Guest Blog Post - Shabby Chic Storage

Who glams up in a room like this? Shabby Chic style make-up storage ideas

Hi girls! (and boys!?)

I’ve had a love for shabby chic for around 2 years now. Living at home with my mum in a tiny bedroom, the closest thing I got to exploring the French elegant style boudoir was by looking at photos on websites and dreaming, but I knew one day I would definitely turn those dreams into a reality.

Fast forward 2 years and I find myself moving into my own house with my boyfriend (July of this year). I definitely made sure it had 3 bedrooms; one for us, one for him and his toys (i.e. PS3!) and one for me and my shabby chic-ness!

On the run up to moving house, I thought about ways of storing make-up and hair products, and began collecting little things on a weekly basis. There are various types of shabby chic styles.. I decided to go for white furniture with a hint of pastel colours to add a pop of colour to the room but also keeping within the theme.

So, without further ado, here is my own little parlour, full of everything a woman would need in her life!

The make-up brush holder that you can see on the left of my dressing table is actually a metal cutlery caddy that I bought from Wilkinsons for a mere £2. I was lucky enough for my mum to give me the dressing table, however they can still be found on ebay here (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/French-Shabby-Chic-Dressing-Table-Swing-Mirror-NEW-/180730409505?pt=UK_Bedroom_Furniture&hash=item2a145f3221).

What sits on my chest of drawers?

 

I thought this was a perfect way to store nail varnishes… in a glass fish bowl type vase! They are inexpensive to buy (a mere £2), can store lots of varnishes (I have 20+ in here) and they are quite funky to look at too, don't you think?!

I found this little beauty in TKMaxx. Ok it’s not exactly shabby chic, but the pastel blue matched my room. It’s a metal mesh type drawer set that was found in the stationery section. It cost me £4.99 and is now home to most of my hair accessories – hair grips, hair bobbles, headbands etc. I’m not a massive hair person so they all fit in here nicely. For those that were wondering, on top is a giant rose scented candle that was purchased from Matalan a few months ago for £6.

This sits by the side of my chest of drawers and holds a mixture of products. As you've probably guessed it's actually a metal cakestand, but again, because of its style, I was drawn to it. I found this in Homebase for around £6.

This drawer tower matches the dressing table. Unfortunately I can’t find it on eBay right now, but this is what I store all my make-up in, minus palettes. On top I have a shabby chic floral tray which holds my perfumes, and the taller object behind that is a slim vase that holds all my chunky bangles. I find that wide costume bangles consume a lot of space so stacking them is perfect.

The majority of you will recognise the smaller boxes, yep, that’s right, good ol’ Glossy Box! I do have a lot more of these boxes but they are home to other things in cupboards all around my house! I think they are a great idea to keep to store things in, and they match with my room which is a bonus! I keep things such as camera leads/chargers and sample/travel beauty products in them.

This is my jewellery corner. I have stacks of costume jewellery but keep my most used items on these. The earrings are pierced through a canvass board. I got the idea from Youtube, however I think I am changing this soon because once you’ve pierced the earring through, getting them back in the same hole and making them stay there is another matter! Either way, a canvass can be picked up from most stationery stores for a few quid. My necklace holder I think is super cute. I bought it from BHS for £4, reduced from £12, I love a bargain! It is metal so strong enough to hold a fair few of my heavy duty necklaces ;-)

Below my jewellery stands this 4 tower wicker drawer set. This was actually purchased from Argos in the bathroom section to, yeah, you’ve guessed it, be used in our bathroom! However we had more storage than we thought, so it made itself at home in my room instead. This holds a lot of hair products and deodorants. Although the size of the drawers are not great, so only smaller products can be kept in these.

So, that is my little make-up room that I get ready in every morning!

It’s not exactly how I’d like it (I did want the carpet ripping up and the floorboards painting white, and the walls to be painted white, but I got a bit lazy/impatient!).

Have you got any unusual make-up or jewellery storage tips?

I just want to thank MissBudgetBeauty for letting me take over her blog for a day, and I wish her all the best with her birth!

Please come and check out my blog, I do reviews, OOTD’s, recent buys, competitions and random life updates!

http://aworldfullofprettiness.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading,

Kate x

About Todays Guest Blogger

I started doing YT video's last year, and absolutely loved it however I stopped filming around a month ago for a lot of reasons, but mainly because I didn't have a good quality camera and recording equipment, and because I've recently moved into my own house and have far less time on my hands now. I've known about blogger for some time now, but have only being blogging myself for a couple of months. I can honestly say I'm (sadly) addicted. I check it at every spare opportunity, even at work (the amount of time's I've had to quickly click off because my boss has walked in I've lost count!). I get so much inspiration from reading blogs (not all good inspiration, may I add, the amount of times I've gone shopping shortly after reading someones review on something... so easily influenced! haha). Its a lot less time consuming than YT and to me its like an online photographic diary. I know its something I'll stick with for years to come. I think it's a great little concept, knowing that you are making little recordings of your life, both beauty wise and personal life, and having these to look back on in years to come. I know this blog will be with me for a long time and follow me through many stages in my life :-)

(http://aworldfullofprettiness.blogspot.com)

My New Set Up..

Firstly I'd like to point you all to Fee's post today on MakeupSavvy.co.uk which was the inspiration for my afternoons productivity. I'm very easily influenced (as many beauty addicts are) and it took me approximately 5 minutes from reading Fee's post to moving my first item of furniture. I was sitting on my bed admiring all of the beautiful natural light streaming in and wondering why I wasn't utilising it. In my makeup room I had the worst lighting, the only good light I got was obscured and therefor uneven and shadowy. It had a small window on the side of the house that faced a brick wall.. not ideal! Much as I loved having my own little space it didn't feel warm or even very "me".. it was just where I went to get ready and film my videos. So lighting got the move started but another thing that appealed was I wouldn't be able to be as messy. When you have a dedicated room for anything you can close the door on any mess you've made.. moving my makeup area to the bedroom meant I would never be able to leave my dressing table in a state like this again....

Getting ready day to day it doesn't generally get this bad but after a couple of videos and not putting things away it can get worse... much worse! Stuff would pile up all over the place.. I could never find ANYTHING! So now I'm hoping my dresser will be a more organised, grown-up space.

For those of you that don't know what my room and set-up were like before here's a picture..

*sorry about the quality*

And here's what it looks like now...

Everything is gone and it makes me a little sad but we needed a space to store our clothes in that limbo period between washed and ironed and somewhere to set up the ironing board - previously the nursery was that space but I don't think Milo will appreciate that somehow.

So once I'm done taking all of my stuff out this will be that place. 

If you follow me on twitter you will know that while reorganising the furniture I suffered a major trauma. Our crappy old BT phone socket was wrenched from the wall leaving wires connected to nothing and me disconnected from the world. I didn't cry.. I just felt a little numb and continued my move. Intermittently I'd use the poor internet connection on my iPhone to try and find a solution but failed to find anyone with a similar problem or anything that told me what wire needed to go where. It was a dark time. Eventually I bit the bullet and called BT... I was informed that as I had broken the socket I would be charged £180 for an engineer to come out and fix it.... waaahhh!! Not what I wanted to hear AT ALL. 

I'd all but given up hope when I stumbled across a site that talked about replacing the fascia on a BT master socket... MY SOCKET! It says everywhere online that you are not allowed to tamper with the socket, it is in all the BT contracts that you must not do any repairs, it all must be done by a BT engineer... well let me tell you.. before I shelled out £180 I was damn well going to have a go myself. The problem I had was the front of the box had come off and there were two loose black wires poking out... I had to strip the wires back so I had enough exposed wire to work with and connected them to the relevant places on the underside of the faceplate. I connected my router not expecting much but low and behold it connected straight away... faster than ever before in fact. To say I was pleased would be a massive under-statement. I know I broke it but by god I fixed it.. MYSELF from some very complicated looking diagrams and I am extremely proud of myself! I wish I'd taken pictures before I fixed it to show the state it was in but all I have to show you is it here in working order and masking taped-up within an inch of its life. I think it will need at least another layer of duct tape and possibly smothering in no more nails... that thing is never coming off again!!!

I know that was a totally non-beauty topic but you can't imagine what it feels like for me to lose the internet... it's like chopping off a limb. No exaggeration!

But anyway... the reason for the post was the big shift around which as I said was all down to Fee's post... 

My only words of warning would be.. don't do anything ridiculous like I did.. much as I love my new set-up it would not have been worth the end of blogging and YouTube altogether... Fee nearly had a lot to answer for!

I'll do a full post on my bedroom now it's all done.. hopefully before Milo arrives and takes over everything. This will be a room I spend a lot of time in in the next few weeks so I'm really happy to finally have it feeling finished.

My Jewellery Storage

I have finally found storage solutions for all of my jewellery so thought I would share with you all...



I rarely used to wear the jewellery I had but now it's all out on display it's much easier to accessorise in the mornings. I don't know about you but if it's too fiddly I wont bother so long necklaces I can slip over my head are much more likely to be worn that short ones i have to fasten. I used to house these necklaces on doorknobs all over the house (to the frustration of my fiance) but the nails in the wall of my makeup room have created a simple solution and are a nice decorative touch. I would love something to put all of my bracelets on where I can more clearly see them and am still looking for a large ring tray for the same purpose but for now this is how I store everything and it's a massive improvement so I'm happy.

How do you store your accessories?

Outfit Month #20

*What I'm Wearing*

Jumper - Next

Vest underneath - Primark

Leggings - Topshop Maternity

Boots - Next

Earrings - Forever 21

*Beauty Breakdown*

Everything is pretty much same 'ol same 'ol but for a couple of things..

Benefit Dallas on my cheeks.. I'm really feeling this for Autumn.

MAC Viva Glam V lipstick... still my fave everyday colour to avoid the washed out uber-pale look!

So many of you commented on my updated makeup room video that I'm so organised and neat... well... I'm not! To give you an idea of what my vanity looks like on a day to day basis here's a picture...

Told ya so! And for those who missed that video you can watch it below

And last of all.. a bump shot!



I even got some shots of Lee's outfit today (he's been a busy boy interviewing for new jobs) would any of you be interested in a boyfriend outfit of the day?