When you adore accessories and love getting dressed up, it only makes sense that you have a bunch of pieces in your collection. So I’m spilling the beans on my secrets and tricks of how this fashionista organizes jewelry.
Quote of the day: It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” Lena Horne
As part of this Where Bloggers Live Collaboration a year ago, we talked about organizing, and I focused on inexpensive and practical jewelry organizational ideas. So you’ve seen some of how this fashionista organizes her jewelry.
But I thought it would be fun to talk about the secrets and tricks that I keep learning. And especially how I keep modifying and evolving my ideas.
In fact, that is the biggest takeaway. Everything needs to evolve over time. Our jewelry collection changes, our location can change, and thus, we need to reevaluate every so often and figure out new ideas.
Finding the Jewelry Cabinet of your Dreams
Is it possible to find one cabinet to store all of your jewelry?? It all depends on how much jewelry you have in your possession, right?
I am not saying that the one I’m showing is right for everyone. There are loads of options that may fit into your space and fill your needs even better.
The idea is to don’t be bullied into thinking you have to use it exactly as it comes. Just as we are the boss of our clothes, you can always change things up and modify what you buy.
So let’s take a peek into one of the ways this fashionista organizes jewelry with this free-standing cabinet.
But before, I open it, I need you to remember, I have a LOT of accessories! In fact, I am almost embarrassed to show you how much I have.
Yet I rationalize that many of these pieces have been given to me as gifts from my friends because they know it’s exactly what I love.
The other thing to remember is I have this style gene passed down to me from my mother, so it’s innate!
Related post: Kitchen organizational gadgets
Another reminder is what you see is what you get. Yes, I could have cleaned things up and made them spic and span before I took these photos, but that’s not me. I will show you real life because that is just how I am. Imperfectly perfect or you might say a masterpiece in progress. Either way, it’s a nice way to tell you to be prepared for a mess, haha.
Tada!! That is the jewelry cabinet that I’ve had for over 11 years and it has lived in three different houses.
Insider detail: When we moved it each time, we closed it up tight with everything in place. Sure a couple of items fell down and had to be reorganized, but most of it stayed where it started. It was amazing.
Original and Modifications
There are a ton of different varieties of this jewelry cabinet, but I found one somewhat similar without anything in it. You can see how my original one had 10 earring rods on the left side and then a bracelet rod above the 2 necklace hooks.
The photo on the above right is from June 2019.
My modification to the original design was to store my necklaces outside this cabinet. Since I wasn’t using the necklace hooks, I used the large area on the right to house my brooches. And I started hanging my pendants on the necklace hooks on the left side.
However, I found myself having more and more earrings that had no good places to rest.
The reason I took the photo on the right was that it was then that I begged my neighbor to create some more earring rods for me in place of the bracelet rod and necklace hooks on the left side.
The photo above is how it turned out. No, I didn’t think it important to paint the wood bars white to match the original earring rods.
And there is another huge difference, which I’ll explain below.
Different Earring Hook Holders
The original jewelry cabinet came with slots to hold the earrings. This is convenient to hold both post earrings as well as hook earrings.
However, when my neighbor was creating the new earring rods, we decided that a hole in the top would be much easier to create.
Therefore, I have all of my post earrings at the top half and my hook earrings at the bottom half. This fashionista organizes jewelry (at least she tries with most of her earrings) by color. So you may notice I keep the silver/gold at the top and then work my way down with the darker colors.
As I explained above, it’s not perfect, but it works for me.
Insider tip: I DO NOT put the backings on my hook earrings when I store them in my cabinet. Yes, I use them when I wear them, but I store all of the backings in one of the cubbies under the brooches and grab them when I need them.
Brooches and Extras
Here is the right side of the jewelry cabinet in more detail. I love that the black material has padding behind it so I can stick my brooches into it.
Some of them I store at the top hooks (which originally are meant for necklaces).
Insider tip: I store my necklaces on a curtain rod with multiple “s” hooks as seen in this post.
The cubbies that are under the brooches are basically a free for all. You can see my Maggie’s Snaps magnet box (found on Amazon) which is undeniably a fabulous tool for all kinds of styling as you’ve seen here.
I also keep my silver polishing cloth in this area as well as a couple of flower pins and scarf clips.
Somehow I would like to modify this area to be a better fit for my jewelry organization needs one of these days. It’s something I’ll have to think about.
More Ideas of How a Fashionista Organizes Jewelry
There is an area in the original jewelry cabinet that is a place for rings, and that’s where I used to keep them until I collected more rings than the spot would hold. Now it is full of my husband’s cuff links and I have relegated my rings to 2 cups on my counter.
I put these rings right where I turn off the light to leave the room, so they are the last thing I add to my outfit.
As for bracelets, I have converted a magazine rack along with my favorite “s” hooks. This too has been modified as originally it only had 4 rods (as seen in my bracelet organization post from 2016). Luckily in our retirement community, there is a metal club group that will work on a person’s items. I took this to them and they sodered a rod at the bottom (for only $5).
Insider tip: I am not a fan of those bracelet trees because in order to get to the bracelet nearest the post, you have to remove all of the others.
Here are two organizers that would work just as well for bracelets. Remember, use your imagination because maybe you have something at home that would work.
So there it is. The secrets of how this fashionista organizes jewelry with her ever-expanding accessories collection.
I’m sure it will evolve more and more as time goes on, and if you ever have any suggestions, I’m all ears.
I hope this gives you ideas of how you can modify whatever jewelry container you end up using. Remember, if it’s not working for you, then it’s time to change it or try a different one.
Where Bloggers Live
What is Where Bloggers Live? It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and hear all about the personal backstories and interesting details? Go take a gander at everyone else’s favorite recipes. This should be a good one.
FYI, we don’t all post at the same time since we all have different schedules and live in different parts of the country
Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own
The Series
We’ve been doing this fun series for a long time as you can see by all of the prompts below from just the last year. Feel free to visit any that might strike your fancy.
Favorite Music
Junk Drawer Essentials
Favorite Holiday
Peep My Ride
Past Pets
Dream House
Favorite Piece of Furniture
Photo Album
Top 5 Favorite Movies
Memories of NYC Trips
Hairstyles from my Childhood
The Truth About How I Blog
A Day in the Life-Field Trip
Food: My 2 Favorite Gluten-Free Breakfast Options
Jewelry Organization
