Organize your nail polish and nail tools with dollar store baskets DIY

I’m a self-admitted Dollar Tree addict. I can literally walk in there needing one thing and walk out spending over 15 bucks! And that means I bought 15 things! It’s seriously crazy. I walk in there and see their adorable solar-powered dancing flowers and think “that’s so sweet and only a buck- I need it!” Then I swing by the crafting aisle and see some stickers that I know my daughter would love so I pick up three different styles. As I walk by the cleaning aisle, I see these sponges that come eight in a package and we always need more sponges so I pick up a set of those. Anyway, I usually cannot get in and out of there without spending at least 10 bucks. And I’m serious! I told you I have a weakness for a good deal.

Anyway, on to the point of this post: organizing nail polishes and nail supplies / tools. I’ve written about organizing at length here. I used to store all my nail supplies and tools, along with my nail polishes, in one old shoebox. This was not great for many reasons. The biggest reason is that it is impossible to find something specific quickly, like the cuticle nippers or the crystal file. Also the nail polishes usually wind up falling over and finding a specific nail polish color becomes challenging.

The first thing to do is to purge your stash. This means throwing away polishes that are old or seriously separated or unattractive. Also do the same with your supplies. Throw away any redundant supplies or any tools that have expired their usefulness.

The next thing I did was separate my polishes from my tools. Sometimes I’m not interested in polishing (or re-polishing) my nails but I want to take care of my cuticles or files my nails. This way I’ve separated the process into two different baskets. The first basket from the Dollar Tree holds all my polishes nice and upright.

The next basket, also from the Dollar Tree, is technically a shower caddy (I believe) but I love how it has multiple compartments for separating different tools. I put a small office organization cup in there so I can stand up all my tall tools, like the files, cutters, nippers, etc. In another compartment, I store various nail and hand lotions, scrubs, creams, etc.


And in the final compartment I store my tiny nail embellishments like glitters. These I also got at the Dollar Tree. They’re sooo adorable, but I have yet to really do something with them. I will make a post when I use them for the first time.

Happy Organizing! 🙂

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