Mission Organization: Sorting the Polishes

My polish collection has been in desperate need of organization for quite a while now. The one Helmer I have has overflown a long time ago with my collection being slightly over 700 polishes. It got to the point of being out of control with polishes being stashed anywhere they would fit. A while ago I showed you this five drawer chest that I bought at IKEA for the purpose of polish organization, but I had not gotten around to filling it until now so I can show you a peek at my collection...

I mentioned earlier that the office space has recently been updated with two new tables so that my boyfriend and I could each have a proper work space. The new table happens to be MUCH smaller than my old table so all the polish got evicted to make room for paperwork and such. The good news is that the old table is now in my craft room and hopefully will be a better space for my polishes!

To start, I pulled all the polish that I could find out of my stashing places and grouped them by brand in boxes on the table. It was kind of scary to see them all in one place. Here is the table covered with polish. As for what is under the table, the Helmer is currently empty and I still have not decided what will be stored there. The colorful storage on the right side actually holds jewelry making supplies...

A bit of a close up of what is in the boxes as they stand on the table, all grouped by brand...

Ok, so finally time to stick everything into the 5-drawer chest. I had visions in my head how everything would fit and leave me plenty of room to grow. Seeing this thing almost full is quite the slap in the face. Rather than group them as I originally intended, I ended up trying to make sure it all fits. Should I be seeking support here? Is this a sign I have a problem?...

Drawer 1 contains Wet 'n Wild, Sinful Colors, Petites, Borghese, Avon plus other polishes that I only have a few of...

Drawer 2 contains Sally Hansen, Pure Ice, Ulta, SpaRitual minis, L'Oreal, Shimmer, Cosmetic Arts, Maybelline, Rimmel, Dr.'s Remedy. How do you like my tissue box dividers? Yeah, those will need to be changed at some point...

Drawer 3 is Zoya, Barielle, Essie, China Glaze, piCture pOlish... a teeny bit of room left in this one...

Drawer 4 is OPI, Nicole by OPI, Essence, Revlon, and Ludurana and Colorama beauties from Brazil...

Drawer 5 are mostly the sets including Color Club, LA Colors, e.l.f., plus some missfits...

The drawers are pretty much all full and not nearly as organized as I had originally hoped. I plan on disassembling the sets as I swatch them to make more room. Boxes kind of hinder good access to the polishes anyways. The photos are over a month old (yes, it took me that long to get around to writing this up) so there is even less room now and there are polishes on top of the cabinet that haven't found a home yet :'(

My only beef with these drawers is that they don't slide out completely (and don't fit as much as I hoped). I looked into changing the rails to full slider ones, but at $25-35 per drawer, it is just not worth it. I'm not complaining much since I'm happy to have any slider hardware at this point. No sliders/support was my biggest issue with the Helmer and a big reason why I didn't get a second one even though it is SOOO much more space efficient...

This is just step one in my organization mission. I will keep you updated as I get more stuff done, but I expect it to be a slow process, since I'd rather play with polish in my free time instead of organize it. Seeing this cabinet filled already filled up and taking so much room makes me reconsider it as permanent storage option...

Just as I was almost done writing this post, I peek on Pinterest and find this from Britta Rose Nails... So nice to know I'm not alone...

Ok, now here is the part where you tell me what you think of this... and please don't say run and seek help... I'm in deep stages of denial ;)

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Mission Organization: The Plates

So who else is stoked about the new Bundle Monster plate organizer? To say that I've had organization issues is putting it mildly. It is a wonder that I have only lost one plate so far (poor little BM-210). I have tried business card holders and baseball card holders, but got fed up with the plates not fitting right and falling out. I ended up keeping them in a little tupperware box, but the plates were not easily accessible. I was so excited to see that Bundle Monster came out with an organizer that fits the plates and holds them in place. I ordered mine last week when it was finally in stock and got it in the mail yesterday. So pretty...

This awesome organizer measures just 6 x 9 inches and can hold 168 plates. It has 14 pages with six slots each and each slot can hold two plates. Access to each slot is from the front of the page only...

The pages are bound in place and there is no option for adding extra pages...

Here is what my unorganized stack of plates used to look like. In here I had all three of the Bundle Monster sets, the second Mash set, Shany, Red Angel, Salon Express, and ebay plates. Really quite impossible to get out and not very inspiring to stamp...

Each plate now has a home and is tucked away safe and sound. Unfortunately the ebay plates are octagonal so they are just slightly too big for the Bundle Monster organizer. I will have to figure out how to store those, but the rest fit perfectly...

My organizer is now nearly full with just 14 spots left at the end. It feels heavy and solid. I absolutely love it!

This was just the first step in my massive organization undertaking. I will try to show you my progress as it happens...

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)