Organizing your make-up brushes...

One of my good friends introduced me to this fabulous idea of using a flower frog as a make-up brush holder. I loved how it looked on her dresser so much, that I've been hoping to buy one for myself ever since. I've never found it cheap enough for me to justify the purchase (I know, I'm a cheapskate!), but my dear sister-in-law knew I wanted one, and bought me one for my Birthday! Yay!
Now isn't this a genius way to organize your make-up brushes? Now I just need to clean them one of these days...

Hanging Jewelry

This is where I hang the majority of my necklaces. I have a jewelry box, but quickly ran out of room there. I tried laying my necklaces in a spare box, but they always got tangled. I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and found these little wall-hangers for about $10 each. They are not made specifically for jewelry, but they work for me! I have them hanging on my bedroom wall, and I think they add a little something to the room.

These are sand dollars I found at the beach, took home, and bleached. They fit perfectly across the top of the hanger!

Session Six: Organizing Your Jewelry

A few months ago my little sister suggested an idea for organizing jewelry. I thought I would expound on this and add a few more suggestions.


One of my favorite jewelry organizing ideas is the necklace/bracelet pegboard. Here are the instructions on how to create it.

With a little more research I found Martha Stewart's ideas and was inspired! Her idea of using teacups and saucers (see below) is certainly a beautiful sight for any plain dresser drawer. Now I have an excuse to go antique shopping more often.

You can find more of her aesthetically pleasing ideas here.

One of the commenters on Martha's website mentioned that she hangs her earrings from an elegant champagne glass on her dresser. Her idea made me realize that you could really use anything to hang your earrings on, so I decided to see what I could do with what I already had on my dresser. I have a metal basket on my dresser to hold my perfumes/hair products/body lotions, so I decided to hang all my earrings from that. Everything fit perfectly!

Some other ideas would be to place earrings in ice cube trays and place in your drawer. This idea would work well for organizing rings too. You could use egg cartons if you want to go the cheapest route. Tackle boxes, coat racks, tie racks, and even nails on a wall (like I did in my closet - see below) work well too.

How do you organize your jewelry?

Traveling Day

I'm traveling to see my sister Missi and decided that I don't want to bother with the hassle of checking a bag. Since I'll only be there five days, and we probably won't be going out much (since she just had her second baby), I figured it would be easy to fit everything in a back pack if I planned my outfits right.

I sketched this out to give myself an idea of outfits, and ended up sticking with this pretty much exactly:
If you actually want to see what these outfits look like read on:

Day one is traveling, and I plan on wearing this. Day 2 I'll keep the jeans, shoes, and jewelry, and just add this top and a yellow scarf instead. Day 3 I'll wear this, but instead of the boots, I'll keep the yellow flats and the yellow scarf. Day 4 I'll go back to the jeans I traveled in, but wear the t-shirt pictured in the second outfit here and my brown sandal bootie heels. For Day 5 I plan on wearing my trouser jeans, black pumps, and this jacket. Not pictured, but along with the red scarf, I'll add this belt. And on my last day, which will also be a travel day, I'll wear this top with the trouser jeans I'll have worn the day before with either my yellow flats or brown heels.

And in case you were wondering, yes. Everything did fit in my trusty backpack. I wish I could afford a stylish carry-on, but I am cheap, so I'm just going to use the backpack I had from high school. Ha!

Below is a pic of what didn't have to be packed since it will be what I'm wearing. My bag (Helen Welsh bag given to me from a friend) fit all my make-up and snacks so I didn't have to pack that.

A benefit in traveling to go see my sister is that we pretty much wear the same size, so if I didn't pack enough, I can always borrow from her!

Session Five: Organizing Your Shoes

To organize your shoes, first you need to:

1. Remove out-of-season shoes from your closet to make space for your new in-season shoes.

2. Next discard any shoes that are beyond repair and give away any shoes you no longer wear.

3. Store your shoes properly so as to help them retain their life. For example:

Jessica Schroeder of What I Wore offers a brilliant solution for storing knee-high boots and helping them retain their shape:

Picture taken from http://whatiwore.tumblr.com/post/284778211/build-your-wardrobe-retail-math

Use an old bottle. Isn't that a fabulous way to recycle bottles too?

Picture taken by Mark Lund and taken from http://www.realsimple.com

Another idea for storing knee-high boots would be to roll up already read magazines - as many as needed to fill up the boot to make it stand upright.

For tips on how to properly store high quality shoes that you wear only for special occasions, go here.

4. Also, be sure to regularly polish your shoes.

5. Organize your shoes in your closet.

Wouldn't it be glorious if we each had a shoe closet like Mariah Carey? Sigh.

Picture taken from http://gracemagazine.wordpress.com/

Since we don't all have the luxury of a shoe closet, try to utilize the shelf space in your closet by purchasing shoe racks, cubby holes, or build extra shelves into your closet. For some of us, the floor is a good option as well.

Session Four: How to Organize Your Hats

Organizing your hats may seem simple enough--just place them on a shelf, right? But, if you have over a dozen hats (like me), you may not have enough shelves!

In my last closet, I had a long plaque with hooks on it that fit all my hats quite nicely, but I don't have that luxury in my current closet. Right now I have a few hats scattered about the house on empty shelves. Very unorganized.

Here are a few ideas:

1. Use your hats as part of your decor. Purchase affordable hat boxes (try undecorated boxes at Michael's or Family Dollar), and decorate the boxes in wrapping paper, fabric, and/or ribbon that match the colors in the room. Set them on a dresser or stacked high on the floor in a corner. You can even use your stacked hatboxes as a nightstand.

Picture taken from designbycathleen.blogspot.com

Of course, you can purchase hatboxes already decorated for under $25 if you really search. I found Amazon to have some pretty good prices.

If you're really ambitious, you can try your hand at making your own hat boxes.

2. You can also try this practical route for $25:


3. Another charming way to store your hats is to hang them on a coat/hat rack.
Wal-Mart carries this stylish coat/hat rack for under $50, but I found wood coat racks for as low as $20 on Amazon.

4. If you just own fabric floppy hats, or baseball caps, this hat rack for under $10 is a great idea too.

5. Lastly, the shelf idea works too. In fact, for those hats you rarely wear, or only wear one season out of the year, you can utilize space by using those empty shelves that you never use because they are too hard to reach and store your hats in clear plastic bags.

Good luck!

Session Three: How to Organize Your Belts

To continue with our discussion on closet organization, let's talk about how to organize your belts...

Just like the idea of hanging your scarves on your wall as part of your wall decor, you can also use your belts to decorate.

Picture from www.marthastewart.com

Missi found this fab idea from her In Style mag last summer, and implemented it successfully into her room decor. You coil your belts in a sheer container and set it on your dresser. Voila!

For a more practical way of storing your belts, buy pegboard to line the walls of your closet, and simply hook your belts on the pegboard.

Picture from www.marthastewart.com

Or you can always buy a belt hanger.

Picture from http://www.shelterpop.com/2010/04/06/spring-spruce-up-organizing-accessories-and-jewelry/

Or Casey shows you how to make a belt hanger yourself.

A towel rack, tie rack, or wall pegs work too.

Just remember, if your accessories are organized, within reach, and spaced out so each individual accessory is visible, you will be more likely to incorporate them into your wardrobe, making them worth the money you spent on them...and making you look more stylish and classy!

Session Two: Organizing Your Closet

Now that you've eliminated what should not be in your closet, and added what should be in your closet (spring/summer clothes), it's time to organize what's there.

Tip of the day: How to store your scarves.

A space saving way for storing your scarves is by purchasing a scarf hanger:

Of course there are other ways to organize your scarves - you could buy a plastic bin and roll your scarves, stuff them in the bin, and store the bin on a shelf in your closet. Or, you could buy a towel holder and drape them over that in your closet. You could also buy hooks and decorate a wall in your room by placing a collage of hooks that you can drape your scarves over.
Picture taken from: http://homedesign.marthastewart.com/img/uploads/2010/01/Scarves-S-346x440.jpg

Or - follow these tips for storing your scarves.

What creative ways do you use to store your scarves? Please share!

Session One: Spring Cleaning Your Wardrobe

Yep, it's that time of year again. It's spring! And spring means it's time for spring cleaning--spring cleaning your closet that is.

Step 1: Pull out any fall/winter item that you never ended up wearing this past fall/winter. Put it in a pile to bring to Goodwill or your attic to save for your granddaughters to play in later. If you didn't end up wearing it at all, there is no point in letting it fill up space in your closet.

Step 2: Throw out clothes with holes or permanent stains in them. Remember all those tights you wore this winter? Probably one or two of them have a run already and should be cleared out from your drawers.

Picture taken from ehow.com

Step 3: Clear your closet out of any winter only items to make way for summer only items (wool overcoats and heavy bulky sweaters).

Step 4: Determine what wardrobe items you have that will work great as "crossover" pieces; i.e., what items can be worn in the summer or the spring/fall. Put your crossover pieces in an accessible part of your closet/drawers, because you will be wearing these items a lot as spring weather can be very fickle!

Picture taken from beachfloatabroad.blogspot.com

Step 5: Organize your closet (I'll post more on organization tips in a future post).

Step 6: Get out the shoe polish and polish up all those winter shoes that got good and grubby over the fall/winter so you can preserve them for next year.

Picture taken from lighterfootstep.com

Step 7: Pull out your spring/summer clothes!

Picture taken from womansday.com

Answer to a reader question

Hi. i am a follower of your blog and i must say i admire you for your fashion taste and thriftiness.
Speaking of jewelries and accessories, would you mind posting a picture of your jewelry and accessories organiser in your closet. i just wanted to see so i can have idea. my jewelries are a mess, just scattered on top of my dresser. :(

thanks in advance.

Well, you asked...so here are the pictures:
The picture above shows my necklaces, scarves, and bracelets. All strung on nails that I hammered into a board in my closet.

The other wall is where I hang my belts and molded bras.
I keep the shoes I wear the most out on the most reachable shelf, and stock my off-season shoes behind or on the unreachable shelves.
Bags are all lined on the top shelf along with my hats.
These are the inside shelves that contain the shoes I don't wear as often.
And just for fun...here are the stacks of fashion catalogs/magazines I peruse to get ideas. I know, I'm addicted!

Clean Out Your Closet

I found myself quite disturbed the other day when trying to pick an outfit for going out to dinner. It seemed that every thing I pulled out of my closet either looked bad on me, didn't fit, or needed to be mended. After several minutes of searching for just the right outfit, I decided to purge my closet.

Piles of clothes later, I finally had a much neater, albeit smaller closet full of clothes. I boxed up the old piles, and returned to achieve the impossible: find something to wear. Much to my surprise, I felt like I had a lot more outfits than I had before. Now, everything in my closet fit, looked good, and was in great condition. Anything I would pull out now would be great, and there wasn't just one outfit, there were several.

For those of you who feel like you have nothing to wear, cleanse your closet and you may find that you have a whole lot more than you think.