After looking at many commercial nail polish organizers and solutions to create a storage case on Etsy and Pinterest, I decided to try to make my own.
My original plan was to use an airtight, hard-shell case, like the ones used to hold camera equipment. After realizing how much money I would spend, I opted for a $3 garage sale suitcase. It’s a sturdy one, made by Samsonite, and even still has the key, but I wasn’t very keen on the 1970’s shade of powder blue it was covered in. A small investment in some plastic primer and spray paint, plus a cute stencil, resulted in a very fun, girlie case.
The next piece was to find the foam. One case I saw online (retailing for $300) used pluck-n-pull foam, like what will come in a do-it-yourself camera case. After searching high and low online, the best pricing I could get was about $14 per sheet plus an outrageous shipping charge.
$70 later, I was ready to put the case together. First, I organized my nail polish by color. Can you tell I love purple?
Next, I started measuring and cutting my foam. I added a thin layer of solid foam to the bottom and layered the pluck-n-pull on top of that. I found that I needed two squares of foam in-between each hole.
All of the elastic was worn-out, so I also had to sew in some elastic ribbon to the divider pockets.
Making my own case was a giant puzzle, but long and tedious. Now that it’s all organized and I can start using it, I’m very excited, but I have to say this was an extremely tedious process – especially plucking out all that foam!