Article | I Had Fun Putting All Of These Together

 By Eddlynn Jennifer Mangaoang

Written on December 23, 2021

Please do not copy or post to another site. Thank you. Enjoy reading.

So, last week, December 16th, I couldn't sleep. It was 4 or 5 in the morning already, but I haven't gotten any sleep. I was too excited. So many ideas came into my head. I have 2 8-cubes ClosetMaid Cubeicals Organizer for almost two years now and they were lined up against the wall below my window sideways. When I put them there last year (February/March 2020), I was so satisfied. I actually wanted those window seats/sofa that has little drawers or shelves for other things, but the ClosetMaid one was too flimsy for people to sit on. Either way, I was happy with it. But for the past couple of months, I haven't done a major clean-up in my room and I got so tired with the build-up, I knew I have to clean up. I knew I have to change the organizers' positions to give my room more space. My plan was to put the 2 organizers atop each other and make it into one huge shelving where I put all the things I liked and representative of me.

Look at this photo:

It was so organized it was so satisfying.

I wanted to go over each cubicle and trinkets. Here's an arrowed/sectioned version.

1. A rosette I received in high school for the school district's Pencil, Pen, & Brush competition for poem writing. I was in the first place. I wrote a piece called "Hiroshima and Me" for my English class after reading about the atomic bomb.
2. A matryoshka doll I bought at a Greek Festival where I volunteered. It was very well-made and I am glad I still have it. 
3. A handmade "brick" house that lights up. I created this in the summer while watching a video about crafts and designs. It was one of the most ambitious crafts I did. It was not as good as the original creator's, but I think it was a really satisfying and good enough piece of work. I enjoyed creating it.
4. Planter with faux plants. I am a fan of plants, but unlike the plantitos and plantitas, I don't have any green thumb - or if I do, I am not sure if it works. Either way, I like a little green in my room, and when I went to Walmart with my mom, I found this cement planter and several fake plants. 
5. A reminder. I really like this saying by Aesop. "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." I use this quote even in my blog. It's a good reminder and I hope everyone makes an effort to live by it.
6. Books, Instax, and an uchiwa fan. The books were hardcovers of Deborah Harkness, Nicholas Sparks, and Nora Roberts. Instax was my mom's gift when we graduated high school. We bought it at Best Buy. I'm also into photography, but I really don't have any proper equipment, even the Instax was not a proper one if I might say so. The uchiwa fan - one of the articles in this blog was about the Japan Day/Japan Expo - I got the fan from the Japanese Consulate people who always come to the event to do a presentation and table. They're really great! You couldn't see it clearly, but the fan still has the original plastic that's covering it!
7. A framed painting. I tried drip painting last summer - it's one of the things I tried during summer - and I made two. For this one, I found a frame previously used for another project and I put the canvas behind it. It turned out great.
8. An orange box -kitty coin bank. I won this during Japan Expo. Read the article about Japan Expo.
9. Some boxes of board games. I won this in an elephant game during a family Christmas reunion. It was my first time playing it and I didn't really know the rules of the game, but with some observation, I got into it. I actually stole this from another person. The one above has 11 game sets, including chess, backgammon, checkers, mancala, and so on. The one below was a desktop table tennis. Wouldn't you want to steal it also if it were you?
10. Two cubicles for my blu-rays and books. For blu-rays and DVDs, I have La La Land, The Greatest Showman, How To Train Your Dragons Riders of Berk and Defenders of Berk, three Rurouni Kenshin live actions, some DC movies - Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. For the book, I have the complete Miss Peregrines trilogy, three books from Forthright's Amaranthine Saga, and other books for my English classes. I also have Japanese manga, but it's BL, so they're hidden at the back.
11. A big comb. My mom bought each one of us this big comb, and I have a love-and-hate relationship with it. 
12. Those were cookie boxes. It was supposed to be a gift, but the recipient didn't come, so we brought it home. The boxes have gold and silver glitters with intricate designs. It would be a waste to just throw them away. They're sitting atop a glass chessboard. Yes, you heard that right. A. Glass. Chessboard. It was 10 x 10 big and thick enough not to break - hopefully not. The reason these intricate cookie boxes sat atop this glass chessboard was that they contained the glass chess pieces and other glass stones used for checkers. 
13. Two one-dollar mugs. I went to the 99 Cents last summer and bought two white mugs for crafts. I really wanted to custom-made them, but I didn't have time and I wasn't sure how to use our oven. When I was putting the organizers together, I just went ahead and drew some hearts and stars on them without baking or whatever. No one will be using them, so there's no harm in leaving it that way. I used it as a marker holder instead. I put my brand new markers in them. 
14. A pink teddy bear, a re-used Starbucks Frappuccino bottle, and a re-used Lady's Choice Chicken Spread Mayonaise jar. The pink teddy bear - I got it from Ronald McDonald House's Winter Wonderland event two years ago, if I remember correctly. I volunteered for the House and I got some teddy bears from them. I love the Starbucks Frap, but I don't really like going to Starbucks and lining up. I opt to buy those bottled ones from Stater Bros. I found another craft last summer and we needed a bottle. Basically, I put all of the song titles I want to listen to when I'm depressed or stressed or low in spirits. I wrote them on pieces of paper, roll them, and then put them inside. The mayonnaise container actually contains dried red rose petals. I have a lot of air-dried roses because my dad would bring fresh ones home to put on vases. Then I would harvest them when they start dying and put them in a container with ridges so air could enter and the petals wouldn't retain their moisture. It's very effective and although over time the scent fades, it still looks good as a decoration.
15. I found a lazy Susan for my paintbrushes, painting knives, sponges, etc. It looked really cool and the shape was very similar to a circus tent or a Merry-Go-Round. I was into The Greatest Showman, so it was a very nice object to find.
16. More board games and card games. I want my younger guests, especially cousins, who will visit the house to feel at ease. One of the great ways to make them comfortable is to play with them. I have Scrabble, Bingo, Uno cards, Checkers, Snake and Ladders, Jenga, and more. There are also crossword puzzles and word find puzzles. Later, I want to buy the Lie Detector test and the Penguin one. I think they're interesting. 
17. Stationaries. Some of these stationaries are for craft, but they're mostly ones I use in studying - index cards, and for card giving - empty cards use for occasions. 
18. 5 cubes are used for arts and crafts, They're art supplies ranging from paper to paint, and things like bling-bling, cotton, Q-tips, and many more. I think the reason I got so frustrated was my art supplies. I mentioned how I did some craft projects in the summer. What I didn't mention was I left them in boxes all over the place beside my bed, my mom got frustrated, put them all away - like she just shove everything in crevices she could see fit - and I got more frustrated because although it looked orderly and organized, I knew within myself that she just disrupted everything. Hence, I  decided to clean up the room once and for all.
19. Labeled as stuff, I put other important and relatively important things there - like songbook, or the lyrics, and so on.

I actually got rid of many things in my room, but I was very glad that I did. I told my family, the best way to clean up a room was to take out everything inside it and start redecorating in empty spaces. My next room project was the guest room. Actually, when I revamped my room last year, I also revamped the guest room because it was supposed to be my niece's room. She was supposed to migrate here, her papers were ready and she just need to to the interview and her get her visa, but alas, COVID-19 happened. Either way, I cleaned up that room really nice, but of course, it became storage since she hasn't arrived yet. It was also used by my grandma whenever she visits. 

These shelves organizers, as I mentioned, were carrying things that represented me, my hobbies, my personality, my likes, and so on. They were so nice to look at because the things I put on those shelves reminded me of the things that were important, of the positive things, of the things that I can do now or later. 

It was a nice organizer.