Lessons Learned from Necklaces

I don’t have a lot of jewelry. Maybe 10 bracelets, no idea how few earrings, maybe 12 pins. And 18 necklaces. Notice how I’m sure of the necklaces? Necklaces are my favorite jewelry.

My first jewelry “ah ha”? Necklaces and I don’t get along. I have mild metal allergies, and necklaces get heavy or hot or scratchy. I come home from a day,  and I want nothing more than to tear my ornament off and toss it someanywhere. I lost a lot of jewelry. But I go straight to my desk when I get home, checking email, taking notes of the day. Everybody else keeps their trinkets on their dresser or in the clothes closet. I keep mine at work. I finally got some pretty little boxes, even labeled them, and put them on my office desk. Problem solved, so there.

Except that boxes don’t hold necklaces so well. Getting necklaces out of boxes = cat’s-cradle (or maybe bad-fishing-line cast) snarls, broken chains, and dropping pendants into spaces even my cat can’t get into.  Centuries lost untangling everything, didn’t try to track how many lumps on my head from crawling under the desk. Not pretty.

Ah ha #2: a jewelry spinner. Sits on my office bookcase. Cost $6 at a Goodwill. Ah ha #3. Every pendant has a dedicated chain. Mixing and matching at the local Goodwills (me like Goodwills) took a couple of hours and $40. And over the course of a lifetime wearing this finery, those two hours will save me dozens and that $40 will probably gain back triple in wear-and-tear avoided. And yes, every single item on the spinner is precious to me: I’ve consigned, donated or gifted pieces many times. My son made the glass charm above.

Time = money. You can invest it: walk through any storage problem as thoroughly as possible. And you do sometimes need to invest “real” money in tools, but the investment doesn’t have to be costly. And you don’t have to be conventional to be effective. Hang your jewelry on a mug rack if you like.