One thing I've wanted to do for ages was to set up a vanity/battlestation/dressing table in my room, to display my makeup and pretty much motivate me to use more of my products and keep everything in good condition. And I finally did it! Not sure why I left it so long, I think it was because I was looking for the perfect dressing table and eventually I kind of thought, I might as well just set one up with what I have - a plain old white desk.
I did a bit of looking around for things to decorate it with. I went to second hand stores and bargain stores, and the result was quite a success for a limited budget.
Ta da!
It's nothing special, but I thought I'd make a post about it in the hopes of inspiring at least one other person. It's amazing what you can achieve with little money!
The most expensive part (apart from the makeup obviously) is the desk or vanity. These range from super cheap second hand to super expensive brand new, and you can choose to move in whichever direction you like. Vinnies, Salvos, and Gumtree are good places to start, or even council clean up. Mine is my former study desk (lucky I have two), which we got years ago second hand from somewhere I don't remember. It's about as plain as you can get, with a shelf on the side and a slide out shelf underneath.
The stool, if you can call it that, is actually my clothes basket which I painted white to match my room a couple of years ago. It's the right height luckily, and also can get tucked away underneath the desk so it takes up less room. Score! You can find anything that you can sit on for this purpose, or if you're lucky your desk may even come with a chair or stool when you buy it.
This is everything I have out on my vanity:
This picture actually doesn't have my lamp on it either, simply because I forgot to put it on there for the photo.
I put the doily on there because I had it lying around and the top of the desk is in pretty bad shape. To be honest, it's probably not the most practical idea because the fabric I'm sure will get covered in makeup sooner than later.
I'll go through the shelving on the left first, because that was essentially my storage in the bottom of my wardrobe before I started using the desk.
The shelves are the Keji Four Drawer Desktop File from Officeworks. They're $17, with three small drawers and a larger one at the bottom. I love these drawers, they look sleek and uniform, and the clear plastic means that you can see what's in each drawer easily.
The only negative of these drawers is the top isn't actually flat, it has a plastic edge that runs through the middle and makes it so that you can't lie anything flat on there right across. However, I still have my plastic organiser on there, balancing fairly easily and still feels quite sturdy, so it definitely isn't a huge setback.
I didn't get a good photo of the top of the drawers unfortunately. On top, I have a plastic organiser that I bought from the bargain store Hot Dollar for about $12. I can't find a link to it online but I found them on eBay here (the bottom right choice). They're far cheaper online but I wasn't willing to wait the month or so to receive them. They have twelve lipstick slots on the right, two long, small brush or similar holders at the back on the left, and a shallow, wide compartment at the front.
I also have another lipstick holder with 9 slots behind it. Other than that, I have miscellaneous items I wanted in easy reach but not in plain sight, including my limited edition Chapstick tin, setting sprays, my Elf Daily Brush Cleaner, and makeup remover wipes.
The next photo shows a close up of the first plastic organiser. I keep some of my favourite lipsticks in the slots, my felt tip liquid liners, lash combs and my Nars Concealer in the long compartments at the back, and my Chi Chi BB Cream, Face of Australia Leopardess Palette and my Rimmel Stay Matte Powders in the shallow one at the front.
This also shows the things I keep in the top drawer of the Keji. It's where I put my mascaras, eyebrow products, eye primer, gel liners and all my eyeshadow singles, duos or quads I've accumulated over the years. Not the most fun drawer by far.
The second drawer is probably my favourite as it speaks to the crazy organiser inside of me. It contains all of my jumbo lip crayons, balms and glosses. Most of them are Revlon Colourburst or Just Bitten Kissable Balms as I have a love affair with them, with Face of Australia Glossy Lip Crayons, Apocalips, Velourlips and random glosses thrown in. I also keep my homemade lip scrub in here (in the Maybelline Dream Mousse container), and these strange Mirinesse cream eyeshadows which have insanely annoying packaging (that's the silver thing on the right).
Third drawer is blushes, bronzers, cream or powder foundations and my other liners that aren't felt tip. You can't tell from this angle but the Elf compacts at the front are actually stacked on top of other products as they are fairly thin. You can't stack up anything thicker than two of those compacts, for reference.
The big drawer at the bottom has palettes on the right hand side and tucked in at the back (these drawers go pretty far back). The rest of the drawer is primers, concealers and foundations. These can be stacked up a bit as well - you can see underneath the Colourstay at the front another bottle of foundation, if that helps you visualise it at all. Underneath the Lorac Unzipped is three Chi Chi eyeshadow palettes and an Elf palette if that helps either.
That's it for the drawers! For $17, they house quite a bit of makeup and pretty much fit in nearly everything I own, which is pretty great. If you live in Australia I highly recommend picking these up.
I also have these pots sitting on top of my desk. The one on the left has my Jessup brushes and the few other face brushes I owned (about three). The smaller one on the right has all my pencil products like eyeliners and lip liners. I got both from second hand stores - try looking where they keep all the pots for the pot plants and things like that. I think they were about $4 each. I also have a green one the same size as the one on the left which I'm hoping will fit in one of those square tissue boxes so I don't have to have an ugly box of tissues sitting on my vanity. Also, I thought I'd point out my brushes are sticking out awkwardly like that because I filled the bottom with CrazyBones (yeah, I know). I couldn't find anything better, but they definitely aren't going to stay like that for long.
I got these three matching glasses from a second hand store as well - they always have PILES of kitcheny things like plates, cups and mugs, so it's worth having a look. I like things that match so I went for the cups that they had three of. As you can see, two boringly house Q-tips and cotton buds, and the middle one is filled with little white stones I found at Hot Dollar as well ($2 for a really small bag, so I couldn't really afford to buy a heap of them), and my eye brushes. It's a good little set up I have, and was really cheap to do.
The mirror I have was another purchase from Top Dollar, but is a little short for my purposes (I have to look down into it to do my makeup, so often prop it up on top of the drawers so it's more my height). The fairy lights I've had for ages and got off eBay.
I also didn't get pictures of the rest of my set up, but if you look back to the original picture, I have a clock and my tissues on the small shelf on the right, and a small garbage bin at the bottom that I got from Officeworks - this one here. In the roll out drawer I have a small tray which has all of my Nyx Soft Matte Lip Creams and Chi Chi glosses, my Cleansing Milk which I use everyday and a small box at the back that has some lipsticks I rarely use.
And that's about all! If I add up all the money I spent, it totals about $60, which is for all the storage things except the desk itself and the random trays and things I had lying around, and doesn't include the desk or fairy lights which I already had. Pretty good!
I know this isn't the type of thing I normally post, but I thought it might be interesting for some people to see how they could store their makeup at a relatively cheap price (by all means you don't have to buy everything I have here! Select and purchase what you need), and hopefully a source of inspiration for some looking to create a cheap vanity!
As always, thank you so much for reading, I truly appreciate it. Hope you've enjoyed this post.
I did a bit of looking around for things to decorate it with. I went to second hand stores and bargain stores, and the result was quite a success for a limited budget.
Ta da!
It's nothing special, but I thought I'd make a post about it in the hopes of inspiring at least one other person. It's amazing what you can achieve with little money!
The most expensive part (apart from the makeup obviously) is the desk or vanity. These range from super cheap second hand to super expensive brand new, and you can choose to move in whichever direction you like. Vinnies, Salvos, and Gumtree are good places to start, or even council clean up. Mine is my former study desk (lucky I have two), which we got years ago second hand from somewhere I don't remember. It's about as plain as you can get, with a shelf on the side and a slide out shelf underneath.
The stool, if you can call it that, is actually my clothes basket which I painted white to match my room a couple of years ago. It's the right height luckily, and also can get tucked away underneath the desk so it takes up less room. Score! You can find anything that you can sit on for this purpose, or if you're lucky your desk may even come with a chair or stool when you buy it.
This is everything I have out on my vanity:
This picture actually doesn't have my lamp on it either, simply because I forgot to put it on there for the photo.
I put the doily on there because I had it lying around and the top of the desk is in pretty bad shape. To be honest, it's probably not the most practical idea because the fabric I'm sure will get covered in makeup sooner than later.
I'll go through the shelving on the left first, because that was essentially my storage in the bottom of my wardrobe before I started using the desk.
The shelves are the Keji Four Drawer Desktop File from Officeworks. They're $17, with three small drawers and a larger one at the bottom. I love these drawers, they look sleek and uniform, and the clear plastic means that you can see what's in each drawer easily.
The only negative of these drawers is the top isn't actually flat, it has a plastic edge that runs through the middle and makes it so that you can't lie anything flat on there right across. However, I still have my plastic organiser on there, balancing fairly easily and still feels quite sturdy, so it definitely isn't a huge setback.
I didn't get a good photo of the top of the drawers unfortunately. On top, I have a plastic organiser that I bought from the bargain store Hot Dollar for about $12. I can't find a link to it online but I found them on eBay here (the bottom right choice). They're far cheaper online but I wasn't willing to wait the month or so to receive them. They have twelve lipstick slots on the right, two long, small brush or similar holders at the back on the left, and a shallow, wide compartment at the front.
I also have another lipstick holder with 9 slots behind it. Other than that, I have miscellaneous items I wanted in easy reach but not in plain sight, including my limited edition Chapstick tin, setting sprays, my Elf Daily Brush Cleaner, and makeup remover wipes.
The next photo shows a close up of the first plastic organiser. I keep some of my favourite lipsticks in the slots, my felt tip liquid liners, lash combs and my Nars Concealer in the long compartments at the back, and my Chi Chi BB Cream, Face of Australia Leopardess Palette and my Rimmel Stay Matte Powders in the shallow one at the front.
This also shows the things I keep in the top drawer of the Keji. It's where I put my mascaras, eyebrow products, eye primer, gel liners and all my eyeshadow singles, duos or quads I've accumulated over the years. Not the most fun drawer by far.
The second drawer is probably my favourite as it speaks to the crazy organiser inside of me. It contains all of my jumbo lip crayons, balms and glosses. Most of them are Revlon Colourburst or Just Bitten Kissable Balms as I have a love affair with them, with Face of Australia Glossy Lip Crayons, Apocalips, Velourlips and random glosses thrown in. I also keep my homemade lip scrub in here (in the Maybelline Dream Mousse container), and these strange Mirinesse cream eyeshadows which have insanely annoying packaging (that's the silver thing on the right).
Third drawer is blushes, bronzers, cream or powder foundations and my other liners that aren't felt tip. You can't tell from this angle but the Elf compacts at the front are actually stacked on top of other products as they are fairly thin. You can't stack up anything thicker than two of those compacts, for reference.
The big drawer at the bottom has palettes on the right hand side and tucked in at the back (these drawers go pretty far back). The rest of the drawer is primers, concealers and foundations. These can be stacked up a bit as well - you can see underneath the Colourstay at the front another bottle of foundation, if that helps you visualise it at all. Underneath the Lorac Unzipped is three Chi Chi eyeshadow palettes and an Elf palette if that helps either.
That's it for the drawers! For $17, they house quite a bit of makeup and pretty much fit in nearly everything I own, which is pretty great. If you live in Australia I highly recommend picking these up.
I also have these pots sitting on top of my desk. The one on the left has my Jessup brushes and the few other face brushes I owned (about three). The smaller one on the right has all my pencil products like eyeliners and lip liners. I got both from second hand stores - try looking where they keep all the pots for the pot plants and things like that. I think they were about $4 each. I also have a green one the same size as the one on the left which I'm hoping will fit in one of those square tissue boxes so I don't have to have an ugly box of tissues sitting on my vanity. Also, I thought I'd point out my brushes are sticking out awkwardly like that because I filled the bottom with CrazyBones (yeah, I know). I couldn't find anything better, but they definitely aren't going to stay like that for long.
I got these three matching glasses from a second hand store as well - they always have PILES of kitcheny things like plates, cups and mugs, so it's worth having a look. I like things that match so I went for the cups that they had three of. As you can see, two boringly house Q-tips and cotton buds, and the middle one is filled with little white stones I found at Hot Dollar as well ($2 for a really small bag, so I couldn't really afford to buy a heap of them), and my eye brushes. It's a good little set up I have, and was really cheap to do.
The mirror I have was another purchase from Top Dollar, but is a little short for my purposes (I have to look down into it to do my makeup, so often prop it up on top of the drawers so it's more my height). The fairy lights I've had for ages and got off eBay.
I also didn't get pictures of the rest of my set up, but if you look back to the original picture, I have a clock and my tissues on the small shelf on the right, and a small garbage bin at the bottom that I got from Officeworks - this one here. In the roll out drawer I have a small tray which has all of my Nyx Soft Matte Lip Creams and Chi Chi glosses, my Cleansing Milk which I use everyday and a small box at the back that has some lipsticks I rarely use.
And that's about all! If I add up all the money I spent, it totals about $60, which is for all the storage things except the desk itself and the random trays and things I had lying around, and doesn't include the desk or fairy lights which I already had. Pretty good!
I know this isn't the type of thing I normally post, but I thought it might be interesting for some people to see how they could store their makeup at a relatively cheap price (by all means you don't have to buy everything I have here! Select and purchase what you need), and hopefully a source of inspiration for some looking to create a cheap vanity!
As always, thank you so much for reading, I truly appreciate it. Hope you've enjoyed this post.
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