Raise your hand if you like to wear jewelry. I do. I really like wearing jewelry. It looks nice, it sometimes tinkles (in a good way) when it moves, and wearing it just makes me feel good. When I was single, I didn’t have much interest in expensive, aka ‘fine’ jewelry, so most of the jewelry I had was bought on whims at places like Target and Express. In the last few years, I’ve started becoming more of a grown up when it comes to my jewelry, and I’ve acquired the occasional piece of fine jewelry. I love how each piece has its own story which gives it a special meaning and sentimental value for me.
For many years, I didn’t wear much jewelry at all. I stayed at home with my children for 6 years. If you’ve ever been around small children, you know that wearing jewelry can be a dangerous undertaking. Infants learning how to grasp gravitate towards dangly earrings and pendants, and often pull on anything they can get to with their cute chubby little fingers. So, I didn’t wear jewelry much when I stayed home with my children. When I went back to work, I had little use for jewelry. I rarely attended video calls. I had the best intentions of working out at the drop of a hat and therefore put off putting on jewelry in case that were to occur, which sadly, it rarely did. The kids were still small, so we didn’t get out much for dressy occasions. Since my acquisition of a Fitbit in 2016, my small collection of watches has gone untouched in the back of a drawer.
My personal style now includes a mix of older costume jewelry and a few nice pieces sprinkled in – an anniversary gift, an impromptu vacation acquisition, etc. When I’m preparing for my day, I tend to think about putting on jewelry before make-up. My hair usually goes up into a ponytail, or messy-bun-type-thingy even before it’s dry. I used to think “I can’t wear jewelry if I don’t have on make-up,” or “It will look weird if I wear jewelry without my hair being done,” but I’m rarely seen without jewelry these days. If I want to wear a sapphire pendant and earrings without a drop of make-up, then I’m doing it. If someone wants to judge or think less of me because of it, so be it.
Now that my mind is focused on wearing jewelry more often, it’s only natural that I have recently set my organizing sights on my jewelry box. Ahh, my jewelry box – a beautiful dark wood large floor piece given to me by my in-laws many years ago. It’s soo nice on the outside, but oh what lurked inside! Drawers with items that had been tossed in so I could move on to the next endeavor, silver jewelry with tarnish so dark it was hard to tell what color it was supposed to be, and so on.
I figured I could use my 4-D process to reclaim my jewelry box. As a refresher, my steps are discover, declutter, design, and deliver. I started by emptying out a couple drawers onto my bed. I realized pretty quickly that I needed an array of small containers to sort things. I gathered some and created categories – donate or gift, clean, repair, sets, pendants, bracelets, watches, rings, earrings, cleaners and storage, sentimental, and Nick’s. I (finally) took a few pieces to get appraised and watches that had stopped working to a jeweler recommended by a friend. This was something I had been wanting to do for well, let’s just say a while. I cleaned my silver pieces with a liquid silver cleaner. Since my costume jewelry was mostly older than 10 years, this took a while. I would dip, rinse, and check, dip, rinse, and check. I repaired little things. I pulled out the pieces that I no longer liked and designated some to gift to young ladies in my life, even if it’s just for playing dress up. I like to wear matching sets – earrings, necklace, ring, and bracelet or whatever subset I have, so I knew I wanted to put sets together for super-easy access.
My goal was to be able to quickly see everything I had and ‘grab and go’ what I wanted. The top ‘drawer’ has slots, and since that is the easiest area to get to, I wanted to leverage that as much as I could. I wanted to make sure I had enough compartments overall to keep my pieces separated, so earrings didn’t get tangled up and I could easily pick up only what I wanted. I browsed through the aisles of HomeGoods and TJ Maxx and searched on Amazon for solutions. My drawers are small, only about 8×9, so I kept coming up empty-handed. At HomeGoods, I found silicone ice cube trays with lids, and I brought them home. While not perfect, they fit nicely in the drawers, providing the separate compartments I wanted. And, if I want to prevent items from getting dusty, I can put on the lids. I wanted more hooks for my necklaces to prevent stacking on any given hook, so I installed additional adhesive hooks in my necklace cabinets. Working with the allotted spaces in my jewelry box, I used taller drawers for taller items, and larger compartments for sets. I tried to place rings and post-type earrings, and extra pendants in the top section slots.
Working through every item was a tedious task but I wanted to minimize what went in the trash. I finally settled on a starting arrangement and started playing around with the details until it felt like a good system. I made labels and placed them where I could easily see them. The labels will help me remember the categories and zones I created. I’m all about function, so I debated putting the labels on the outside but opted for putting them inside as to not detract from the aesthetics of the jewelry box itself. The only thing I need to wrap up is deciding which pieces will go to which of my young friends and when. I’m thinking Christmas is right around the corner and these would be great gifts! Keep calm and accessorize, my friends!
6 section drawer-Before Before Before Before Before Before Before Before Sorting Drawer labels-After Top section-After 9 Compartment Drawer-After 6 Compartment Drawer-After Ice cube trays used as dividers Bracelets-After Cleaning and Storage-After Colored Necklaces-After
