DIY Wednesday on a Thursday {Craft Show Display}

If you remember from a few posts back, I recently had another craft show where I needed a simple, affordable & CUTE solution for hanging purses.  Oh yes, and it needed to fit in my Camry.

I have always loved those chicken wire framed jewelry holders, but have never owned enough jewelry to make it worth my while to have one.  But I do have a lot of handbags & as I was dreaming up display ideas, the thought of making a GIANT chicken wire framed {handbag} holder made me super excited.  I drew up some terrible  visually striking blueprints for the display, with two framed chicken wire panels hinged to each other.  Thankfully I have a husband who is willing to look past my poor architectural/engineering skills & who is able to make my plans become reality.

So here is a peak into how we he did it.

First, we built two large frames from 2x4s.  The height and width requirements were determined from the largest possible height and width that would fit into my car.  So I think it ended up being 6' tall x 3.5' wide.

Once the frames were made & painted, we unrolled our chicken wire & used a staple gun to secure it to the back of each frame.

The frame on the left is turned right side up, with the chicken wire already secured to the backside & the frame on the right is waiting to be stapled.

Once the chicken wire was stapled to each frame, we used wire cutters to cut of the excess.

We hinged the frames at two places & were able to fold it up and load it into the car with care.  The hinging also provided stability, so that the frames could stand up on their own beside my table.   I used simple S-hooks & clothespins to hang my purses from the chicken wire.   

And the final product:

{Thanks to my hubby}

Overall we were really pleased with the affordability & ease of this project.  It was done in basically one day & I think the most expensive thing we had to buy was the staple gun, but that will be used for many projects down the road.  I want to say that the 2x4s were about $3 a piece & the chicken wire came out to about $6.  I bought sample paint from lowes for another $3 and the S-hooks were about $2 per package.

It was much cheaper than buying an actual purse display rack {and much cuter, if you ask me}.  And cuteness goes a LONG way in craft show displays.  People are really drawn to a booth by not only the products, but by how they are displayed.  Your display will either add to or take away from the products you  are showcasing, so here's to cute & simple displays!