How I keep my stash

A few days ago I was reading one of my favorite blogs - The Nail Junkie, and I came across these awesome photos of Aleta's neatly organized stash. When I realized these were from Ikea, I immediately decided I need some too! Personally - I hate Ikea. My own experience showed that it's a very expensive store for very low quality items. But I looked at the pictures of these drawers over and over again and eventually I figured that if someone as professional as Aleta can use a Helmer from Ikea, it can't be all bad.

Neat, isn't it?
I looked at Ikea USA and saw that this unit costs $39.99. I figured that is a fair price so on Thursday after work, I went to our local Ikea branch. Sadly it was more expensive here (~$55) but I wasn't surprised. I bought this unit in White, because I didn't think the red would fit my desk, and I came home and put it aside. Only on Saturday I decided to try and assemble it.

Themis is really interested in the technicalities. Xanthippe prefers to scratch herself against the box.
When I started to asseble this part I suddenly realized that the trailers on which the drawers are suppose to stand, are all standing in a diagonal line, as if the draweres were suppose to open diagonally upwards. That was weird. All the lines are crocked? If one was bad, I could understand it. After all - you know what I think of Ikea. But having all the lines wrongly measured? that didn't make sense.
After the entire part was built, I realized I placed those trailers in the wrong direction. Duh....
YAY! I'm half-way done!
 The drawers themselves were very easy to assemble, but the handles for them were very tricky! I kept loosing my screws... (Don't laugh! I really kept loosing them! LOL)
...and it's DONE!!
Now to the fun part: filling my new Helmer!
I tried several different systems and I figured the only one that really works for me is by color.
Color is a function of my mood so my pic is up to my mood when I want to do my nails. So I find things much easier within colors then within brands. So here is the content of my drawers:

Blue and green. I have mostly blue, but recently I started collecting some lovely greens as well. And since I have quite a few that I can't define as just blue or just green, putting them together seemed naturaly.
Red, orange and yellow and everything nude, tan and brown. Not that I have too many...
Purple and pink. Here I have a lot of space for future purchases. But in the meantime I also keep here my nail art brushes. I hope to get another Helmer soon and then everything not polish will move in there.
Black, grey and white. Lot's of white. That's an issue I'm having. Maybe I will write a post about it too one day. In this drawer I also keep my gradient sponges. Just a matter of convenience.
I have very few gold and silver polishes so they all gather here. Also, in this drawer i keep all my stamping plates and tools,. stickers of all kinds and some loose glitter and micro beads (for kaviar mani)
In the last drawer I keep all my different top coats, all my glitter in clear base polishes and all the other tools i might need while doing my nails. Also, the box on the right is filled with clear polish. This is always a useful thing to keep.

So as you can see, I am not too organized. I'm pretty messy. But I find my things the fastest this way. And hey, it's neat on the outside! Right?
So how do you keep yours? What's your filing system? How do you find things the easiest?




7 comments :

ALETA COLUCCI said...

Love this post! You're so sweet! Hey, did you get shelf liner? It helps so your bottles don't fall over so much. I can send you some if its not easy for you to get. :)

M. Fourey said...

Haha, Helmers and cats are very popular among nail polish addicts! I personally don't like Helmers; they are great as you just showed, they look nice, but I need to see my stash. I just need it. So I store my polishes in two polish racks, I'll need a third one soon. They are placed on my make-up table. The thing is that I don't own that many bottles, so I still don't really bother where to store them :)

Unknown said...

This looks pretty organised to me ;).
Need to buy storage for my nail things, then I have an excuse to buy more to fill it fully! xxx

Inky Whiskers said...

I use 9 Sterlite drawers for my polish stash. The frames are white & the 6 x 6 x 15" (ish) drawers are clear. I can fit 4 columns of bottles & I taped 2 x 15" strips of thin card board between the columns so the 50 or so bottles per drawer stay organized. (mostly lol)I got them at Walmart for about $6.50 each. These hold my polishes by color w/the 3 across the bottom having specialty top coats like crack & chunky glitters plus my minis. I also have three 5 x 7 x 12" drawers that hold my nail art polishes, top/base coats, magnetics, moods & misc nail art bling. My nail plates & supplies are in a tackle box with the Konad polishes. I use the space between the tops of the drawers & my desk for baskets that hold my manicure supplies, swatch wheels, UV light, misc over stock of swabs, cotton balls & nail files plus my plate box. I also made a swatch book of my polishes to take with me to the stores so I don't buy dups. (often LOL) I know this sounds like a bit much, but I can find what I'm looking for pretty fast.

Paulina said...

what a good idea.
Love your collection.

Daisy said...

this is such a neat idea!

Yun, The Polish Hideout said...

Nice! I don't have too many polishes at the moment, so they all fit in half a drawer. But if I keep acquiring at my current rate, I will have to come up with better storage for them soon. ;)

~ Yun

Post a Comment

I love comments and I appreciate each one of yours!
I would love to hear from you but please, refrain from posting links. If you have a link that you want me to see - just email me :)
Thank you so much!