Playing it by Ear

At our house we have three girls. As you imagine with that many girls we have collected a lot of accessories over the years. 

When my two older girls got their ears pierced I purchased an earring holder to keep their earrings on. Most of the earrings are community property at our house because it's just easier that way. However, even with the earring holder the earrings were getting lost because the girls weren't always willing to put them away on the holder and would leave them on the table in front of the holder instead. Or on the bathroom counter. Or on their nightstands. Or on the dining room table. Kids.

I was getting rather tired of hearing the complaints from the girls when they couldn't find the earrings they were looking for and so I started formulating a plan to make our earring storage simpler. Something that would be faster to find a particular pair and faster to put them away.

Read on to see what I came up with!

First I purchased a long thin sheet of Styrofoam from the craft store. I cut it into squares with an exacto knife.

I put the squares in the bottom of mini plastic drawers.

With the help of my two younger daughters I categorized the the earrings by color and punched them, back and all, into the Styrofoam. This way the earrings won't get all jumbled up and the backs won't get lost.

Finally, I labeled all the drawers and put them back on the table. I am hopeful we will have a lot less lost earrings now. In the meantime the girls are enjoying rediscovering earrings they couldn't see on the holder but can easily find in the drawers.

I'm counting this mini project a success!