Bada Bling Bada Boom

Living with a tangle of necklaces and bracelets can be overwhelming to any girl looking to accessorize.  First, plan a time to sort through your items. Untangle your necklaces, and lay everything out on a flat surface.  After cursing your giant fingers and little tiny gold chain knots, you can decide what you still wear, what needs to be given away, and what can be put in a special memory box.

Hang your necklaces where you can see them and wear them easily.  I own a lot of necklaces, from the special ones my girlies made me, to ones that were my grandmother’s, to giant statement necklaces I wear all the time. I need to be able to see them and grab them.  With this in mind, I used the blank wall in my closet behind my closet door to hang a couple of corkboards.  Then, I counted my necklaces, sorted them by color, and by length, and by chunkiness.  And then I hung them on pushpins on the corkboards.  You could also hang a corkboard on your closet door or in your bathroom or above your dresser.  Or hang a couple of Command Hooks if you only have a few necklaces to deal with.

The top drawer of my dresser is very shallow. I use it for earrings, bracelets, watches, and other small items.  After measuring the drawer and laying out all of my bracelets, watches and earrings, I bought several jewelry cases at The Container Store (like this or another great one here).  I separated out small earrings from large, and divided them by color as well.  

 Cute handmade boxes hold extra buttons and tooth fairy money. (For all you children reading this post, the tooth fairy just keeps a small supply of her money in my jewelry drawer for nights when the bank is closed and a child unexpectedly loses a tooth.)

A good tip is to make sure that all of your jewelry is spread out, so that you can see it.  If you can never get to your bracelets, or if you only reach for the same studs every day, maybe it’s because you have no idea what is lurking beneath them.  Also, carefully weed through all of the crown jewels. Is anything broken? Does anything need to be cleaned? Is anything seriously ugly? Jewelry is one thing that always fits, so you can still have earrings that you have owned for thirty years, and they still fit.  However, trends change, and you cannot wear those giant flower clip-ons from the 80’s again.  

**These are actually my earrings from the 80's. They are now in my daughter's dress-up jewelry box.

Keep a special jar in you drawer to hold onto your grandmother’s ring and earrings that you just can’t part with, but would never wear. 

Once you spend the time to organize it all, just imagine how easy it will be to accessorize your outfits!