Organising the pretties

Spring cleaning, spring sorting, spring organising. I seem to have had it worse than ever this year (or better, depending on how you look at it). Much of it has been quite practical and very satisfying. But organising needn't be utilitarian and dull. I have also been organising the pretty things in life too. And voila:

And here is a close-up:

I have been looking for a pretty but practical way of storing my earrings for ages. Here's what you need to do, should you be equally inspired...

1. Find yourself some broderie anglaise style fabric. Lace would also do. You need it to be in long lengths, and, crucially, you need it to have holes in it that are just the right size to easily slip an earring through, and for a stud earring with a butterfly clip on to stay clipped in (if the hole's too big, they'll slip right off!)
2. Cut the broderie anglaise into lengths that are right for your space and your earring collection. Tip: cut longer than you need! Nothing's more annoying than buying more earrings and finding you've got to get rid of old ones to fit them in to your display. (Also, this is a perfect excuse to 'need' to buy more earrings.)
3. Pin your fabric onto your wall. I used clear noticeboard pins and a hammer. Unfortunately I also used my building-obsessed Little One who hammered so enthusiastically he broke the ends off a few pins! Use your eye or a spirit level to get your fabric straight. If you are setting more than one length of fabric on the wall (as I did), make sure the lower length is parallel to the upper one and that the spacing between the two is enough to allow your longest earrings to hang without overlapping.
4. Add additional pins to the fabric as well as the ones at each end. This helps to support the weight of your earrings. My two strips of broderie anglaise are about half a metre long and have 4 pins in each.
5. Get hanging and clipping your earrings in! If you have an unfortunate mix of mild OCD and an artistic eye like me, hang them in colour groups. Scarily satisfying.
6. You may find, as I did, that the weight of the earrings causes the upper section of your fabric to warp (you can see this slightly in the top picture). I used clear sticky dots behind the worse sections to hold the fabric to the wall.
7. Ta-dah! I am unashamed to admit that the sight of my pretty earrings all lined up, pretty and colour coordinated cheers me up every morning.