Non-work uses for Trello: Collections - Nail Varnish Board

I was inspired by @Jodi LeBlanc's article entitled A Collection of Treasured Items and thought that I would start a collection board of my own. I don’t collect many physical things, but I appear to be a  bit of a nail varnish addict. I hardly ever wear it, but I seem to collect them!

 

The problem that I have is that I always buy the same ones because those are the colours that I like, which means I end up with like 5 of the same one as I can’t remember which ones I already have!

 

In the whole ongoing decluttering effort in the house, I wasn’t looking forward to going through my nail varnishes, there were so many! Some of them I don’t even remember getting, and some I knew I’d never worn.

 

So the first plan was to go through and take out the ones that either I didn’t like or wasn’t 100% sure about, they ended up in a pile for Mother to look through so that she could grab whichever ones she wanted before we gave the rest (that were suitable) to my 5-year-old Goddaughter to play with. Please believe that I’m not gender stereotyping a 5-year-old girl here, she shared them with her 8-year-old brother too. 

 

 

So I was left with a drawer full, which was a massive cull from the 4 shelves I had before! 

The next stage was organising, I needed to put similar colours together so that I knew what I had and could find the colour that I wanted easily, and the drawer looked very pretty! 

 

The wonders of Tupperware for organising inside drawers!

 

IMG_3562.jpeg

 

See what I mean - look at the dust!

 

But I still had the problem that I didn’t know what I had when I was out and about shopping.

 

I had pictures, but that didn’t tell me all the information that I needed, like the shade or shade number and all of the pictures were taken in different lights so I couldn’t work out the shade from the picture, not to mention the fact that I had pictures of bottles I didn’t have anymore! 

 

In order to get that, I would have had to have taken multiple photos of the same bottle and that’s just a faff! Taking the pictures is fine and quick and easy, but finding them and finding the exact one that I have in my hand in the shop and comparing it to photos on my phone was a nightmare! And I could just have easily just bought it and if I already had it ‘oh well,’ in fact that would have been far quicker!

 

So I needed a way to digitally organise them so that I could see ALL the information when I was out and about, so that I didn’t buy a shade I already had.

 

Of course, I turned to Trello! What else?!

Is there anything that Trello can’t do?

I haven’t found anything so far!


I chose a nail inspired background from Joanna Kosinska who takes wonderfully minimalist photos for her Unsplash, including this one:

 

joanna-kosinska-kKueFCypUk4-unsplash (1).jpg

 

If you type in ‘nail varnish’ into the background photo picker on your Trello board, this one is the 3rd picture that comes up, but I highly encourage you to check out her other photos on her Unsplash profile, her eye for the smallest detail is breathtaking. 

 

Then it was time for the lists. 

 

Originally, I made lists for all the brands of nail varnish that I used; Superdrug, Boots, Maybelline, Rimmel etc, but there ended up being too many lists with just one or two cards in them for the more expensive, random or obscure companies.

 

So I needed to think of a way to organise the list - then it hit me - by the colour - obviously!

 

Why would I try and organise it in 2 different ways? I didn’t have the drawer set up by the brand, I ordered the drawer by colour! So, organise the Trello board by colour as well!!

 

Screenshot 2020-02-08 at 12.59.57 (1).pngScreenshot 2020-02-08 at 13.00.07 (1).png

 

Using the Chrome Extension Pro for Trello (that I have globally on all my boards), I changed the list colours to be similar to the colours that I was adding to them. Having a black list didn’t work though, because I couldn’t see the list name at the top, so I picked a dark grey. The embellishments list is turquoise because I don’t have any nail varnishes that colour and the additional lists for the files etc. are white.

 

Side note - if you’re trying to photograph something that rolls around, put a teeny bit of blue-tac under it to stick it to the table! Also, if you’re taking a picture of a load of things that are ‘the same’ (for a collection board), take photos on the same background (I took mine on the kitchen table), that way the background colour will be pretty similar and whatever the colour of the bottle, it will give you a better idea of the true colour! Try and keep the same lighting if you can, not always possible, but worth a try!

 

To get this board looking exactly how I wanted it, this is the process that I went through on my iPhone using the native Trello iOS App:

 

  • I opened the board

 

  • I went to the right list

 

  • I went to the bottom of the list and clicked ‘add card’

 

  • I expanded the card by clicking on the little arrows

 

IMG_3565 (1).png

 

  • I clicked ‘add attachments’

 

IMG_3566 (1).png

 

  • I clicked ‘take photo’

 

IMG_3567 (1).png

 

  • I took a photo

 

  • When I was happy, I selected ‘Use Photo’ (obviously this isn’t a nail varnish!)

 

IMG_3570 (1).png

 

  • I entered the shade colour and number as the title (because this was easier to use as a title and way easier to find when I was in a shop!!)

 

  • I clicked ‘labels’ and picked the correct brand so that there’s a tick in the label list (if it was a brand that I didn’t have on there yet, I clicked the + sign, picked a colour and added the brand name)

 

  • Then I clicked X

 

IMG_3571 (1).png

 

  • If I had more than one of the same shade, I put how many I had in the quantity custom field

 

  • I clicked on the photo on the back of the card, clicked the 3 little dots and selected ‘Make Card Cover’

 

IMG_3569 (1).png

 

  • I clicked ‘save’

 

  • And ended up with cards like this:

 

Screenshot 2020-02-08 at 13.18.20 (1).png

 

That’s it, believe me, it actually took longer to write it all down than it does to actually do it!

 

Side note - the photos that I take within the Trello app on my phone, don’t save to my camera roll. I can’t remember if this is a setting that I changed way-back-when, or if this is standard/default! Just thought that I would point that out!

 

For the first 2 lists, I also attached a personal description and links to purchase them etc:

Screenshot 2020-02-08 at 13.20.28 (1).png

 

And I ended up with a spiffing board that looks like this:

 

Screenshot 2020-02-08 at 11.55.41 (1).png

 

If you want to create a collection board for something, it’s really easy, for anything you collect! The wonder of Trello is that it’s totally customisable, and ever-evolving, what might work for you on a specific board today, could well change in the future, and Trello can adapt to that without a problem! 

 

Remember that everything in Trello is an experiment, some things work and some don’t, and that’s ok! That’s the beauty of Trello, try something, try something else, go back to the original, tweak it, get the board looking exactly how you want it, and everything falls into place!

 

 

8 comments

Jodi LeBlanc
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February 8, 2020

Thanks for the shout out @Esme Crutchley 💜 Love this post, so many great tips that individuals can use for their collections. It's like you have your own nail shop via this board, you could even keep track of when you last wore each polish so you can cycle through them consistently. As well as a shopping list for when you are almost out of a specific colour. 

I used to have about 30 polishes but now I buy 1-2 bottles per season - usually neutrals, but more brighter fun colours for the summer 🌞

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Esme Crutchley
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February 8, 2020

You are most welcome @Jodi LeBlanc 💜

I didn't even think about tracking when I last wore a colour, I can feel a Custom Field coming on!

Oh look, 2 extra custom fields!!

Screenshot 2020-02-08 at 15.42.44.png

Or a shopping list, new board list incoming I think!!!

Screenshot 2020-02-08 at 15.41.22.png

I've made it the very first list, in green, so I can't forget it!

I love to do nail art but the minute I smudge even the slightest bit, it all comes off and I can never be bothered to do it all over again! So I paint my nails quite often, whether it stays on there is another matter! Or I decide when I've done them all (base coat, 2-3 coats of colour + top coat/s) that I don't like it and end up taking it all off!

💜

Jodi LeBlanc
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February 8, 2020

That's awesome, a manicurist's dream board! You may want to consider a list or a separate board to showcase all your nail art too :) 

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Esme Crutchley
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February 8, 2020

We are soooooo on the same wavelength!

This is what I've just started, literally in the last 5 minutes!

 

Screenshot 2020-02-08 at 15.54.03 (1).png

When I have time, I'll add to them, and probably end up making a million more lists!

Jodi LeBlanc
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February 8, 2020

Wow, you are so talented!

Esme Crutchley
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February 8, 2020

Sorry to disappoint you, but that's just a stock background. I'm not that good, I try, but nope!

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BiancaE
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March 9, 2020

oh man, so fancy! I'm an aspiring minimalist so I only have 2-3 colors nail polish colors but I like this idea!!

Esme Crutchley
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March 10, 2020

I'm an aspiring minimalist as well @BiancaE but nail varnishes bring me joy, so in the mass purge, I got rid of a load but about half stayed :)

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