Never Too Early for Spring Cleaning

Clutter. It's everywhere.

It seems like I'm forever cleaning the clutter, and just when I think I'm gaining some ground ~ ugh! There's another pile that somehow flew under the radar.  I'm also a big fan of organization {it's an inner joy that may not always show on the surface}, so whenever I find a trick or tip that can make life more streamlined, I try to share it with others.

This little trick I actually came across accidentally, and I figured hey ~ maybe it will work for you too.  

I have a jewelry armoire.  You know the huge jewlery box on legs with outswinging doors on the side for hanging necklaces, multiple drawers, and a top that lifts up for even more storage.  
PRO: Great storage space for all of your jewelry {and then some}.  
CON: Nowhere to put the huge jewelry armoire. 

 Currently, my armoire sits at the top of our stairs, on the way to my office. And since I create jewelry, I'm uber-picky about what I actually wear myself. Let's just say that visiting the jewelry "box" for a quick browse of something to accessorize my outfit while running out the door was not in the cards.  Here's why...

Ummm.... Someone should call FEMA on this disaster, at least at the Superbowl half of the stadium lights were still on!  The only thing that was more frustrating than trying to find a pair of earrings that matched in this jumbled mess was only finding ONE earring.  How frustrating! To spare you the details from the rest of the armoire, I had all sorts of things stored in here.  Buttons, dental floss, a few CDs, recipe cards, coupons, keys and the good Sharpies {you know what I mean}.

Knowing that the only way to finish this job was to actually start, I actually dumped {cringe} each section out into a mixing bowl and started sorting.  The process went something like it does for all of the Spring cleaning at our house:

1)  Rule #1 - Anything broken gets thrown away. {If you haven't cared enough to fix it yet, it's not going to happen}

2)  Rule #2 - The 3-second rule. You pick up an object and within 3 seconds you decide where it's going.
                    A)  Trash it.
                    B)  Keep it.
                    C)  Donate it.
{Rule #2.1 - If you've spent more than 3 seconds thinking about it, trash it!}

You might be surprised how much absolute junk you've been keeping around. Somehow, in the midst of our lives, it is easier to put things down as we walk in the door and tell ourselves, "I'll get to that later."  Later never comes. If you make an effort to put it away right away, you'll find less clutter, generally speaking. {Imagine if you could get everyone in your house to do this, even if it was just with their own things?}

Here comes the exciting part..... I took those buttons I found in my jewelry box, the ones that come extra with every sweater, shirt and coat you buy, and did THIS with all the loose earrings:

If you have enough extra buttons in various colors, you can match pink earrings with pink buttons, red earrings with red buttons, etc. so when you go searching for those tiny ruby studs, you can find them easily on the big red button! This is also a great project for little girls to help with {old enough not to swallow little pieces}. The girls might even want to do their own jewelry boxes!

We've got a long way to go until Spring hits Minnesota, but it's never too early to start the Spring cleaning!

Enjoy ~