Storage & Organisation Tips!

There's nothing more annoying than searching through your whole collection, just to find the one polish you're looking for; am I right, or am I right? So I needed a cheap, fast solution, that actually works, to store my stash as well as keep it remotely organised. As much as I would like to invest in a Helmer, I can't afford to at this moment in time, not to mention my collection isn't big enough for me to justify buying a Helmer. Therefore, in the mean time, this is the storage/organisation solution I have come up with.

My Name is Rachel & I'm a polishaholic....

It's currently 01:46am and I cannot get to sleep. I've literally just been laid in bed for the last hour & half just waiting to fall asleep, to no avail. So what do you do when you can't sleep? Write a post and hope you're ready to sleep by the end of it! I thought I would show you how my collection has grown since I started blogging merely 2 months ago. As you can see from the photo above, my polish collection was that of someone who liked nail polish, but not to an extremity that I do now. The Models Own & China Glaze polishes were actually only about 2 weeks old when I created this blog, so you can imagine how small my collection really was....Then I discovered blogging, well I say I discovered it, I didn't. It was more of an adventure into blogging that made me spiral out of control.
I look at the amount of polish I have now and can't even justify having so much, I mean as of this moment, I rarely post swatch posts - this NEEDS to change asap (please Britain, give me some good quality sunshine, if only for 3 hours), anyone care to kick me into gear?!
So....in 2ish months, my collection has gone from the above, to this...(and even this isn't all of it, I'm expecting at least 5 more Nail Mail packages...)

This is my collection as of right now, literally, I took these just before I wrote this post. I know there isn't as much as alot of the polishaholic bloggers out there, but this is in just 2 months, I can only imagine what it will be like in another 6. As you can see, the half empty one box has turned into 2 full boxes! Box1 contains all my BarryM, Models Own, Nails Inc, GOSH, ELF & 17 polishes. Box2 contains all my China Glaze, OPI, Cult Nails, Collection 2000, Andrea Fulerton & various other polishes.
I will eventually get around to posting swatches of my whole collection, I'm just waiting for the Nail Wheels that I ordered from eBay to arrive, which SHOULD be in the next 2 weeks. They won't be reviewed swatches, it will just be the polish on a wheel with a number underneath and a link to a spreadsheet with the corresponding number on it. Good idea? Let me know!

How To: How I Store My Polish

First of all, I'd like to apologise about the complete failure that was the 31 Day Challenge, I think it's safe to say that's well and truely lost in the days passed. Maybe I'll do a 15 day challenge at a later date to compensate with the ones I've missed!

I thought I'd share how I store my nail polish, a part of me wanted to wait until the end of the week until I have the rest of my polish I've ordered from various online sites (26 being from ELF alone, eeesh I have a problem!) but the other part of me just wanted to post it now, so here it is.

I keep all of my polishes in these 3 boxes (no they're not all filled with polish as you'll see in a second). Since I've been building my collection I've moved them around so much, from a mini 4 drawer storage tower, to a larger 3 drawer paper tower and then to these boxes. I got these from B&M Superstore for £1.99 each, they come in loads of different designs and I plan to purchase more when I run out of space. They're so cute and convienient you can just stick them in your wardrobe or a cupboard or even just on top of your dresser. Usually mine are found in the middle of my bedroom floor as I'm always doing something with them, which doesn't stick well with my boyfriend when he has to get around them.

The first box is where I keep the polishes I have the most of/the more expensive brands such as OPI, GOSH, Nails Inc & China Glaze and then my BarryM, Models Own & ELF. As you can see (with the exception of my CG/Newer polishes) I put a small dot on the lids so I can quickly spot the colour I'm looking for without having to pick out each individual colour until I find the one I'm looking for. 

This works most of the time, unless there are some colours that look very similar on the dot/too dark to see against black such as BarryM's Navy or any black polish. I do wish that polish names were on the top instead of the bottom, a bit like Essie polishes and the one GOSH polish I own. That would just be perfect!

In the next box I keep all my Nail Art pens & equipment. I also have my Top Coats in here too. You can't see it in the photo, but I have a Models Own box that I keep my fimo wheels, rhinestone wheels, nail files, nail art wheels & stamping tools in. The Notebook (which I got from FunkyPigeon.com for about £8) is where I keep all my nail art ideas and also print outs of designs I love and am inspired by with notes of what polishes I'd use instead of the ones in the photograph, it's a bit OCD I know.

I then have a box that holds all my cu-tips and cocktail sticks for when I want to do some fine dotting and clean up. My dotting tools and brushes are kept in a clear plastic zip back just next to those.

And finally my nail wheels. I have so many of these due to the fact I paint them in colour groups (except the brand wheels which is pictured above - it's one of my BarryM wheels if anyone is wondering) so whenever I get a new colour that I have to put on the chart, but it's darker than the last one, I want to do them all again. How can I take the polish off without ruining the wheel? Polish remover doesn't seem to work >.<

Finally I have the last box, which holds all my other polish that doesn't fit in to the first box, such as MUA, Collection 2000, Saffron etc. This will eventually filled with any other polish I acquire over the next coming months until it too, is filled to the brim. Which I'm guessing will be sooner than I think once I get the 26 ELF polishes amongst the others I've ordered. I think I might have to set up PAA - Polish Addicts Anonymous I'm sure there's plenty of people that are in desperate need for one, I know I am.

Again, in the bottom of the box there's just some Hello Kitty cut outs I used in THIS POST and just some printed out designs from various websites I've come across. Pretty uninteresting really.

So, there you have it, how I store my polish. If you'd like me to do a full collection post with full views of the colours, then let me know in the comments below. I'll definitely try and get more swatch posts up now that the 31 day challenge was such a flop. You'll just have to excuse the poor lighting on most of them, as I said in my previous post grey overcast is all us Brits have to offer at the moment! Hope you've enjoyed reading this, I'd love to see how you store all of your polishes, leave a comment below to your blog post if you have one!