For many people jewelry is a form of expression. For me it is a way to remember my favorite memories. I am very selective of the jewelry that I keep and therefor it should be simple to decide which pieces I am keeping. Almost all of my jewelry that I will be keeping are the ones with memories.
So before my last purge my jewelry box looked like this. And now it looks like this.
This was 13x8x5
This Glad ware container was 64 oz
The comparison looks a little better.
But now I want to go from this ---> to this.
I have picked two boxes to store all of my jewelry. I also have a ring dish that I keep in the kitchen so I don't lose my rings.
I want everything I own to fit in these two pieces here.
I wanted to make sure that of the two boxes one could be easily used for travel which is why I purchased the blue one second hand.
Here are some similar ones from amazon:
*if you purchase any of the boxes above via my link I will get a small commission which helps support this blog but remember if you purchase it you must think it could add happiness. If you aren't ready to commit do what I did and use a plastic box until you find something that you like.
Now in the box project method way I have completed steps 1-6....everything from picking how much of the category I want, selecting the box, to gathering everything of that category.
So now it is time to lay out the selections.
For this process however in a way some of the selections have already been made for me...in that all the jewelry that I loved to wear I was either a) wearing it or b) it was somewhere around the house because I had been using it. So for those pieces I assumed they would go towards the front of the line so that where I put them which would later be reassessed as I make cuts. There were some jewelry pieces that we still in the packaging that I have had for years but have yet to wear them so those automatically went towards the back of the line...then there were those that were to far gone as in destroyed that I wouldn't be able to keep those also went towards the back of the line.
So then the work kicks in. Here is the lineup and now its time to start making cuts. This is in order from my favorites to my least favorites.
I also really wanted 25 pieces of jewelry or less so with that in mind I kept things rather strict.
If you look at the line up you can see where I made my two cuts. To make things clear I will explain each of the lines to visualize for you how my thinking process goes.
Line 1 and 2 Are the ones keep
Line 3 (starts with the rose earings) I am unsure of and many of those items will be going in the purgatory box
Line 4 and 5 (basically everything under line 3) I will be getting rid of
Usually with line five I don't even line those up. Often to save time if I know I am not keeping it it just goes in the donate or toss pile but for the demonstration I added it here.
Here is the final selection.
This is the final selesction. This is everything that I am keeping.
Here are the things I am unsure of so they will go in the purgatory box. I will be keeping the pearls if I can get them untangled. If I am unable to do that then I will most likely be donating them to someone that would like to use it for their arts and crafts. I often do this by posting things like this on my local free group on Facebook asking if anyone would be interested in them.
These are the things I am getting rid of.
This is everything that I am getting rid of. Many of the earrings on the bottom right don't have matches so many of those will be thrown away. As for the things in good order I will try to donate those.
Here is what it looks like with everything put away in their boxes. It all fits very nicely.
I am very please with this. This may be a harder category for you to complete then it was for me so please remember it isn't about how many things you cut its about knowing that you love every single item that you have kept.
There is one set of jewelry that is not included in these boxes because they are so special to me that I kept them locked away. These are my grandmothers pearls that I also wore on my wedding day so I take extra special care of these.
I hope you enjoyed this category and are making progress in your own decluttering. Make sure to come back next Monday for another Minimalist Monday where we will tackle another category of decluttering with the box project method!
So many people dread the stockings but stockings were my favorite part. I have a great formula for you that will take the guess work out of stockings and will keep things at a reasonable price and minimize the things coming into your home to stay.