When I was in Melbourne last year, I popped into Sportsgirl with a bad back (exacerbated by 6 hours of walking everyday) and tyrannised the lovely, patient shop girls with my irritable attitude and air of defeatism. Don’t worry, I did apologise later and explain why I was in such a black mood. And they were very nice about it, grabbing me items so I could sit in the changing rooms and pop painkillers.

As I was leaving the store, I saw a cute rabbit trinket plate on their gift table, so I told Mr. J to fetch it for me. Only $12.95AUD! So pretty. You can stick rings on the ears, and bigger items like necklaces and earrings sit in the dish.

This hot porcelain piece has pride of place beside my bed. I am notoriously lazy at the end of the day, so being able to dump my stuff on the plate before I go to sleep is very convenient for me.  

But it’s interesting to see how other people use their trinket plates to decorate their homes, so I thought I’d include a few examples. From minimalist to maximalist, it seems to look great in every decor situation! When I need more jewellery storage, I will definitely be looking at another white china dish…

Photo Credits: Heart Shaped Glasses & Thai Tales

I finished sorting out my wardrobe a few days ago. I had a couple of plastic containers holding all my bitty bits before, but I think stacking all my cases on top of each other makes for some badass storage. Now I’ve got all my junk in my trunk and I just need to sort out storage for the living room. I’m forsaking the regular retail furniture stores (where you have to pick good quality or decent price) and I’m looking at purchasing flat-packed items from IKEA in Oz and having them shipped to NZ by Myflatpack. If only my country would stop protecting the interests of local crappy furniture stores and put in an IKEA store I wouldn’t have to go through this rigmarole…

So for two weeks now I’ve been working on a project- refurbishing an 100 year old Flaxite Featherweight trunk. My mother in law gave it me because it had been sitting in storage for several years and thought I might be able to use it. It sat in my living room for weeks while I pondered how I was going to fix this hulking, musty piece of luggage. The cloth lining was ripped and stained and the interior tray was missing. The canvas was an unappealing shade of brown and was damaged in some places. The wooden bands were worn, the brass fittings were tarnished, even the leather was dry and cracked. I’ve refurbished vintage luggage before, but not to this extent.

So here is the finished product- I used Karen Walker’s Fuscous Grey and Milk White, and the charcoal wallpaper with rose print was purchased off Trademe. I polished the brass and leather and even sprayed some of my perfume inside to give the interior a pleasing scent. I now plan on using the trunk to store our winter clothes and my collection of handbags at the bottom of our wardrobe. It was a lot of hard work but I think the results speak for themselves!

Now I know why the rolled hem look hasn’t been working for me! I’ve just been rolling it up, instead of folding the cuff into itself…

DO: Edit your wardrobe twice a year-  take the clothes that are out of season and store them away in cloth bags, boxes or suitcases.

DON’T: Use those vacuum packing systems. They seem like a great idea, but when the vacuum removes air from the bag, the garment cannot breathe and wrinkles get permanently scored into your clothes.