Rustic Headband Hanger

My headband obsession is out of control. Seriously. Baby girl has barely enough hair on her head to even guess what color it is, yet I put a headband on her every day. The joys of having a real life doll to dress up, I guess!

With all the headbands comes the challenge of headband storage. I wanted to make something personalized that would fit the decor in her room or bathroom, but not too "little girl" that she would grow tired of it as she got older. Here's what I came up with, and how I did it!

Supplies:

- Scrap wood. If you don't have any scrap wood laying around, go to your nearest Home Depot or Lowes. There is usually scrap lumber laying under the cutting table that is leftover from someone else project that they'll let you have for cheap (or free!).

- Screw in white hooks. You can pick these up at the hardware store too but I bought mine here.

- Wood Stain. Here's the one I used.

- Acrylic or chalk paint.

- Stencil. You can make your own, or phone a friend like I did! My friend with a Silhouette cut mine from vinyl for me and provided the transfer paper for me as well, thanks D!

- Sawtooth picture hanger

Steps:

First sand the wood to get rid of any slivers and rough edges. You'll want to sand the ends, and all corners of the sides particularly well, almost to a beveled corner.

Next, distress your wood. I used both ends of a regular hammer all over the place, and I hit a screw a few times onto the board to leave imprints. Additionally I used a meat mallet to give the look of "worm holes" common in old wood. Finally I took a white finishing nail, put it in about halfway and then bent it down.

Distressed Wood - Screw effect

Distressed wood - meat mallet

Distressed wood - Bent nail

I used a Minwax Grey stain on this project, two coats, and left it to dry for a few hours.

After the stain dried I stenciled her name on with the vinyl, and screwed in the hooks! Lesson learned, tap in the hooks with a hammer first to set them and then start turning, it saves the thumbs!

Stenciling the Name

Stencil removed!

Hooks screwed in

Lastly I put in the sawtooth hook and hung it up! Pretty cute project, and cost me about $15 in wood stain and hooks - yay!