450 polishes swatched

Today I’m sharing a little project that I have been working on for the last few weeks. 

I was sick of not being able to readily see each of my polishes to decide what to wear, what to layer (or stamp) over what. Of course I could look at swatch pictures, but that would take way too long, and what then to do about all those untrieds? I could swatch them all out on colour wheels, but how do I sort them for swatching? Sure I could swatch similar colours on a wheel, but what would I do when I got a new polish, it's not like I could insert it into the colour wheel in it appropriate place if that wheel is full. 

So this was my solution.  I bought many sets of nail art sticks off ebay.  Each tray holds 64 sticks.  The beauty of this system is each stick is totally removable and they can be sorted and moved around on the trays allowing for new polishes at any time.

Here they all are lined up on our dining table. Yes, it took weeks to paint these.

Now here they are in colour groups.

Yes, it took ages to sort these into colour groups. Actually it didn’t take ME very long before I said “that’ll do”, but my mum (as a painter) sat there for hours (upon hours) adjusting and sorting. Anally retentive anyone?

So this is what the little sticks look like. Nice clean and shiny Perspex.

There is even a little flat spot to write on. I wrote numbers, which correspond to numbers listed in a spreadsheet that details brand, polish name and the number of coats. I love the fact that I can look among all my sticks of a similar colour, and then take them over to my outfit and pick the best complementary colour. 

So, what do you think?  Do you have a system in place to see what all your polishes are and to help choose a colour to wear?  I used to paint a falsie and sticky tape that to the top of the bottle.  See some old stash pics.

*edit* for those interested, the ebay seller was "4ushop777", they were called "Nail Art Tips 64 Stick Display Stand Rack Practice Tool" I paid $7.65AUD for each set of 64, with free postage.