My jewelry organization

Let’s talk organization again shall we? The past 6 months I have been reorganizing and cleaning up different parts of my room. The last part I reorganized (i.e. I just got rid of a ton of stuff), was my jewelry rack. It is featured in my room tour but also in this post which I wrote over a year ago featuring general organization tips. The rack is actually a kitchen utility rack from IKEA. It was called the Kroken series which sadly is now discontinued. However, any old kitchen rack would suffice or whichever way you prefer to organize your jewelry. Let’s have a look at how I organize mine.

Overview

As I was saying, this rack is originally meant to hold kitchen utensils. The tiered rack that hangs from the bar is in fact a spice rack, my bangles are organized on paper towel holders and my necklaces hang from hook that should hold ladles, spoons and other kitchen gear. Apart from that I hang my earrings from the bar and the spice rack, my long necklaces from nails I hammered into the wall and my rings and floppy bracelets are on the trays of the spice rack. Time for close ups!

Short necklaces & some long ones (on the left)

This looks incredibly messy but that’s mainly because some necklaces have such an odd shape. There is a system behind this though. There are some bracelets (with clasps) all the way on the right, followed by short necklaces with a sturdy, chunky chain. Then we get all necklaces with a leather cord and short necklaces that hang down. Collared neckalces are next followed by three hooks which hold my most worn long necklaces. Those are also organized: smaller pendants to the right, medium pendants in the middle, big pendants on the left.

Long necklaces

I also have some longer necklaces mounted on nails on my wall. These are organized by type as well. I have two nails which hold beads. The other three feature the chunkiest chains and pendants I have. I usually wear the very chunky ones underneath scarves in winter only so for the summer I decided they could be tucked away in the back. There are also some other necklaces which I don’t wear often and which I only take out for certain outfits.

Bangles

This way of storing bangles is simply the best one ever. You can easily see what you have and it is definitely less cluttered. I keep my silver & black bangles on the right holder. The left one holds all other colors.

Hoop earrings & dangling earrings with studs

As you can see I just hang these ones from the bar that holds everything together. Again, I put similar ones together.

Short dangling earrings & odd shaped bracelets/ wristlets

This is pretty self explanatory I think. These are simply my shorter dangling earrings. Again I’ve tried putting similar styles together to keep it organized. The bracelets that are in the tray are odd sized ones that don’t fit with the bangles or my other bracelets.

Rings, studs, long dangling earrings

Again this is very straightforward. Here you can see my longer style dangling earrings hanging from the bottom tier of the spice rack. On the tray I keep my rings, stud earrings and my every day silver jewelry to which I have an emotional attachment (i.e. passed down jewelry from my grandma, a bracelet I received as a graduation gift etc.).

Now you’re probably wondering where this all came from. Very simple: H&M, Sixx, Pieces, Forever 21, Urban Outfitters, Primark and some from Claire’s. I have been keeping my jewelry like this for over a year now and I’ve been loving it. It’s easy to have and keep an overview of the things I have. Before I kept everything in drawers (like the pinks ones which you can glimpse in the picture with the bangles) but those wouldn’t fit bangles and necklaces would get tangled up. I found this solution when I was looking for a cheap and easy way of organizing my jewelry. It cost me less than 5 euros which is much less compared to actual jewelry organizers.

How do you organize your jewelry?

Organise your life: Moleskin agendas

By now I guess it’s clear to everyone that I lead a pretty busy life. Between writing blogs I work in education 3-4 days a week and I am enrolled as a full time student on top of dance classes, gym workouts and social activities. To keep track of it all, I make sure to keep an agenda and I have found the perfect one that can handle listing all different occasions without it becoming a mess: the Moleskin Weekly Notebook.

As you can see I have two: a red one and a black one. Both have a hard cover and one is a 12 month agenda, while the other covers 18 months. I just started using the red one by the way. The black one used to be my agenda. The reason why this agenda in particular is handy is because it comes with the days of the week on the left and a page to take notes on the right. Like so:

Notice how there is a lot of space for writing things down. What I usually do is write my appointments on the left page and my time table/ schedule on the right. I also use it to write to do lists and sometime add post its whenever I shouldn’t forget something that has nothing to do with work or appointments. So after a while the pages become something like this:

I will spare you the craziest weeks that are on these pages, but this gives you a rough idea of what I do with them. Social appointments are also listed and I just stick those in with my regular appointments. I try to keep them as neat as I can, but that doesn’t always work out, as you can see in the picture below.

I had to use arrows and more than one page several times during the week. But still I think it works. Another very handy thing these planners come with are a couple of pages for note taking in the back and in the front you will find your regular agenda stuff: calendars, a ruler, time differences, measurements etc.

What makes Moleskin planners extra handy is that they come with a flap in the back that holds another customizable notebook or an address book. The best part is that these extras can be removed from the planner and reused whenever you buy a new one because they are detachable. Here’s the customizable notebook and below you can see the address book.

Now how handy is that?! I know for a fact that this is the one thing that ensures my ability to keep track of what it is that I’m doing. It fits EVERYTHING I have to write down: from to do lists to exams, from time tables to appointments, to meetings, social events and vacations. I keep my entire life in these things and can’t live without it. Before I struggled with separate calendars or agendas: one for work and one for my social life, but by adding school into the mix it just wasn’t going to work anymore.

Conclusion: These aren’t the cheapest agendas, but they certainly do what they should do.

How do you keep track of your life?

My Wardrobe Organisation

Almost 2 years ago, I had a makeshift wardrobe, consisting of 2 separate closets that were old and rickety. One day, one of the closets decided to collapse on me. All the shelves simply fell down and that’s when I knew: it’s time to buy myself a new closet. I went all over town trying to find the perfect wardrobe. Not only did it have to be bigger than what I had, I also wanted a decent amount of space to hang items rather than to stack them. After much searching I ended up at IKEA, which had been my idea to begin with, where I found the PAX system. It’s a wardrobe system that let’s you customize your entire closet. How convenient! This is the one I bought:

Pax Malm in oak

It’s one of the largest ones they have. Hooray for living in a place with high ceilings. I store my suitcases on top. I had to buy a ladder just so I can reach them (no kidding). However, what is very convenient is that I can now store everything in there. I keep my nightgowns on the side as I found myself not using them when they were inside the closet. The only things not in this closet: socks, scarves, and some shoes and flip flops. The rest of my clothing & clothing related items are in there. Here’s what it looks like on the inside:

Right side

Left side

As you can see I got this closet with sliding doors. They take up less space and are overall very convenient. I also really like the huge mirror. Since the closet is so big, if that door would also be made of wood it would instantly make my room look smaller. Right now, with the added mirror, it makes my room look more spacious and this is now my main mirror when I’m trying on clothes. It has more space for hanging clothes than laying them down and I like it that way. I kept one part long so it would fit dresses and still have space left for shoes underneath. I also added some drawers for underwear and accessories. I’m really happy I got those too as they are super handy and spacious.

Buying a closet that will fill your wardrobe needs, is only part of the solution to wardrobe organisation. The next thing you have to do is decide where and how to put your things into it. My main guidelines here were: how often do I need it + how will I be able to find things quickly? The solution: wise placement & color coding. This is what it led to:

Bottom: shirts, Top: sweaters & cardigans

Both shelves have double stacks. Behind the sweaters there are two more stacks: one with heavy knit sweaters and one with basic long sleeves. I keep my basic tees separate from printed ones and tops with special cuts. Hooded sweaters are kept underneath the drawers behind my shoes as I barely wear them anymore.

Bottom: work out clothes + sweatpants on the left, tank tops & swimwear on the right

Top: pajamas on the left, towels on the right

Dresses

I keep my more formal dresses on the left and my boots & booties are stored underneath the dresses.

F.l.t.r.: bolero/ sleeves, short sleeved button downs, solid long sleeved button downs, patterned long sleeved button downs, zip up cardigans, blazers & jackets.

I keep my heels and extra bedding on the shelf above this rod.

Fl.t.r.: long cardigans & button downs, skirts, shorts, jeans, pants, leggins, jeggings & treggings, neat pants, communion dress (in bag)

The shoes I store here are mostly sneakers and some older shoes that I don’t grab for all the time. There are also some heels here that didn’t put up on the shelf anymore.

As you can see, everything is color coded from light colors on the left (or on top) to dark colors to the right (or at the bottom). Exceptions are skirts and shorts, for some reason I switched that the other way round. The dresses are organised slightly differently as well:  formal dresses are on the left followed by summer dresses. It then goes into pink, red, cream/ nude, brown, blue, grey and black. Don’t ask me how that happened, but it works for me. I can quickly find whatever it is I need and because I have so much hanging space I can easily see what I have.

Do you have any tips on how to organise a wardrobe?