Happy organised New Year

Happy New Year... and I hope you've had a more relaxing Christmas break than I did. As anyone who sees my Twitter feed will already know, I spent Boxing Day onwards in a DIY frenzy, doing a mini-makeover of my front room, painting all my stairs and totally revamping my home-office. It's totally wiped me out and I was still at it at 10pm last night (as otherwise I'd still be sitting on a dusty dust sheet surrounded by paint pots here, while I type...). And still the jobs are to be finished, which is frustrating (why do these things always take ten times longer than you hope?).

Anyway, so as I am still semi amid chaos until such time (and I will post up some before and after pix as proof) I am drawn, magpie-like, towards images online of stylish order and organisation. Like the beautiful typesetters' tray-turned-jewellery display, above. I do love a bit of reappropriation of old objects and this gives a fresh – and more practical – twist to the trick of using these now defunct objects to show off bits and bobs.

This one is from a US-based Etsy seller, Bluebird, for around £60 – great if you're Stateside. But if you're in Europe, even though they offer international shipping, clearly that would be madness. So why not make your own?

I found an eBay shop selling the typesetters' trays for £25 (plus £9.50 postage). All you need is an assortment of little hooks and eyes, which you'll find at any DIY store, or try Screwfix if you don't fancy venturing out in this crazy weather.