It pays to organize

My latest DIY project was so simple, I'm excited to show it to you.

My closet is one place that has badly needed de-cluttering. Okay, that's an understatement. It needed cleaning out in the worst way. It's a pretty good-sized closet, but I could barely walk into it. Anyway, it's nice and clean now, but I found myself wanting more than just nice and clean. I bought some inexpensive plastic bins to hold things (undies, socks, etc.) on my closet shelves, but they were so ugly. I wanted cute baskets, but I didn't want to spend any money on cute baskets.

I resigned myself to being satisfied with the plastic bins, until I remembered that I had a few scraps of fabric left from my new bedding.


So I cut up those scraps and hot-glued them to my plastic bins. . . and voila! Cute baskets!


Remember this ottoman that I re-covered with my other bedding scraps? It has a home in my closet, too, where everything is now organized AND cute.



And now for the part about how it pays to organize. You may not believe this story, but it's true. Sometime last year, I lost my favorite bracelet. It's a simple little bracelet by John Medeiros, whose jewelry resembles that of David Yurman or John Hardy. Not expensive like DY or JH, but very nice. Anyway, I had a bracelet that I just loved--wore it practically every day. Here it is:


And then one day it was gone. It just vanished. I searched high and low, to no avail. And I eventually went and bought another bracelet just like the first one. (This was before the economic downturn of last fall--I now find it hard to believe that I went and bought another bracelet, but that's the truth.)
Well, guess what I found yesterday as I was finishing my de-cluttering and organizing?

Yep. I found my bracelet. So now I have two, just alike. See?


Can you believe that?  I'd actually gone and bought another bracelet to replace one that I thought was lost forever--and it was actually hiding in my closet!

In trying not to be wasteful, I held a giveaway on my blog and gave the second bracelet to one of my readers.  So at least someone profited from my disorganization!



**This giveaway is closed.  The winner was Traci.**

Be sure to check out all the fun DIY projects at Kimba's!