a graphic of a jewellery box with items of jewellery inside and around the box
Episode 38 – Top Tips on How to Organise Jewellery

In this podcast, Lesley and Ingrid talk about how it's important to focus from time to time on decluttering and organising jewellery. It's time consuming but well worth the effort. Decluttering and organising jewellery seems to be low on people's list of priorities when it comes to bedroom organising. The emotions are high because jewellery is so often inherited or received at key moments in life so is highly sentimental.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Intro  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The Declutter Hub Podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your host professional organisers, Ingrid Johnson, and Lesley Spellman.

Ingrid  0:26  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 38 of the Declutter Hub Podcast. I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley. If you have clutter and want to sort it out, this is to show for you. In today's episode, Lesley and I are talking about jewellery organising. Now, Lesley and I decided we really wanted to do a podcast about decluttering and organising jewellery, because it's often the last on the list when we're decluttering bedrooms. And when we were preparing this podcast, we first thought it would be kind of like a short while like what can you tell about jewellery organising. And then we started kind of writing everything out and preparing everything and we thought, okay, this is quite the podcast, isn't it? Lesley?

Lesley  1:06  
Exactly. There's a lot to say about jewellery.

Ingrid  1:08  
Yeah, I think there's a lot more to it than people realise. I think this because it's really small and doesn't take up a lot of room. It's, it's a bit forgotten. A lot of the times,

Lesley  1:19  
I think that's one of the, you know, talked about the emotions involved in decluttering jewellery, that's a big one, really, it's kind of out of sight out of mind a little bit, isn't it. And so that's why it's often last on people's lists to tackle really, because it's small, and it doesn't really take up as you say, it doesn't take up lots and lots of space. And so we can forget about it, because it's not impacting the way that we live generally. But that doesn't mean to say that it's not important to get it under control, and to get it organised.

Ingrid  1:46  
You know, what I, I decluttered jewellery with a client at one time, and it took us a whole, I think three or four hour session, to actually sort it all out, because it was so much more work than you actually think it's going to be.

Lesley  2:03  
It's slow, it's, it's slow. This is not a quick job, everybody is it takes a lot of time, because there's a lot of tiny little things in there. A lot of things that you have to pair up and all that kind of stuff. So it's not, it's not an easy, it's not an easy job. It's one that's gonna you know, you need to set set aside at least a couple of hours to three hours to do this. Yeah. Which is why it's always it's always at the end of our list, isn't it with clients, really? Because we tackle the bulk of the stuff first generally, don't we? Yeah. And then we go down to the sort of nitty gritty later.

Ingrid  2:33  
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think it's also you need a good flat space, as well, when you start to declutter jewellery. So ideally, you want to have some sort of table clear, where you can kind of spread it all out.

Lesley  2:50  
The bed sort of works as well, I've done on the bed as well, as long as the beds made and flat, the bed can work as well, because you can really sort of, especially on a double bed, you can kind of move everything around. And so if you have not got a table in your bedroom, because often often it's going to be in our bedroom. Well, is it always going to be pretty much always going to be in our bedrooms, isn't it? Really? Yeah. But I think the reason why it's quite interesting jewellery is because a lot of the standard declutter, we know, we talk a lot about the standard decluttering emotions, and a couple of murder, but definitely prevalent with jewellery, aren't they? So the ones that I wanted to highlight specifically, are sentimental, you know, you're holding on to things for sentimental reasons. And for guilt, you know, you're hanging on to things because you feel guilty. And so that tends to be things that we have been given or things that we've inherited. So the sentimental stuff, and the guilts kind of wrapped up together really in this one. And that's why it can be difficult. And that's why we keep hold of things, perhaps longer than we need to. And so today, we're just going to talk a little bit about different options for maybe offloading some of the jewellery or changing things up or whatever. And, you know, why do we keep hold of things long after they're useful to us? And when we're not wearing them?

Ingrid  3:57  
Yeah, yeah. And I agree with you. And I think we're also going to touch upon the different storage solutions that are there for jewellery as well. So it's going to be a very, very inclusive podcast, this one with loads of stuff that we're going to talk about. So why don't we start with why do we hold on to so many of these jewellery and things? I think

Lesley  4:19  
we tend to get jewellery is something that people give at key moments, whether it's a birthday, whether it's a graduation, and at the 21st 40th, a wedding, all of those things are things where jewellery might be something that someone that you receive from someone or someone gives to you. And so I think so there's a very special sentiment that goes along with that isn't there? Because it will will have been from a very key moment in your life. So sentiment is high on this one isn't it was jewellery generally, but not always. And I think it's, it's sorting out the kind of wheat from the chaff almost in terms of your sentimental feelings, and which are sentimental and which are served You're well in your current life, because we still need to, even though we feel sentimental about things, things should still serve us in our current life. And it's important to feel empowered enough to offload stuff and to give it a new life almost, you know, hi, you know, you've got a beautiful five in Japan watch or something that you got when you were 18, you would never wear now, you know, should you then keep hold of that? Or should you pass it on to somebody else in the family, or it's a tough decision to make, isn't it those decisions are not easy, because sentiment is high. And also then alongside that, that guilt that goes along with, you know, getting rid or repurposing or giving away something that you were given on your 18th birthday by your mom and dad, you know, it's hard, isn't it? I've still got stuff, but I've not got loads of stuff. And so, you know, it's sort of it's remembering and working out what is important and what isn't.

Ingrid  5:52  
Yeah. And I think it's also not only that, but also things you inherit from family members, or people like, I've got some stuff that my grandmother had, I had a, I have a lovely ring from my grandmother. And I really want to hold on to that. I can't get the sides there, because that's a really tricky one for me, I think.

Lesley  6:16  
And it's also a very, quite often that kind of jewellery that you inherit from your grandma is very, very beautiful jewellery, but it's not necessarily jewellery that would fit in with your outfits that you're wearing at the moment, because it's quite ornate, isn't it? So it's going to be a very specific occasion that you can wear something very ornate like that. I mean, obviously, everyone wears completely different types of jewellery. And everyone has completely different styles. But it's important to realise that and sometimes we cling on to things even though we're never ever ever going to wear them. And is that right for that piece of jewellery? So it's like, you know, should that jewellery? Hmm, I don't know. It's a it's an interesting, it's a very interesting psychology really, isn't it?

Ingrid  6:53  
Yeah. Yeah. And I think as well, I think we also feel for some reason that we have to really hold on to like gold and silver for like a lifetime. Because we've always been told it's a it's a precious stone into precious I demand a material and it will never loses value. And

Lesley  7:14  
if something's gold, if we're going through things with clients, well, that's gold, that's silver, and then it becomes a no, no in terms of getting rid of it when actually, you might have cost you know, if you think about some costume jewellery. Now there's costume jewellery out there, stellar and dark is a great example of that. I think that's gone. I think that's actually composts. Now, it was not in the UK anymore. But you know, stellar and costume jewellery might cost 100 250 pounds for a necklace. And so that's not cheap. And that might be more expensive than buying a a sort of cheapish gold necklace from, you know, ah, Samuels for 30 quid do not to mean and so it's an interesting psychologist costume jewellery is not cheap anymore. And so, you know, it's the value, but it's that perceived value that we've got isn't isn't as exactly. You say. It's a precious metal. And we were tuned into thinking that we have to keep hold of it. Yeah.

Ingrid  8:02  
Yeah. Good point. I mean, I think of course, we definitely want to keep the difference between costume jewellery and almost How can I call it real jewellery? If that makes sense?

Lesley  8:15  
Because one would pay for it. But yeah,

Ingrid  8:18  
but cost, but I agree with you costume jewellery isn't necessarily always cheap. It can be but it doesn't have to be. I mean, I bought a beautiful necklace in face eight and I think it was 40 or 45 pounds. I don't think that's cheap, you know? Exactly.

Lesley  8:36  
And I think the thing is about costume jewellery as well. You know, when we have like something I think we keep hold of things. Long after in costume jewellery fashions change as much as clothes fashions change. But I do think we're more likely to keep hold of a necklace from 15 years ago than we are a skirt somehow.

Ingrid  8:55  
Do you agree? Yeah. Yeah. I find tonnes and tonnes of jewellery in my clients houses. And some of it is you know, they were like, Oh, wow, that matched an outfit back in the 90s. And it's like I haven't worn it for like 10 to 15 years while it's still in my house.

Lesley  9:15  
Yeah, no, that's so it is interesting. But I think it is all about this because it's small and it doesn't take up space. It's not coming to the top of our list of priorities in terms of decluttering but today is all about you know what we want from today don't we Ingrid? is for people to go and tackle their jewellery collection and see whether it serves them in your current life what you're currently wearing what you currently want to wear. It does it does it fit that?

Ingrid  9:40  
And I think also what what is important to share with our listeners is that if you have decided you're going to do this decluttering and organising it. Go and find the stuff that's all over your house because we find it everywhere. I mean, not only because you know people leave some at the front door. People have some in the back Do people have some in their bag? But also maybe because it's in a safe? But also because we hide it?

Lesley  10:08  
Yeah, I think that's it, I think we hide it because we you know, hide it in principle them from burglars and things. And so it's at the back of drawers and then it's in your liquor drawer. And it's, you know, as you're saying little kind of parts in your hallway, it depends on your habits, you know, some people take, like to take the earrings off as soon as they come in the house. You know, people don't like that once you've come back from work or whatever. And so that's why it can be just everywhere. So it's definitely all over the place was so the first thing that we need to do is to sort of gather it all up really, isn't it and bring it into one place. Yeah,

Ingrid  10:35  
yeah, for sure. For sure. And I think the second step is to once you've got it all together, start with categorization. So put bracelets together necklaces together, rings together earrings together, or if you have a set that is complete, maybe see if the sets is still all together. So put the necklace and the matching bracelet and earrings all together in one set. So you know it's still complete.

Lesley  11:04  
Yeah, you see less and less sets these days don't need to be honest. People tend to sort of shake things up a little bit and have different things, don't they? Yes, that still exists certainly in their kind of more precious jewellery. Definitely. And now's the time I think what once you started to gather, like with like and categorise, we'll have a bit of categorization don't when grid. Yeah, we're not going to talk containers yet. That's my next favourite thing. And this is the time to really start to see whether or not that tangled up necklace, or that necklace that's lost its class or that earrings that's lost its back. Whether we actually are going to fix it, find it, untangle it. This is the time to do that. And to be honest with yourself, because again, there's a lot of jewellery isn't it's just tangled up, and it's been tangled up for four or five years. It's not an easy thing. That's where my patience definitely lacks on tangling jewellery is not mine. I've got the patience of a saint when I'm decluttering but not on Tanglin jewellery. I'm just like, nope, not doing this. So yeah, but we keep things that are broken. We think we keep things that are tarnished or silver. And I know you can clean it up. But do you clean it up? This is the question. And this is the time to ask that.

Ingrid  12:12  
Yeah, also, and I think also, when you see that it's broken. Maybe this is the time if it is not precious and not expensive. If it is broken, you know, let it go, then maybe that's the only place for it to go is the bin. If it star niched, you know, then make the decision, are you going to polish it? Are you going to use a cleaner to sort it out? And if it's tangled issue issues, depression and precious enough to untangle it and spend their time on it?

Lesley  12:41  
Yeah, it's very much going to depend on whether it's, you know, in terms of whether you should just throw it away. If it's tangled up, that's going to depend on you know, what it's made out of, I guess, yes. Yeah, I'm going to come on to that later because there are options for broken jewellery, which we'll come on to later in terms of offloading them. But we'll, we'll talk about that in a bit.

Ingrid  12:59  
Yeah. Also, I think when you are categorising, it also might be helpful to even have a separate stack for costume jewellery, separate for really more expensive items. And if you've got a lot of traditional jewellery, maybe it's helpful to put them in a separate category as well. So for example, I worked with a client who had a lot of Indian jewellery, a lot of bangles, a lot of very ornate pieces that she would only wear with her traditional outfits. So we actually kept it all to the side and actually put that with her traditional clothing, and not in her general jewellery stacks in with things that you would use on a day to day basis. So it would be easy for her to find and not have everything all together.

Lesley  13:49  
Yeah, no, that's good. Definitely talking about that kind of traditional jewellery. Um, I've got a question for you. Yes. Tell me why do you think then that people feel that they should separate out a gold necklace from a costume jewellery necklace?

Ingrid  14:05  
Hmm. That, should I do that? So I have, I have like a jewellery organiser where I've got all my costume jewellery. And I've got a separate jewellery box where I keep all my nice stuff.

Lesley  14:21  
And it's interesting because if you think about the psychology, there shouldn't be any difference because what you're trying to do is wear something and put something on that's going to match it. So whether it's a piece of costume jewellery, or whether it's piece of gold or silver jewellery, it shouldn't make any difference. And so sometimes what I find is that by separating them out and putting your precious jewellery in for ones for better word, separate means that we don't wear the enemy and actually that's the stuff that you should be wearing more. We talk all the time about barriers and so for me, I definitely really really expensive stuff. You want to keep its own box, I guess. But I don't have any of that really. And But you know, if you did, so I can understand that that would be boxed up separately, not just going to leave it in with the general stuff. But in general, I don't see why you would think about those things any differently. And so that's just something to think about. But I stumped you there didn't angry with my question. Yes. Yes,

Ingrid  15:15  
you did. Because I think I've got a couple of nice pieces that I do keep separately.

Lesley  15:22  
And in what would you wear the men in a different time? So you're not I mean, would you? Are they something that you would wear if you went to a ball or something where you wear a long dress, and that would be a very specific type of jewellery that you would wear with that? Maybe? Or you might wear a piece costume jewellery. But in general, if you were just wearing a nice top and a pair of jeans, and you wanted a necklace to go with that, would you not then wear your gold necklace? And you would wait your costume necklaces?

Ingrid  15:45  
Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think.

Lesley  15:49  
So it's just something to think about really is should you then separate them out? Or actually how you better keeping them together? And it's going to be very dependent on the type of storage that you've got, which is what we're going to talk about now, isn't it? Yeah.

Ingrid  16:00  
And it can I add one more thing as well, just for the listeners who have a really a lot of expensive jewellery, you really might want to consider having a safe or having something in a safe place. And I know that is an extra barrier, then to get that really special jewellery out. But on the other hand, you really want to be sensible here and have a safe, or something that's very lockable and can't be easily taken from your house. So it's in a safe place.

Lesley  16:27  
Yeah, definitely.

Ingrid  16:28  
Yeah. Can I tell you one more story, Lesley, because it is so nice. Such a nice story. One of my clients actually had a whole bag of golden jewellery, very, very special jewellery. And she had hidden it away somewhere in her house. And at one point, she was trying to find a certain piece of jewellery, and she knew it was in that stack of hidden jewellery. And she couldn't find it anywhere. She searched the house. I mean, everywhere, high, low everywhere, everything was turned upside down to find this bag of jewellery. And so at one point, she said, Oh, my goodness, our cleaners have left may have they may be taking it I'm distraught, you know, maybe somebody's taking it and, um, now it's all lost. And then I ended up doing a wardrobe declutter with her and I went to her scars and kind of things like that, and her purchase. And lo and behold, there the back would go, I have never seen anybody jump up and down. So I in my life, she was absolutely delighted. So when you hide it, make sure you remember where you hide it.

Lesley  17:34  
Definitely. And don't blame the cleaners. The Cleaners are always the first to get blamed for anything going missing. And it's so hard. We see that all the time. If things are missing, don't where the cleaners must have taken. It's a terrible thing whereby, anyway, anyway, don't get me started on things.

Ingrid  17:49  
Let's talk about storage solutions. Now. I know that was one thing you do not like so let's let's get that out of the way first, Lesley. 

Lesley  17:57  
I hate as much as I hate Polly Pockets. Now. I hate those jewellery tree things, you know, they can be in the shape of a woman's dress, or they can be in the shape of a, you know, a hand, a hand. All those kinds of novelty jewellery trees, on the slate, as soon as I see one in a bedroom, you know, I never dictate to my clients what goes in a declutter, but um, there's strong suggestions when I see one of those that that's not going to be helpful to them in organising their jewellery. And the reason is, because they're not really the right size. They're normally too short. They're quite often very flimsy, so they fall over all the time. All your jewellery ends up getting mushed up together anyway, because they've not it's not all split up, is it? And so it's a nice idea, but they look better without any jewellery on them than they do with. Yeah, so I just I just think there's something that they just gimmicky really just don't work. They're not fit for purpose, are they?

Ingrid  18:57  
Yeah, I agree with you. I saw one last week at a declutter, or two weeks ago, and I thought, honestly, it does not work. It does not work for you

Lesley  19:06  
can understand why people you can understand the why people buy them, because their jewellery collections are in a in a pickle and in a mess. And they're like that I need something to organise it and there are not many solutions out there on the market. And that's one of the ones that you see quite often probably the most frequent, frequent type of jewellery organiser that you see. Well, that's cost effective. There's lots of jewellery solutions out there on the market, but they're quite expensive generally, aren't they?

Ingrid  19:32  
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So so. Okay, now we know what you hate. Tell us what you love them. Hate. It's

Lesley  19:39  
very strong word, isn't it? I know very, very. But yeah, but that's, that gives you an idea of how much I feel strongly about geometries. But anyway, so what I would do as an alternative and not everybody has got this option, but most people have only confined it is that I use little rails that I would screw into the wall into the back of the door, on the inside of a wardrobe door, you know, tiny little rails almost like a towel rail, but a small version of that, and that you screw in, and then you can hang, you can hang your necklaces around them. And even if your necklace hasn't got a class, you can loop them through as well. So what So what I've got in my wardrobe is I've got three different rails and I have different size necklaces on each one. And on the bottom one I have the knot bangles can't put bangles on them, but I do put little bracelets, you know, bracelets that are kind of loose, not rigid. Yeah, makes Yeah. Those kinds of bracelets. So I've got three different ones that I use, and it works really well. And the reason why it works well is because you can see everything, because nothing tangles up because of the right size. And it's a really, really good solution if you can find it somewhere. But it's just finding these little rails and finding somewhere that you can put them.

Ingrid  20:57  
So if you've got your necklaces, and your soft bangles. So what do you do with the Hard Round bangles? Then where did where have you got those,

Lesley  21:07  
I put those in a little wicker basket. So they just go into a little wicker wicker basket really, because they're rigid, honestly can't really hang around anything. So there needs to be let to lay flat. So I've just got a separate basket that I use for those. You know, because we do we have those don't wear sort of hard bangles like gold bangles and things like that. So that's, that's what I do with that. And then my rings, if I've got, I mean, to be fair, I don't really, I don't really wear many rings other than the ones that I've got on my finger, but I've got a couple of ones that are keeping don't wear sentimental ones. And I have a little I use a proper traditional jewellery box for those with the little things where you stick them in, you know, the little kind of compartments where you can push things into there, I use a do rings and I do earrings. So jewellery box, bangles in a basket, and necklaces on a on a rail.

Ingrid  21:57  
Okay, all right. So I do it a little bit different, I actually have one of those jewellery organisers, and you can find them everywhere. I just happened to find mine in Primark and it worked really well. And it was only a couple of pounds. So it was a fantastic solution. But I mean, you can you can buy them also everywhere online and everything so but I liked them because they're like, they look like a hanger. And then they've got like a thing with these pouches in it. And I've got smaller ones for like, bangles, and bracelets, or even maybe a watch if you want to. And then there's larger ones for kind of more chunkier pieces of necklaces. And they're both sides. So I just have it at the end of my clothes rail. And I could just take it out and have a look around and see what I have. And then I've got a jewellery box. I think it was my grandmother sexually. And that's where I have my rings and my earrings. And my a couple of really, really nice bits of jewellery, like I said before, so I do like that. And for me that works really, really well.

Lesley  23:02  
Yeah, and I think it's finding a solution that work because the bottom line is we've all got very different types of storage that can put things into you know, whether that's just the drawers whether that's some people have got wardrobe, some people got a walk in wardrobe, we've got more options. You know, it just depends really, so it's, you know, you have to be quite inventive, really about where you're going to put things jewellery, because it's important that normal kind of access at accessibility needs to be there, because you need to be able to see it, you need to be able to see it. Well, I'm assuming so all tangled up, that's when you can't see it as well. So like the idea of it being in your wardrobe, and at the end, as long as it's not squashed up right at the end that you've never get it out. That's the thing, isn't it? Yeah. So, so that that works really well for you does that? Yeah,

Ingrid  23:43  
definitely. And what I did with a client, she has had some really nice jewellery. So she's got her stuff in a safe, and she actually bought some of that, those stackable boxes that you can stack on top of each other. And that worked really, really well for her. So she can take everything out and she could just stack and restock them however she wants and get the stuff out when she goes to like a special occasion. And she needs her fancy, lovely posh jewellery. So that's an option as well. So there's lots of different options out there show, but I agree with you. fishability is key.

Lesley  24:17  
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Otherwise you just don't put it on. Do you? Do you let someone know? Oh, yeah. Keep going to the same necklace all the time. You know?

Ingrid  24:23  
Yeah. So what do you do when you go on holiday? Literally? Have you got like a separate bag or something to put it in?

Lesley  24:30  
Or do I have like a little Yeah, I have like a little jewellery pouch that was given by a friend a few years ago. Thank you, Helen. I know she listens. So thank you for my lovely jewellery pouch, which I still use. So yeah, it's just the pouch which is got different compartments in it for different things. And so it'll keep it sort of folds over. So keeps the neck of sizzle kind of fold round. And it's got a thing for earrings and it's got a thing for rings on it. And so it just works really well and I can take five or six necklaces with me on On holiday. So yeah, so I always take a jewellery pouch with me on holiday.

Ingrid  25:04  
Nice. Nice. I normally go camping so I don't bring jewellery

Lesley  25:11  
One day One

Ingrid  25:12  
day One day a little box like a soft I also have got something separately where if I go like what I went on a girls weekend and I wanted to bring some jewellery with me and I actually put a couple of bits and bobs in a soft pouch it was easy to put in my suitcase. So yeah, I'm just have a gym. But actually jewellery pouch might be a really good idea. We've now talked about jewellery pouches for holidays. But what do you do with like things like watch boxes and empty jewellery, little boxes, because I find tonnes of them around my clients houses, but they're all empty, or some of them are full. Some of them are empty, that we don't know what's going on. So what would you do suggest to our listeners? What we could do with those?

Lesley  25:52  
I think, for me, I think if you want to keep it separately in a box, it shouldn't be in the box, you know, so the jewellery should be in the box. So the box shouldn't be just there empty. Unless it's a watch. I think watches are different, aren't they? And I think watches are definitely something where you do need to keep the box so the watch them retains its value if you want to sell it on. Yeah. So I think certainly if you've got a more expensive watch, watch boxes are tend to be a keeper, don't they? Yeah, and but little jewellery boxes that you get because you get jewellery boxes, with any kind of precious jewellery these days, don't you? Really? Yeah. And so those are the ones that if you've got another solution for storing them out of the box is probably better because of that visibility thing that we were talking about, really. So I feel that you can just upload some of those boxes as well.

Ingrid  26:41  
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I've got my watch box I have, because I've got a really nice watch. So I've kept the watch box. But if I get a piece of jewellery on holiday and put it in a little jewellery case, the case can be charity shopped or used to for something else. But I don't want to just keep the empty box for just the sake of keeping it. I don't see the point in that. But of course, if you get a beautiful piece of jewellery, a necklace with a matching bracelet or earrings, and it's all in a beautiful set in a velvet box, and it's really a whole thing together, then it might be useful to keep the box but also then keep the jewellery in it. Don't just keep the box for the sake of keeping it I think,

Lesley  27:22  
definitely definitely. But you know, actually, there's a company that we were going to talk about wasn't the core vintage cash cow, where you can send off old jewellery boxes, so more vintage ones. So the ones that are years and years old, because they actually sell things directly onto I don't quite know what they do. But they take all kinds of things gold, silver, what else do they take, they take old watches, broken watches, metals, all those kinds of things that you have hanging around that you might have inherited from someone that you're not quite sure what to do with. If you do feel that you want to get rid of them and make some money out of them. Because that's you know, because you can make some money out of jewellery, you know, we've not even spoken about that. It's not just about keeping them or giving them away to charity, we can make money out of jewellery, vintage cash cow has worked really well for me with my club, I've done it personally. And I've used them for my clients as well. So basically what you do is you you find or a few things hanging around like other things that we've just spoken about, you send them off to them, they then come back with and say right, we'll give you 50 pounds, 100 pounds, 200 pounds, or whatever that might be for those items. They don't individually price each item. So you accept the offer or not, you know, if you want to accept the offer they pay the next day, if you don't want to accept the offer, they just send the stuff back to you. And it's a really, really good service. And I've actually been to the warehouse in Leeds to look at how it all works and well is completely fascinating. completely fascinating. It's just a different way I guess of doing antique dealing and vintage dealing really works well because it tends to be things that we've just got hanging around. You know, there are things in in our drawers that we're absolutely going to keep as a few things that were like, I could take it or leave it but I keep it just because it's gold or just because it's just mean. Yeah, so those are the kinds of things that are worth offloading something like vintage cash cow, and it's a very easy way of doing that. Obviously, there are other ways of doing that as well. But for me, the simpler the solution, the better really,

Ingrid  29:23  
yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if it's if you have decided that there's jewellery do you do not do you do no longer ones? There are just different options to do it, but it doesn't necessarily have to either go in the bin or to the charity shop if it's worth some money, or you're not sure but you think it might be worth some money. Vintage cash car can be a really good way to send the package it up and send it to them and find out.

Lesley  29:50  
Definitely no I think I think it's a really good service. I think you know, I completely believe in it. And you know, sometimes we when you've gone and you've seen the way that it operates, you know it takes your You're always worried that you're gonna get ripped off and absolutely don't think that you're getting ripped off. So there to make money? Of course they are. But I just think you're getting ripped off that you're getting a fair price for things. Yeah. And so that's vintage cash cow, which is something that maybe people have not heard of. So that's definitely worth looking into the got a great website and everything. So check, check them out. Yeah, another thing that I wanted to talk about actually, as well, which is something that I've done a couple of times, actually, which is to repurpose old jewellery. So I've taken jewellery that I'm not wearing anymore. So I got some diamond earrings that I wasn't wearing, because I've got a sort of a barber haircut. And so my ears are like, covered all the times and saw these beautiful earrings. And I just wasn't wearing them because they were always covered over. And so I decided that I wanted to get these diamond earrings made into a ring instead. And so I got one ring made a few years ago. And then I weighed in, or the gold from Oh, you know, bits of, you know, bits of chains that I've had in my 20s that I was never going to do anything with. And I weighed all the gold in and got it added to make the gold for the ring. So the ring ended up being not that expensive, really, because, you know, the gold that had weighed in paid for it. So it was great was great. You know, I've done it again since and so it's definitely something to think about all that old gold that's knocking around, take it to somewhere that buys gold, and weigh it in and put it towards something else. And you might feel, I mean, I just got a ring. So I had my grandma's wedding ring, which I wouldn't necessarily wear just on its own. I've just had a little diamond from something else tiny, that I've just had inserted into my grandma's wedding ring. And now I do wear that. Yeah, so it's just bring in. So now I've got both I've got the diamond that I wasn't wasn't wearing before. And I've got my grandma's wedding ring now and you know, so it's just brings it into use, which is a great thing to do, really. So the sentiments there. So you know, this is great jewellery designers out there, or that will do whatever you want with them. And so you can definitely repurpose what you've already got into something nice and you Yeah. And

Ingrid  31:57  
also, I would like to say to our listeners, really investigate your options. Don't go with the first person you meet, you know, if you've got quite a lot of jewellery that you want to have wait, maybe go to a couple of places and see you know what kind of amount they give you for it. And don't just go with the first one unless you know it's a reliable source. But maybe ask around locally as well with your friends or family if they know anybody local that they trust, and they've used before. Because it can, it can of course be quite a valuable exercise what you're doing.

Lesley  32:29  
Most people that I've worked with, and I'll say take those little bits of gold or broken necklaces in the class and the things that are broken and the things that are so thin that you got when you were 16 or whatever, you know, it all adds up. And then all of a sudden you've got 100 200 pounds. Yes, it's great. Yeah. So lovely.

Ingrid  32:45  
And didn't you mentioned recently to me a charity from a friend of yours as well, that does something with jewellery.

Lesley  32:52  
Yes. Yeah, that was costume jewellery wasn't set, we put it on our decluttered community didn't wait, because I just loved the idea of it. Girls take action and Gambia. Yeah. So it's, there are details on I will put the details in the show notes. Yeah, basically what they're looking for is they're looking for costume jewellery. And then I think somebody in the UK is collecting all the costume jewellery sending it off to the Gambia, and then they repurpose it or sell it or do something with it over that. So it's all obviously, about educating girls in Gambia. So that's a nice charity, by the sounds of things. I'm sure there are loads and loads of others out there. But that's the one that certainly caught my attention a few weeks ago. So check that out. And we will put details of that in the show notes.

Ingrid  33:33  
Yeah, we will. We'll put all kinds of links in the show notes also on vintage cash cow from the charity from, because we would like to give you some options. So we'll find some shot, links in the show notes. If you

Lesley  33:47  
don't want to where you're golden, and you've got one rogue earring and gold without a back on it or something. The charity shops have got outlets for all of that kind of stuff. So they've got dealers that they work with that are way golden for them. So if you want to go down the charity route, you know, please don't discount, you then think oh, well, they won't be able to sell that. Charities are so much not about what they can sell. They they have people that they work with to offload the stuff that they can't sell, you know, you know, specifically valuable stuff and things like that. So don't be shy to put that in the charity bag.

Ingrid  34:20  
Yeah, yeah. Point well made. Unless there's anything else we need to talk about in this podcast, or have we covered just about everything that we we wrote down a thing? Is there anything else we're missing? Or is that

Lesley  34:32  
what I'm gonna do this weekend? Because it's long overdue. You know, you do need to look at it because you do cling on to things don't you along beyond their fashionable time. You know what I mean? So, yeah, I'm going to look at my jewellery and mine is quite nicely organised. So it shouldn't take that long to be honest. I should be able to whisk through it quite easily. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to do some jewellery decluttering this weekend? Yeah, I did

Ingrid  34:58  
my Julian reorder going nice not so long ago and actually had quite a lot of kind of costume II kind of jewellery not very expensive. And I thought I'm just not wearing it anymore. I might as well let somebody else enjoy it. So charity shops at all. And but maybe in the Girard, maybe I should do my jewellery organised or my books where I've got other jewellery that's a bit more precious and things maybe I should have a good look at that and, and have a look,

Lesley  35:22  
you know, and start to bring these gold things or the stuff from your grandma or whatever, start to bring them into general use, you know, rather than just leave them sitting in a box. It's just such a shame. Isn't it? Really?

Ingrid  35:32  
Absolutely. Well, listeners. That's it for this episode. We hope you've all enjoyed listening and are inspired to take action. And if you are going to declutter and organise your jewellery, maybe this upcoming weekend, or we've given you a little job to do, as per usual, a little task, and we appreciate you listening to our podcast today. And if you'd like to get more tips and advice, please follow us on social media. We are on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as at declutter hub, and have a lively supportive Facebook group where we chat all things clutter, you can search for the declutter hub community. We'd love to see you there. If you don't want to miss the next weekly episode. Subscribe to the declutter her podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher and it will not pop into your notifications each Friday. See you next time.

Outro  36:22  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the declutter hub podcast. Check out declutterhub.com For more inspiration, and don't forget to tune in next week.
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