The Year of Organized Living- Costume Jewelry

I'm not much of a jewelry person. I rarely wear more than the stud earrings that I leave in all of the time. However, like most women, I have accumulated a collection over the years and figuring out the best way to organize it, has been a challenge.

When I first started at my most recent stint in retail, I had to dress up for work. This was uncharted territory for me. All of my past jobs have been blue jean appropriate. In the four and half months that I spent working for Nordstrom, I not only purchased new clothes, but had to get creative with skirts and tops that had previously been labeled my "church/funeral" attire. In addition, completing the outfit with jewelry was not merely recommended, but mandatory.

This wasn't such a bad thing. Dressing up can be fun and I rediscovered a lot of pieces lurking in both my closet and jewelry box.

I own two very pretty cherry wood jewelry boxes from the Bombay Company.

On a side note, I believe all of the Bombay Company Stores have closed in the US, but was happy to see one alive and well on our trip to Vancouver. That was always one of the best stores for browsing. I've always wanted one of their full length mirrors!

So, I have these two jewelry boxes, one belonged to my mom, but the problem is, they don't hold a lot. They are more beautiful than functional. The only part that is truly functional are the velvet rows to hold rings. My problem was all of my necklaces and bracelets turned into a tangle of knots and were getting ruined. I needed a solution.

Cue Ikea ( You probably thought this was going to be another Bed, Bath and Beyond rave, didn't you?)

Dan and I were walking in the kitchen department when inspiration struck.

The bars and hooks were shown in Ikea to hold kitchen utensils, but Dan had the idea to repurpose them to hold my necklaces and bracelets. It worked perfectly and was less than fifteen dollars for the whole set up. Nothing gets tangled, everything is easy to find and it's mounted to the wall, so it doesn't take up additional space. We picked the red hooks to match the red theme in our bedroom.

This was one of my favorite organization projects. Since I can easily see my jewelry and access it, I wear it much more often, even though am no longer working for Nordstrom.

Unfortunately, I still have messy jewelry boxes, as not everything could fit on the wall. I picked the pieces that I wear most often for the wall. The remainder of the jewelry is another project waiting for an inspiring solution.

The Year of Organized Living- Martha Stewart Edition

A few weeks ago, Dan and I acquired a few organization tools from Staples. We had a coupon and browsed the Martha Stewart collection of office supplies. She has some great stuff that is not only cute, but very functional. I made a mental check-list for more things that I would like to purchase in the future.

Sadly, we are on a limited budget, so we walked out with two items.

The first resolved a big problem. We didn't have a good place for incoming mail. The mail sat in little piles all over the living room and we only dealt with it when the situation got out of control. This created unacceptable clutter. Our solution was this Martha Stewart Letter Pocket that now hangs on our wall, beneath our key holder. It's a visual reminder of the mail and so far, we have been much better with properly filing documents, paying bills and throwing out junk. It has been an indispensable organizational tool.

Our second problem is dinner time. We often fail to plan dinner and this means of course, that we have created a plan to fail. It has led to loads of eating out and unhealthy choices. Admittedly, right now we have a lot going on and most nights, one of us is out of town. However, I'm hopeful that things will calm down in the near future and we can use this board to plan meals for the week, helping us stick to a grocery budget and a healthy eating plan, together as a team.

Our Martha Stewart week board. Unfortunately, it's not magnetic, so we used our magnet collection to hold it up. Please don't judge the meal choices or messy writing!

The week board has a sticky back, but we didn't want to make anything gummy, so we used our magnet collection to hold it up. It made a cute frame of all of our vacation memories. We also had to buy the dry erase markers separately.

I'm trying to figure out a use for the Martha Stewart labels and tags, because I think that they are so adorable. If I can justify their use, they will be purchased the next time we are at Staples. I'm thinking maybe for closet and kitchen organization. There is still so much to be done in the house!

Super cute Martha Stewart Labels. I covet them!!!!

The Year of Organized Living- Bags

We had a serious, out of control problem in our household. It was a problem that spanned two floors, infected two closets and created daily chaos. I am talking about bags.

Between the two of us, Dan and I have all sorts of bags. We have gym bags, tote bags, backpacks, shopping bags, rucksacks, purses (just me), et... and these bags refused to stay organized, even when I neatly placed them on the shelves.

Every time we opened up the closets, the bags would come tumbling down. I needed to figure out a way to keep them in line, while maintaining accessibility.

I found the solution at my favorite store, Bed, Bath and Beyond.

I bought two packages of the tall size of the Lynk Shelf Dividers.

I originally thought to use them in the hall closet for the towels, as show in the picture on the packaging, but I have a different idea for the closet. Stay tuned. I thought for ten bucks, it was worth giving the Lynk Dividers a shot at taming the bag situation.

Here are pictures of the problem. We had bags on both the top shelf of the coat and guest bedroom closets.

Coat Closet- sorry so dark, it's the best that I could get.

Guest Bedroom closet.

I cleared all of the bags from both closets and placed them in piles based on function. We found a bunch that we no longer needed or wanted, so that culled the pile considerably. It was stuff didn't even realize that we had, because it had been at the bottom of the pile in the closet. The primary reason for this cleaning binge is to really use the stuff that we own and to eliminate the superfluous.

I wanted to make everything fit in the guest bedroom closet and it did. Not only is it neat, but we freed up a ton of prime storage space in the coat closet.

I had four of the dividers to work with, so it created five separate sections. Two for Dan's things, one for our mutual bags (like the beach bag and insulated picnic bag), one for my stuff and one for our hats. Admittedly, I cheated some, as I have one box of purses (clutches/evening bags) in the master closet, but most of our stuff is in the guest bedroom. It does seem like a ridiculous amount for two people, but we really do use them all.

Here is the finished product.

I am happy with the end result. I did this several weeks ago and it's been very easy to remove a particular bag from the shelf without having the entire collection come tumbling down.

The dividers are very solid and stay put. If anything, I would caution really knowing where you want to place them, before sliding them into place. They are removable, but it takes some muscle. It's good though, because they stay ridged.

I highly recommend the Lynk Shelf Dividers for closet organization.