Thumb Drive Holder

Those of you who know me personally can confirm that as a "creatively cluttered" person, I spend about 7-10% of my waking hours trying to find something I've lost amidst the daily chaos. Car keys, cell phone, you name it, but there's nothing worse than trying to find a missing thumb drive. Most of mine are smaller than my pinkie finger: it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack!

I've been keeping my USB flash drives in my earring bowl, but I recently decided it was high time these little guys had their own home. And thus, the "thumbprint" thumb drive organizer was born! This project took me less than thirty minutes to complete and required no special tools... I didn't even need a screwdriver! Ready to never, ever lose a thumb drive again? You and me both, friend!

What you'll need:

• small frame (sized to hold 4x6" or 5x7" photos)
• stretched burlap canvas (currently on sale at Michaels)
• photo mat
• printables (see below)
• 5/8" cup hooks ($1 for a 4-pack at Home Depot)
• stamp pad
• scissors/x-acto knife

Step 1: First, use the frame backing as a guide for sizing your stretched burlap canvas. Then, break out your x-acto knife and get to cutting! This may well be the toughest part of the project: you'll need a lot of elbow grease to cut through the multiple layers of burlap and cardboard! I was delighted to discover that the burlap was thoroughly glued to the cardboard underneath, so the burlap continued to hold its shape, even after I cut through the final layer.

To download, right-click the image and choose "Save Image As..."

I tried this out with over a dozen different fonts, and these two fonts were my favorites! They are Porter Sans Block and Foglihten No 01, respectively. 

Step 2: Using your stamp pad, leave your thumbprint on your chosen printable. To save yourself trips to the printer, I recommend taking a few practice thumbprints before making your final print, so you can get a good feel for what it will look like.

Step 3: Cut out the printable, and cut the photo matte to be slightly larger than the printable. I waited until later to do this, but you can now glue the printable onto the photo matte, then glue the photo matte onto the stretched burlap. I used regular Elmer's Glue, and it worked great! 

Step 4: Lay out your printable and thumb drives as you want them to look. Using a pen or sharpie, put a tiny mark slightly above where you want each thumb drive to hang.

Step 5: Screw in the cup hooks right on top of your sharpie marks. Since you'll be screwing them into cardboard (instead of real wood), you don't actually need a screwdriver for this step. Just use some force and keep turning! Once it's in part way, getting it in the rest of the way will be a little easier.

Step 6: If your thumb drives don't already have hangers, you can use a piece of string or hemp twine to make your own. Cut a small piece of string, fold it back on itself, then knot the end. Feed the loop halfway through the hole in your thumb drive (most thumb drives have one), then feed it back through the other end of your loop. That ought to hold it! 

Step 8 (optional): Since the cup hooks went all the way through the stretched burlap canvas and the frame backing would no longer fit onto the frame, I took matters into my own hands! I super-glued a piece of balsa wood to the back, then super-glued picture hanging hardware into the balsa wood. If I'd been slightly more ambitious (or had a screw driver handy), I would have put the picture backing flush to the stretched burlap canvas, then screwed the cup hooks all the way through both layers. 

I loved the way the gold frame matched the gold cup hooks, but the frame had some weird black detailing that didn't match the rustic, antiquey vibe of the rest of our home decor. My plan was to spray paint the frame, then distress some of the gold back through, but I loved the way it looked so much after two layers of spray paint that I couldn't bring myself to distress it! Spray paint is such a great and easy way to give new life to an old frame.

Another craft project to remind me that the littlest things in life that can bring the greatest joy: like never, ever, ever losing another thumb drive!