KonMari Method Second Visit: Clothing

I discovered the "KonMari" method of decluttering last year after it's boom of popularity on social media. It really is a great method of getting unwanted items out of your life. I don't want to reinvent the wheel by explaining the entire process, but the main premise is to sort your things by category and only keep that which brings you joy.

The audio book is available for free on youtube,

Or if you don't have that much time to spend (though I highly recommend it!), here is a great lecture,

I went through the entire process last year and got rid of a couple trash bags of stuff and several trunk loads of stuff to donate. At the time, I lived in half of a bedroom at my parent's house. I couldn't believe how much stuff I had crammed in that little space!

Since then, I have gotten married and moved into my husband's little one bedroom apartment. I have noticed a shift in my lifestyle and my priorities began to change. A lot of my stuff started to become nothing more than a burden. I stopped collecting things, like My Little Pony. Then there were other things that my husband already owned, so we just have a lot of doubles.

For fun, here is a picture of almost everything I moved (plus a bookshelf, several bags of clothing and about 12 plants),

I suppose not terrible but I didn't exactly have a whole household to move either, haha

So I think it is time to revisit everything! I know the changes won't be as big as they were the first time since I really haven't let too much stuff accumulate, this is mostly just reevaluating the old, getting settled in with my husband and letting him go through his stuff too (and he is fairly minimalistic already).

Since clothing is the first category, I pulled out my entire wardrobe and got to work!

All of my clothes, minus underwear, socks, and  4 work uniforms

And the pile of stuff I am letting go

I really am toying with the idea of setting up a capsule wardrobe but I'm not quite comfortable with that yet. I think I'm going to let that happen naturally as my clothing wears out and I continue to stop bringing new items in.

My husband is more of a simple guy. I organized his clothes too and asked him to sort through them, giving him a category at a time (polos, buttondowns, pants...). That really helped him. We both wanted to be able to share a single chest of drawers and got it accomplished!! Yay!!

Spring Cleaning: Makeup and Toiletries

 Today I am decluttering my makeup and toiletries! 

My makeup "collection" is very small, but I feel like this method will work for almost any size collection. I have gone through it recently but it really needs another go-through. This is how everything was kept before:

I hate that drawer. Finding stuff is a pain.

First I took some old tupperware containers with missing lids and then labeled them like so,

Favorite, Replace, Use up, and Toss.

Then I went through everything and filled them,

Yay!

I took care of the "toss" container right away. Everything in there was either thrown or given away. I took note of the lone shedding kabuki brush and got rid of the "replace" container also. The "use up" container was put back on my shelf and I am forcing myself to reach for that container first- before touching my "Favorites".

I have been searching for makeup displays/organizers for a while but haven't really found the *perfect* one and they are also generally expensive. I decided to DIY it and currently have some ideas floating around. I'll post that once it's done. At least now I know how much space I need to fit my "favorites", plus a little extra for future growth. ;D

Spring Cleaning: Photo Prints

This spring I am all about organizing and cleaning!

Well trying to be.

I decided to start with something small: my little photograph box. I don't have gobs of photo prints but they needed a go-through. I came home from work, put on some comfy clothes and good music, and then began sorting.

Previously they were all stored in a photo box and held up with plastic grocery bags for a good 8-10 years. I don't think the photo box was acid free and I could feel that the grocery bags were starting to deteriorate. I needed to organize and find another storage solution if only to protect my pictures.

Here is my sorting/purging before and after,

Before                                                After

I got rid of a good 2 inch stack of pictures and reorganized the remaining by year.

I have come to realize that the most important pictures were of the people I really care about. I don't really need tons of pictures of strangers in costume or pictures of objects (those are cool, but I don't really want a physical photograph of them- I can keep the digital copy).

Then it was time to find another way to store them. I contemplated photo albums but they really take up a lot of shelf space and I don't find myself going through pictures enough to justify the expense/space hog.

Then I found these little acid free plastic photo containers at the craft store in the scrap booking section,

Plastic photo boxes

They were on sale for 40% off and then I had a 20% off coupon I could stack with it. I got 5 of them total for about $10.

I'm currently on the hunt for a decorative box to put them in since they are just a little too high to fit in a standard photo box. Right now I have them in my big memorabilia box. Still, I think this will work for now! I figure if I ever change systems, these boxes will work great for small craft supplies.

First project done, way more to go!

Organizing: Hair Pins

I'm going to organize all of the things!

Today's project is really small but feels so satisfying. Sometimes the little things make all the difference.

I don't have an extensive hair pin/tie hoard, but finding them was a pain and they previously didn't have a home. They were just scattered everywhere with my makeup and shower stuff. I went shopping at Joann Fabrics and found a little container for bobbin storage. They were with the regular storage containers on an end cap, then I found more hanging up front by the registers. 

Even though it was a tiny purchase, I still used a coupon (why not? hehe) and it was somewhere around $3 if I remember right.

They fit perfectly!

They stay in their compartments too!

I do have more hair elastics than that, but I keep them with the rest of my toiletry back-up (I buy extras when they go on sale). If I give myself access to too many elastics at once, I keep track of them less and them lose more. Oops. 

So this one was easy. Now I'm trying to find a system that works with all of my big fancy hair toys!