Organizing Nail Polish and Jewelry!

I've been going through an organization spree lately. I've also been getting rid of a lot of stuff. Some of the inspiration comes from reading "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing". I think the author is a bit loony, but she does have some good thought exercises, I just sent 6 boxes of stuff to Goodwill and I've been organizing my stuff better.

One of my purchases from Amazon (actually is was a birthday gift from my husband) was a gorgeous nail polish rack that hangs on the wall. It stores my nail polishes in an aesthetically pleasing way, AND it makes them easily available. I can see what all I have and easily select what I want to wear.

Here's a close-up of what the nail polish looks like on the racks. It's very spacious. The racks are large enough to even store shot glasses. It would look really cute next to a bar displaying someone's collection

I also recently purchased wall storage for my jewelry (also from Amazon). The same logic applies - aesthetically appealing way to display and organize. It makes it so much easier to pick things out.

One tricky thing about this is that I didn't have enough chains to hang all of my pendants. I came up with a great solution. I pulled out my jewelry supplies, and using a chain, a large ring, some jump rings, and some lobster claw clasps, I created this:

All of my pendants can hang up on the jewelry rack, and they can each be easily detached to be strung on a chain and worn. I had so many pendants that I had to make multiples.

I'm not sure, but I got this idea from seeing it somewhere on the web. I don't remember where, so I can't credit them.

Here's a close-up of one of the pendants showing how easy it is to unclasp the lobster claw to remove it. 

I'll keep trying to come up with creative ways to store things. Please feel free to share your fun storage and organization projects and ideas!

Kenzi and Moose Videos

In the last year, we've adopted two animals from the shelter. Both are quite adorable, yet evil. The first is Kenzi, a smaller pit bull mix. She's the world's biggest cuddler. More recently, we adopted Moose, who is possibly more cat than we were prepared to take on. He can be sweet, but constantly tries to escape from the house.

Here is Moose at the shelter before we adopted him.

And here are some videos of Kenzi and Moose playing.

Naptown Roller Girls

So, I pretty much never post about roller derby anymore. Actually, I pretty much haven't been posting much at all. Well, in August of 2013 I did something really crazy. I made a major leap of faith to transfer to the highest ranked league in Indiana.

 
Looking back, I don't think I ever really thought I would succeed there. I was pretty much seen as a skater with little potential at my previous league, but I'm not going to dwell on that. Despite some pretty awful stuff that happened to me there, I decided I wasn't ready to give up on derby. I transferred to Naptown and became almost immediately convinced I wouldn't be good enough. I was on the brink of quitting, when something crazy happened. They invited me to Charter practice which meant they thought I had potential.

I didn't actually make the Charter at that time, but I had an amazing season. By the end, I had been added to the Charter. I played in a bout with the Tornado Sirens and went to Playoffs with them as an alternate. This season, I've had the good fortune to play with the Sirens for quite a few games.

I've had my ups and downs with Naptown, the same as I would with any league. I'm not the best skater, but I'm working hard and seeing results every practice. Through it all, my teammates still support and encourage me.