Hey guys!

I have been so busy in the last few weeks just trying to get my new business adventure going and going through the process of buying a house.  It has been pretty crazy, but I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend!  Today I am going to share with you the latest purchase I have made for my expanding makeup collection!

I have been seeing the Ikea Alex drawer systems for a long time floating around the makeup bloggers and YouTubers, and I have always wanted to purchase one for myself; however, the closest Ikea to me is roughly two hours away, and I don't typically make trips in that direction.  In searching the internet for an alternative I noticed many people posting their pictures of the Recollections 5 drawer cube from Michael's.  The system looks just the same as the Ikea Alex drawer system, and honestly they are roughly the same price.  I made my way to Michael's here in town several months ago to see if I could find it, and it was no longer in stock at either store in my town.  My next plan was to get my fiancee to build me a replica because I couldn't find anything in town that was similar, or anything that I even liked, but he decided that he didn't want to do that.

I had to run into Michael's for something and I noticed they had some new storage solutions in the middle of the aisle.  One of them was the Recollection 5 drawer cube
; however, it was a "rustic" version.  It looked like it was a terrible version of laminate wood, and they only had a 40% off clearance sale going on so I decided to pass up on the system once again.  I wound up in the store again two weeks ago picking up some things for my new business adventure and it just happened to be that the items I was picking up were in the same aisle as the storage solutions, and to my amazement there was one of these Recollections 5 drawer cubes in stock and it was the white laminate, just like I had been looking for!  Just one and the best part was they had all the storage solutions marked down as 60% off!  That's right 60% off!

I ended up picking up the Recollections 5 drawer system for about $35.  Overall the directions were pretty straightforward.  The only issue I encountered was with the drawer bottoms.  Initially I was sliding them in the wrong direction and it was fitting a little wrong.  I thought we were going to have to cut each one of the bottoms to fit right, but I tried turning them 90 degrees and everything went together correctly.


The drawers are just the right depth for storing all of my lip products.  As you can see some of the containers I put in the drawers were piled up with too many products so I had to store them in front of the containers.  The depth of the drawers would be perfect to create a custom lipstick organizer, and all of your lipsticks could be stored in the upright position.  All of the containers in the drawers are from the drawer organizer meant for screws and bolts that I picked up from Lowe's several years ago.

In my drawer system I have my lip products in the top two drawers.  The third drawer contains a few more lip products that wouldn't fit in the upper two drawers, and some of my other powders and containers that don't fit in my vanity.  You can also see my new Z Palette in the drawer which contains the shadows from my new business adventure, Scenic City Cosmetics.  I'll talk about that a little more below and in an upcoming post! The last two drawers are full of the materials I need for Scenic City Cosmetics.


If you are looking for an alternative to the Ikea Alex drawers be sure to check your local Michael's stores to see if they have this drawer system in stock.  I thought they were never going to bring it back, but it seems that they are showing back up in stores.  Regular price the Recollection 5 drawer cube is $89, but be sure to check for coupons or wait for the sales!

Like I mentioned above I have decided to start a new business adventure of creating my own makeup.  Everything that I am offering will be inspired by things around the Scenic City and things in my own life.  Everything is made by me and packaged by me.  If you are interested I will be sharing a post in the next few days containing swatches and a few looks you can create using my shadows.  I currently have 25 items listed in my shop.  I offer both 26mm pans for $7.50 and 15mm pans for $5.00 and I am working on a few more shades to offer.


Visit Scenic City Cosmetics on Etsy here, and follow my shop on Instagram here.