to the starting point so I could reuse the cord. Obviously, if you are starting with new cord, you would skip this step.
Next, I rummaged through our scrap wood pile to find a piece of wood for the shelf portion of my bow organizer, and a dowel for the macrame portion. You could easily buy these at any home improvement store (and even have them cut it to size) if you don’t have any laying around at your house.
For reference, the piece of wood is slightly narrower than a 1″x4″ and the dowel is 1.125″ in diameter. I cut both to a length of 18 inches. Once they were cut to size, I marked where to drill holes. Since I wanted the dowel to hang from the shelf, the holes needed to be the same distance from the ends of the board and the dowel. The distance from the front edge of the shelf does not matter as much as it’s up to personal preference on how far away from the wall you want the rod to sit. I chose to place my holes 3/4″ from the ends of the shelf and 1.25″ from the front face of the shelf. For the dowel, I drilled holes 3/4″ from the ends, directly in the center.
After drilling the holes, I sanded both pieces and prepped them for stain. All of the other shelves in my preschooler’s room are stained Minwax’s Dark Walnut, so I went with the same here.
I rubbed on one coat of stain and applied one coat of tung oil when it was dry. If it weren’t for the drying time here, this project could be completed in one afternoon. I actually planned on using this Wipe on Poly but when I opened ours, it was completely solid, so I looked around to see what else we had and found the tung oil finish. Any finish will do here. And apply as much as you like to get the finish you desire. The other shelves in my daughter’s room have a matte-ish finish, so I choose to use one coat of the tung oil to achieve a similar look.
Once the finish was dry (this took about 24 hours), I started on the macrame portion. Although, you can hardly call this macrame since I used one knot and let the rest of the cord hang down.
The knot I used is called a Lark knot. I used 3 pieces of cord for each knot, roughly 5 feet long; so when they are folded in half after making the knot, 6 pieces of chord hang down from each knot.
To make this knot, fold the cord in half making a U shape.
Place the dowel on top of the cord, a few inches above the bottom of the U.
Working with one side of the U at a time (I started with the right side), fold the cord over the dowel and loop the ends of the cord through the U (so they run under the bottom of the U).
Now, repeat with the left side.
Simply pull on the ends of the chord to tighten. I found I had to pull on each individual chord a few times (as opposed to pulling on all of them together) to get the knot to tighten to my liking.
I repeated this process 7 times with the remaining cord I had.
At this point, I had used all of the macrame cord I had on hand but I still wanted to add a few more knots, so I found some other cotton rope in my craft supplies and added two more Lark knots.
I prefer the uneven length of cord, so I wasn’t too concerned with the pieces of cord all being the exact same length. And I usually start with a little more than I need so that I can trim the ends after tying all the knots.
Then, to connect the dowel to the shelf, I threaded a piece of the macrame cord through both holes that I drilled (I used a wooden skewer to help push the cord through the hole), then tied a figure 8 knot on the top of the shelf and bottom of the dowel. I then trimmed the excess cord.
Then it was time to hang this bow holder on the wall. I found two small L-brackets in the hardware drawer in our shop and spray painted them black with Rust-oleum’s Paint +Primer in semi-gloss black.
When the spray paint was dry, we attached the brackets to the back of the shelf, then attached them to the wall.
The only stud in the area I wanted to attach the shelf lined up with the middle of the shelf, so we attached one bracket to the middle of the shelf and to the stud, and the other bracket to the end of the shelf and to the drywall. Since the shelf and organizer aren’t that heavy, this was plenty for a sturdy attachment.
Another twist on this project that I thought about was to use a metal pipe instead of the wooden dowel since this room has two other shelving units with that industrial wood and metal look, but to be honest I choose the wood since it was easier. It would have taken more time and tools to drill a hole into a metal pipe than it did to drill the holes in the dowel. But if I ever want to switch it out, it would be super easy to loosen the Lark knots and transfer them to a metal pipe for a new look.
This project could be completed with any yarn, rope, or cord (even jute!) you have on hand and I think it would look adorable in a rainbow pattern or any sort of ombre. The cotton cord I used can also be dyed, so you could even dye the cord in an ombre or color block pattern. The possibilities are really endless and I love that that makes this craft super customizable.
Materials:
- Bonnie Craft Cord in Pearl and Gray
- 1″x4″x18″ board, we used an old piece of oak that already had a decorative edge
- 1.125″ wooden dowel, 18″ long
- Minwax Dark Walnut Stain
- Tung Oil Finish
- L-brackets (2)
- Rustoleum Painter’s Touch 2x Ultra Cover Paint and Primer in Black semi-gloss
The best part about this project was it was completely free. I had all of these materials lying around my house just taking up space. If you didn’t have all of the items listed above, none will break the bank and this would still be a pretty inexpensive project.
Have you completed any free or up-cycled projects lately? I’d love to hear about them! Comment below or connect with me on instagram @elleandjaydesign.
This is so lovely! Great idea for storing bows
Thank you! My daughter is loving it so far!
Great idea, I love it!
So adorable! It’s my next project when schools open up and there’s some free time!!