Design Inspiration

Shopping means different things to each of us. For TBG, shopping equates to buying. For Moi, shopping is most frequently free, and involves looking and thinking and deciding and training my eye to love new things, or to adjust my view of old, everyday things to new uses. I shop very slooooowly, but when it speaks to me…

I spend alot of time shopping; shopping is looking at everything out there…whether its in a shop window, worn by a passerby on the street, glossily glaring at me from a magazine, blinking at me from my laptop, carelessly displayed on a cluttered flea market table, or stashed away in a forgotten corner of my closet. And sometimes, when I’m very lucky, design inspiration occurs.

I had a design need. Years ago I re-appropriated my old lingerie chest as a jewelry chest. I like to keep the boxes that nice jewelry comes in, so I’m lucky to have my drawers cluttered with boxes from Cartier, Hermes, Tiffany, Georg Jensen, Baccarat, and Louis Vuitton. The boxes make me happy! But they take up alot of space, hence the jewelry chest.

For my everyday casual fun jewelry I went to the Container Store and purchased little organizer trays that come in different sizes and stack…so I can have a stack of earrings, a stack of necklaces, a stack of bracelets. Very convenient, very useful. Fit easily inside the drawers.

But I have my standby, everyday go-to jewelry that I throw on without thinking or planning as I head out the door. I keep them tossed in a little tray I bought in Madrid, and its grab-and-go as I’m heading out the door. Until recently.

The last year or so I’ve developed a passion for long and dangly neck chains. They swing casually, decorated with different charms I’ve re-purposed (and I shared with you and The Antiques Diva!).

Great, right? Wrong! Long dangly chains become a tangled mess when all thrown into a little tray. I needed organization, but it needed to be easily accessible. I considered the options:

• bff The Antiques Diva has re-purposed an old glove mold into a jewelery organizer in her tres chic Berlin toilette (look to the far right on the counter)

• CoMo bff S turned her serviette kitchen towel holder with hooks into a necklace display/organizer

Moi? I didn’t have a plan, yet… I have tiny little NYC apartment, and introducing things or adding clutter is just not an option. but… Our dry cleaner closes TBG’s shirts with little plastic clips that I save and use as paper clips. Brilliant? It gets better. I had a stack of these little clippies on my my jewelry chest, adding to the clutter. I had a tangled mess of long chains that I was trying to untangle so I could wear my silver chain with the dangling baccarat earring. And I had design inspiration.

I took a dozen of the clips and clipped them over the top of the lampshade that was on my jewelry chest, leaving each clip protruding up about 1/2 inch. I hung one of my long necklaces over each of the clips. Voila: no more mess. No more tangles. And no expense.

Before:

After:

Design Inspiration!