Cabeleireiro

Monday, April 4, 2011

I know some of you still have snow on the ground, but for us Floridians summer is already kicking into high gear. And summer means flip flops.

Yep, we southern girls have 'em for everything: casual wear, evening wear, 'flops with heels, 'flops with big poofy flowers glued on...you name it. They're cheap impulse buys, so it's easy to accumulate a whole mountain of flip-flops in a single season.

But say you don't like the "mountain" storage method. Say you need to get your mound o' 'flops off the floor and into a tidy system, but are limited on space. What then?

Well, how about this?

[pic]
This was my no-cost solution last year: a left over curtain rod mounted on two shelf brackets, and lots of modified hangers. For the rod you could also use a wooden dowel, piece of PVC pipe, or any other strong bit of metal. To mount it we bent up the tips of two metal shelf brackets and secured the rod with small screws, but you could also use conventional closet rod hangers, which you can find in any hardware store.

Now, the fun part is the actual hangers. Here's how to make them:

[pic]First, grab a handful of the flimsiest metal hangers you can find in your closet. (You want to be able to bend them with your hands, if possible.) You'll also need a pair of needle-nosed pliers.

Cut off the bottom section of the hanger like so:

[pic]You may need to score the metal with the pliers and then snap it with your hands.

Now take your pliers and roll up the two edges, like this:

[pic]This gets the sharp edges safely out of the way, and also looks kind of cute.

Now, using both your hands and your pliers, bend your hanger into this approximate shape:

[pic]Kind of like a stick figure flexing his muscles. :)

Now, to be honest, you could just stop here. I did, for over a year. The hangers are perfectly functional, if a bit chippy and drab.

I recently went back and decided to pretty them up, though. First I put a fresh coat of