Project Declutter 2012... Vanity Area

One of the things I struggle with is keeping my home clean and organized. I've never been good at housekeeping. I often wonder if my husband would have actually married me if he really knew how bad my cooking and housekeeping skills were. But, now he's stuck with me. :)

Needless to say, this year I am striving to get my house in order. First up was an easy project. My bathroom vanity area. Baby steps, right? 

Here are a couple of before pics... This is pretty much normal for me. 

One thing you may notice is that I don't have any jewelry laying around. That's only because I recently found a new home for all of my necklaces. Check it out here. Prior to this, I had tangled necklaces all over the counter and in my drawer. Makes a world of difference to get them out of the way!

And after...

I received the jewelry organizer from my husband for Christmas. I'm using it to house jewelry and make-up.

And the bathroom drawer...

I didn't take before pics, sorry. The drawer was so messy I was embarrassed to post a pic. I purged a lot of my make-up, relocated the rest, and cleaned the plastic bins. Looks great now! 

I wonder how long it will stay this clean? 

More random pics...

Hoping to keep it clean. We shall see. 

Next up in Project Declutter 2012 are the bathroom cabinets under the sink. Who knows what I will find under there, lol! 

Good luck to all who are using the New Year to declutter and get organized!!

Purely Pinterest!

By now almost the entire world knows about Pinterest. Ok, well my neighbor had never heard of it, but you get the idea. If you haven't checked out Pinterest, you are definitely missing out. I love the virtual "corkboard" functionality of the site! If I come across a great home decor picture or a great recipe on the web, I just "pin" it to one of my boards for future reference. When I need to get back to the original site or blog, I just click on the picture on my board and presto! It redirects back to where I originally found the picture. Plus, I love the fact that I can follow my friends and search for other photos that users have already pinned.

One of my very first "pins" was this picture that was floating around Pinterest several months ago:

The photo was connected to this blog - a full measure of happiness,

I loved it! What better way to organize and display your necklaces. Especially since mine were all tangled and stuffed into a drawer. I could never remember what necklaces I had, and if I could remember, it took an act of congress to get them untangled.

So, I went out to Target and bought a towel rod and shower curtain hooks. I decided to hang the rod in my closet behind the door. This was the only available space I had. I recruited my husband to hang the rod, and viola! The end result:

"Wow, if only I could do this with my scarves", I thought.

My scarves and belts were a mess just hanging on a sad, solo hanger that was about to snap in half at any minute from the excess weight. Then the thought occurred to me. Why can't I do this with my scarves?! I will just use the closeable shower hooks. Genius! Ok, I know I'm not the first to think of this, but I thought it was a pretty clever idea. So off I went back to Target to buy the 24" towel rod and closeable shower hooks. My dad got the honor of putting up the rod this time. :)

Here is the end result (I wish I had a before pic of the sad hanger with all of my scarves precariously hanging from it):

And to show the two together:

I did run out of shower hooks, so another trip to Target is in order. I still need to hang the rest of my scarves and also my belts. Hopefully, I won't go in to Target for one thing and come out with twenty like I normally do. :)

I heart Pinterest!!


Tell me what you think? How do you organize your scarves and jewelry? A future project of mine will be to organize my earrings, so if you have any ideas or pics, please let me know. Thanks!