Organize Yourself: Nail Polish Inventory

This may seem like a silly thing, but it has become very useful to me. When I started couponing, I quickly learned that it can be very easy to get nail polish for free. In fact, I never used to paint my nails more than once or twice a year before coupons. Now I have all of these:

For all the nail polish you see, I paid maybe $1. I have acquired so many that when I find I can get a new one for free, I can't remember what colors I already have. I had this happen on Monday, so I got a white one simply because I knew that was a color I had nothing close to. So, I have devised a way to know exactly what colors I have when I go shopping. I made a card with all of them on it.

I started with a piece of thick white card (I actually used a box that one of my free samples was mailed in). I cut out a piece that seemed reasonably big yet small enough to fit in my coupon binder easily. I lined up all my polish and painted a small sample of each on the card.

After the first coat, some of the polish had soaked in and lost a bit of their depth of color, so I painted a second coat.

After the second coat, they were all true to their original colors. In fact, each one looks just like it would on my nails :) Here is my finished card:

Now I have each and every color of nail polish that I own and I can pull it out anytime I'm at a store with my coupons :) Now I will never accidentally get the same color again!