Am I the only one who has absolutely zero organization for my jewelry?
Like, seriously, when I get dressed in the morning I have to spend about ten minutes rooting around in the linen closet just to find a necklace, much less find one I really want to wear. And if I actually have a specific necklace in mind? Forget about it – it’s just not gonna happen. Last week, I finally got to the point where I just. couldn’t. take. it. anymore. and I told Corey and I wasn’t going to put any of my jewelry away until I had a better way to organize it. About two days of that, and I think we were both about ready to lose our minds, so we decided that something had to change immediately.
So…I picked up this set of antlers from Hobby Lobby. Yup – antlers. I figured they would be perfect to hold my necklaces and keep them in a place where I could actually see them. I found this in the “Men’s Decorating” section, or something ridiculous like that, and it just happened to be 50% off! So, for about $12.00, I got the perfect set of faux antlers to hold my jewelry.
…Or, at least I knew it would be perfect once I made it a little less ugly. But we’ll get to that in a minute.
I also grabbed this cheap-o gold frame from Goodwill for $2.99. It was even uglier than the antlers, but it had some pretty detailing on it and while it looked awful to have the ornate detail combined with the gold, I knew that with a quick coat of paint it would be looking much better.
Let’s start with the frame – my plan was to use it to organize my earrings. For years, I’ve just kept them in a little plastic tackle box with dividers, but I was definitely suffering from the “out of sight, out of mind” syndrome and I rarely used any of the earrings that I owned. And when I did use them, I rarely took the time to put them back in the tackle box, so they were just floating all over the place. So, the goal was to have them visible and easy to access (and easy to put away!) so that I’d be more likely to actually use them on a regular basis.
I grabbed some chicken wire from Lowe’s (I think it was something like $12.00 for this insane amount – I’m going to have to dream up some other projects so I can use it all!) and gave my frame a few quick coats of glossy black spray paint.
All I did was cut some chicken wire out to fit in the frame, pop it in, and call it a day.
Super simple, right? I used Command Picture Hanging Strips to hang it up, because I had plans to hang it on the inside of our linen closet door and I knew I wouldn’t be able to use a nail. I popped three strips on and then pressed it to the door – the whole thing took about 2 minutes to hang!
Then all that was left to do was fill ‘er up!
I absolutely love how easy it is now to access my earrings, and I know I’m going to be a lot more likely to wear them. I’ve got plenty of room to add more, so maybe I can finally lift the “no-earrings-because-I’ll-never-wear-them-anyways” ban I put on myself awhile ago.
Next up, let’s check out my antlers. These required even less work because all they needed was a few coats of white spray paint and they were ready to hold all of my necklaces! I was definitely having a similar “out of sight, out of mind” problem with some of my necklaces, because I was starting to notice that I was rotating through the same 3 or 4 necklaces and I kept forgetting that I even owned some of them. I’m sure part of my problem was the fact that I had absolutely no organization system for them before – they were all scattered in about four different places, and they were all just tossed into different jewelry boxes with no organization or system. Getting them all out to hang on my new antlers gave me a chance to get rid of some of the ones I’ll never wear and to organize them a bit better so that I can actually see what I have and hopefully switch it up a bit more.
We hung it right next to my sink for now, but someday when we get around to gutting and re-decorating this bathroom it may migrate around a bit. I definitely like having it near my sink, though, because I’m a lot more likely to browse through my necklaces while I’m getting ready in the morning, and I’ve already found myself switching it up a bit more than usual.
I’m completely head-over-heels in love with my new jewelry organization system, and I am very hopeful that it will keep me motivated to actually wear all of the jewelry I have. Plus, I’ll take just about any excuse I can to display more shiny white animals (or…parts of animals) in my home!
How do you organize your jewelry? Do you have a brilliant system, or do you just toss it into random places?