My Favorite Organizational Tools

Well, it’s still January and we are still organizing away over here!  Actually, I’ve taken the past couple days off.  I’ve really just been enjoying my days with Emily.  We’ve been going on lots of walks, playing with all those Christmas toys, and even went on a picnic!  The weather here in Florida has been incredible.  Low to mid 70’s everyday!  I love it!

Anyway….I need to get back into the swing of things with my organizing!  I was thinking about some of the things I use to organize and some of the things I wish I had to organize with!  So, I thought I’d put together a list of some of my favorite tools for organizing!

#1.  Becky Higgins Project Life Kit

I don’t have this kit yet, but I am just itching to get one!  I am horrible at scrapbooking and I think this would be the perfect thing to help me get all my photos organized and documented!

#2.  Wire baskets

I just love these wire baskets!  They easily contain clutter, but still allow you to see what’s inside.  I actually just found a couple of these on clearance at Target for under $3!!  Score!

#3.  White Decorative File Holder

I just love, love, love this little guy.  So pretty!  I will own this one day.  Soon.  I hope.  Drooooollll!!!

#4.  Dymo Letra Tag Label Maker

Let me just tell you….I love this little guy!!  It’s small footprint is perfect for storing.  I label just about everything with this bad boy!

#5.  Over The Door Shoe Organizers

I have one of these strapped to the back of just about every door in my house!!  Ok, not every door, but at least 3 of them!  One actually holds shoes, one holds scarves, hats, mittens, etc, and the other holds cleaning supplies!  They’re relatively cheap and pack a big storage punch!

#6.  Storage Ottomans

Our ottomans don’t look like this, but they do provide a lot of storage!  We have 2 storage ottomans pushed together in our family room so it looks like one big coffee table/ottoman!  We love it.  These ottomans hold everything from favorite magazines, to the Wii Fit board, remote controls, etc.  These would even be great to throw some toys in for the little ones!

#7.  '>Totes, totes, and more totes

These little guys are so inexpensive and really are great for carrying around cleaners from room to room.  I also use one of these to put all the craft supplies that I need for a project in.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a room or even so much as a corner for my crafts so I keep a tote by where I store my craft stuff and I just throw all my project supplies in there.

#8.  Baskets!

I mean, this should almost go without saying, right??  Baskets are so key to organizing!!  I literally have multiple baskets in just about every room to hide our junk precious treasures!  I also keep a basket at the bottom of the stairs to collect things that need to go upstairs!

What are some of your favorite tools for organizing?  Anything you just can’t live without?

*This post contains affiliate links.

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DIY Quatrefoil Wood Tray

Hi friends! 
Happy Hump Day!
Yesterday I shared with you my organized family command center!  I’m proud to report it still looks like that!  Haha.  That’s saying something for us! 
You might have noticed the cute little tray that is holding the pen cup and “mail box”.
 

It’s a super cute little addition to our newly organized space!

It started out as a plain little $3 wooden tray from Hobby Lobby.


I gave it a few light coats of Krylon’s Pebble spray paint.  Then, I opened up my Silhouette software and used the “geometric background (lg)” pattern to cut my white vinyl.

I weeded my vinyl (the absolute WORST part of vinyl projects) and used the negative space of the vinyl so it would look like my tray was stenciled.  I used transfer paper to transfer my vinyl to my tray.  Note: vinyl doesn’t like to stick to spray paint that well.  Boo!  Try acrylic next time.

Here’s what I ended up with:

Yay!  I love it!  Super simple (I’m not a fan of complicated).  Super quick (seriously….nap time only lasts so long).  And super cheap (well….because I’m just a cheap-o).
So there ya have it!  Now…..go forth and make a cutesy tray!

I am linking up to many of these great parties:

M: DIY Showoff Project Parade, Metamorphosis Monday, Made by You Mondays, Just Something I Whipped Up, Today’s Creative Blog, Making Monday Marvelous, Polly Want A Crafter T: Get Your Craft On, Tip Junkie, Home Stories A to Z, Homework W: Passionately Artistic, Twin Dragonfly Designs, Creative Spark @ Clean & Scentsible, Not Just A Housewife Th: 36th Avenue, Just A Girl, Gluesticks, House of Hepworths, Every Creative Endeavor F: Sassy Sites, I’m Lovin’ It, Remodelaholic’s Anonymous, Frugal Friday, Friday Fun Finds, Feature Yourself Friday, Pity Party, Weekend Wrap-Up, Weekend Bloggy Reading S:  I Heart Naptime, Be Different, Act Normal, A Little Lovely,  Su:  Under The Table & Dreaming, Remodelaholic, Homemaker On A Dime

Getting Organized: Create An Organized Family Command Center

Hey guys!
Well, I’m back with yet another organizing post!  I’m on a roll with this whole organizing thing.  Let’s pray I can stay this motivated because I have several more areas of the house that need some serious organizing!
I wanted to share with you today a little “command center” of sorts that I created for my family.

We are fortunate enough to have a little office area in our breakfast nook.  It is so convenient.  It is literally right in the heart of the house.  It’s right next to the kitchen and family room where we literally spend all our time.  It’s a great little space!
But, because it is right at the center of everything – it is also the first place that gets the most cluttered and unorganized!  We would throw our mail here, random papers would find their way here, keys, hats, wallets, you name it.  And IT DROVE ME NUTS!  I couldn’t stand that this area had such great potential and we kept it so cluttered.  So I organized it!

I’m ashamed, but here are some before shots:

 

Junk, junk, junk!  Sour patch kids (my hubs has a thing for candy), business cards, scissors, notes, appointment cards, label maker, magazines, mail stuff….AAAAHHHHH!!!!! 

It all started because I had to empty out the bottom 2 drawers from our office nook because I have a curious little toddler who likes to open them and pull everything out.  I figured it probably wasn’t a good idea that she get ahold of the sharp letter opener, or the expensive custom address stamp thing-a-ma-bob (that’s just to name a few of the potentially harmful doo-dads in those drawers).
Do you see those mail holders we had?  Super cute, right?  I mean….they’re “His” and “Hers” (cue the “aawwwwwws”).  But they were WIDE OPEN and as you can see….someone – not mentioning any names (*ahem* SCOTT *ahem*) – wasn’t that great at keeping their little mailbox nice and tidy.  In his defense, I just just cleaned mine out the day before so mine didn’t always look this tidy either. 
I knew I had to do something.  I needed a functional space where I could keep a calendar, house our mail (and all our mailing accessories – stamps, letter opener, address stamp, etc), keep a notepad, and have a cute little pen holder.

And here’s what I came up with……

SO MUCH BETTER, right?  Love!

I found some nice, sturdy gray magazine files at Target.  I thought these would be great for our mail because they are nice and tall and would hide even those big, bulky envelopes that Scott sometimes gets in the mail.  And we get a lot of magazines, so magazine files made sense! 
I framed a calendar that I printed out from Seaside Creative.  I also DIYed that little wooden tray with some spray paint and vinyl (more on that later) and the box that holds our mailing supplies.  

 


Hhmmm….I decided after looking at these pictures that I’m not a big fan of the green contact paper anymore.  I need to take that down, stat!  I also need to come up with something to hang from the random black bar on the wall (it’s from IKEA and used to hold little tin buckets but I wasn’t feeling the tin buckets anymore so I took them down and haven’t replaced them).
So what do you think?  What spaces have you been organizing?  Do you just love the fresh start that a new year brings as much as I do?
Thanks for stopping by!

I am linking up to many of these great parties:

M: DIY Showoff Project Parade, Metamorphosis Monday, Made by You Mondays, Just Something I Whipped Up, Today’s Creative Blog, Making Monday Marvelous, Polly Want A Crafter T: Get Your Craft On, Tip Junkie, Home Stories A to Z, Homework W: Passionately Artistic, Twin Dragonfly Designs, Creative Spark @ Clean & Scentsible, Not Just A Housewife Th: 36th Avenue, Just A Girl, Gluesticks, House of Hepworths, Every Creative Endeavor F: Sassy Sites, I’m Lovin’ It, Remodelaholic’s Anonymous, Frugal Friday, Friday Fun Finds, Feature Yourself Friday, Pity Party, Weekend Wrap-Up, Weekend Bloggy Reading S:  I Heart Naptime, Be Different, Act Normal, A Little Lovely,  Su:  Under The Table & Dreaming, Remodelaholic, Homemaker On A Dime

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Thanks for reading! 

Don’t forget to follow along on Facebook & Twitter!

Getting Organized: My Master Bedroom Closet

 

Hey guys! 

Happy Friday!!

Have you noticed all the amazing organizing tips and projects in blogland recently??  I just love it all!  I just love it when the New Year rolls around and I get that itch to just purge and clean and organize!

I told you about how I’m determined to get organized this year and even showed you my first small project toward that goal.

Well, I took on another project this week and tackled my master bedroom closet.  It was a HOT MESS!!!!  Holy cow.  That is one major downfall of our home……the closets are SO small!  We have this nice big home, and teeeeeeny tiny closets.  Doesn’t make sense to me, but there’s nothing I can do about it!

I got tired of not being able to find anything in my closet, I couldn’t really see the floor, couldn’t get to my shoes, and there was so much crap in there that I hadn’t touched in 2 years.  So I knew it was time to do some cleaning out.  I won’t bore you with all the details but I’ll show you my process.

{I apologize for some of these pictures.  The lighting in the hallway where my closet is is the worst.}

 

 

I mean, it always has to get worse before it gets better right!?  Of course I had my little helper on hand.

I started by clearing everything off the floor.  Then I vacuumed the carpet in the closet.  I made sure to get in all the creases by the baseboards since those areas ummm…NEVER get cleaned!

Then I went through all my clothes.  If it hasn’t been worn in a year or so, it got tossed in the donation pile!

Progress!

I decided that I wanted easier access to my shoes.  My shoes are stored on shoe shelves that are behind the door.  So I would have to “walk in” my closet and close the door to get to my shoes.  And that means I had to do that to put them away too.  Yeah, that never really happened.  I’d end up just tossing them on the floor as I passed by.  Not good.  So I moved them to that empty space at the back of the closet.

So much better! 

I also have a shoe organizer on the back of my door that holds all my flip flops.  Living in Florida…..I’ve got A LOT of flip flops.  Well, I went through them and some of them had literally never been on my feet at all or in at least a couple years.  So I threw those in the donate pile too!  That freed up a ton of pockets on the shoe organizer so I put my scarves, mittens, winter hats, belts, and small purses/wristlets in those pockets.

 

I went through my sweaters as well.  I had them in a HUGE box from Ikea that took up so much space.  But I went through that box and donated about half of the sweaters in there.  Again….I hadn’t worn them in YEARS!  Why was I holding on to them!?!  I was able to get rid of the big box and put my sweaters on an empty shelf (right above my shoes).

OH….and I hung all my purses up behind the door nice & neat!

 

And because everyone loves a good before and after…….

And here’s the donation pile I ended up with.

It filled up 3 trash bags!  Woohoo!

I just smile when I walk past my closet now.  I’m motivated to actually hang clothes back up and put my shoes away now!  I wish I would’ve had time to paint it a fun color and maybe add some stripes or something or maybe some fun artwork, but I’m just happy to have made it as far as I did with my crazy little toddler running around!

So…what do you think?  Much better right?  My next space to organize is going to be the guest room closet! 

What spaces have you organized so far this year?

 

 

Thanks for reading! 

Don’t forget to follow along on Facebook & Twitter!

Getting Organized: Random Papers, Invites, Etc.

Hi, friends!!

In my last post, I told you guys that I was determined to get organized this year.  It seems we all do this every year, right?  January rolls around and we all get so excited to go through our homes and purge, purge, purge.  We get so excited to reorganize everything and start fresh for the new year.  You guys do that too, right? 

Well, yesterday I took some “baby steps” toward getting organized.  I started with a small project.  Last year I put up a cute little bulletin board on the side of our refrigerator using some Command picture hangers.  I put some personal photos in the photo slots at the top and this board was to be used for save the dates, invitations, the city garbage/waste calendar, and other randoms.  It worked for the past year.

However, I really wasn’t a fan of how it looked.  And let’s face it…..we want our spaces to be functional AND cute, right?  I wasn’t too bothered by it though because it was on a side of the fridge that could only be seen if you were standing at the coffee pot.  It wasn’t visible if you were just looking into the kitchen, so I lived with it.

I had junked it up with all kinds of magnets (all of which have special meaning, though), a notepad, and a few save the date magnets at the bottom.  Yuck.  It just wasn’t working for me anymore.  It was waaaaaaayyyy too cluttered for my self-diagnosed slightly OCD self.

So, I found these cute little magnetic white organizers at…..wait for it…..FOREVER 21!  Yup!  Well, not in the store, but online (which is totally random because I literally never go to the forever21 website…or the store for that matter).  They were on mad clearance so I snagged 2 of them, knowing that I would use them to replace this monster bulletin board.

 

So much better, right? 

The save the dates tuck nicely inside the left basket.  I put the garbage schedule & some post-its in the right basket.  I put our family cleaning schedule above the baskets using some good ‘ole double sided tape.  That way it’s right there and easy for me to reference, but not an eye sore to the kitchen!  And I just love that “W” magnet, so I put it where the 2 baskets meet to hide the “seam”. 

It’s little projects like this that make such an impact on our daily lives though.  At least in our home. 

I would love to hear about some “mini” projects you are doing in your home to get organized!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Getting Organized In The New Year

Hey guys!!  Happy New Year!!!  I can’t believe it’s 2012 already!!  Sheesh! 
I just love the start of a New Year.  Maybe it’s all the hype, but I soooooo look forward to a fresh start.  A clean slate.  And this year is no different.
I am determined to get clean & organized within the next couple of months and stay that way through the year.  I feel like I’m relatively organized, but there are areas of my home where I definitely think I can be smarter with my storage and organization.  There are also some areas that could just plain ‘ole use some organizing.  You know – those areas that you rarely touch in your home.  The ones that hold items that you pull out maybe once a year.  Yeah….those need some serious help in my house!
So, what’s one to do when feeling the organization itch??  Go to Pinterest of course!!!  I have an entire board dedicated to organizing and I plan on implementing many of the ideas I have found there!  Here are some of my favorites!

Source:  Flickr via Pinterest

This is such a great use of those Altoid tins!!  A great way to corral all those “mini” items!

Source:  Real Simple via Pinterest

I need to get my photos organized this year for real!!  Now that I have about 5023487 photos of Emily, I need to organize them!

Source:  ScrapMomMusings via Pinterest

Look at how organized all these craft supplies are!!  I need to find a GOOD place for all my craft stuff and get it organized in clear bins like this (not shoved in the closet under the stairs in black canvas bins that I can’t see into).

Source: Freckles Chick via Brooklyn Limestone via Pinterest

Lord knows I need to go through my closet with a fine tooth comb and get it organized!  I love the shoe rack here with the jewelry on top.  I have to make this happen!!

Source: Creative Organizing via Pinterest

I would love to expand my cooking repertoire this year too and I think finding some good recipes and getting them nice and organized in a pretty binder will help me do just that!

Along with getting organized, I have many other “resolutions” that I’d like to *attempt* to stick to this year {the operative word is “attempt”}!  So….here’s my list of things I’m going to try really hard to stick to this year:

1.  Be a better mom.  Not that I’m a bad mom by any means.  But I’d really like to start taking Emily to some play dates and fun toddler classes.  I want to take her to the park more and just let her be a kid.  I feel like so often we’re just stuck here at home and she’s off playing while I’m trying to get stuff done around the house.  Sometimes that house stuff can wait if it means I get to spend some QT doing fun things with and for my daughter who deserves it!

2.  Eat healthy.  Yeah, yeah.  This is on everyone’s list right?  I kind of started this one last year (only a few months ago, actually) when I lost 35 pounds.  But I’d like to continue it.  I’d hate to gain all that weight back.  I’m pretty sure I’ve already gained 5 of it back since Emily’s birthday.  Yikes!

3.  Blog better.  Man oh man.  I’ve got some neat stuff planned for this little blog of mine for 2012.  I just hope I can pull it all off.  I have so many visions so I’m just hoping to execute them and execute them well.  One of my goals is to make it to a blog conference this year.  I’m thinking Haven in Atlanta this summer.  Yeeeeeeah doggy!

4.  Love my home.  Ya’ll…..do you ever stop to think about just how lucky and blessed you are?  I have been doing more of that lately.  So often I get so worked up and flustered because my home doesn’t have more linen closets, or because we live in Florida and don’t have a basement, or because I don’t have an organized “command center” for mail and magazines and other junk, or because my house is 2 stories and all the bedrooms are upstairs which means I have to walk up the stairs A LOT, or because I don’t have a separate room to claim as my craft room.  I mean…..the list could literally go on and on and on.  For about the past year, I have been itching to move out of this house.  It hasn’t been “good enough”.  Wait….what??  Then I stop and literally want to slap myself for being so selfish.  I can’t believe I have felt that and thought that.  I have an absolutely GORGEOUS home, that is plenty big for our little family of 3 (5 if you count the 2 dogs).  Do I have enough kitchen cabinets to hold all my kitchen items?  No.  Is my pantry small?  Yes.  Would I steal a coke icee from the 711 for a craft room?  Abso-freaking-lutely.  But there are some people who don’t even have a pillow to lay their head on at night.  It’s really cold here tonight and they don’t have a place to keep them warm.  So I resolute to be grateful for my home and really learn to love it and appreciate it for the beautiful place that it is. 

So that’s it!  I’m getting organized and “turning over a new leaf” starting tomorrow!  How about you?  Do you just love the start of a new year too?  Do you have any resolutions you are hoping to stick to this year?

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Friday Freebie {Linky Party Checklist}

Hi Friends!  Happy Friday!!
I took a few minutes today to whip up a little checklist of sorts.  I love to link up to all the different linky parties!  Let’s face it, it generates a ton of extra traffic and I just love, love, love checking out all the other ideas!  There is so much creativity & inspiration to be found in blogland!  But, I found myself not being able to keep up with which parties I had linked up to already!  I would link projects to a party, then a couple days later not be able to remember if I actually linked to that party or not.  Typical Amy!
So I decided the best solution for me would be to create a checklist.  I needed to be able to have the project name at the top with a list of all the linky parties I participate in underneath with a box next to them so I could easily check them off!
Here’s what I came up with:

I created the checklist in Excel.  It’s definitely nothing fancy and I whipped it up in about 5 minutes flat (naptime was coming to an end)!  But, it’s functional and is just what I needed.  I’m happy with it.  And I actually ended up being able to fit 3 on a page!  I will probably end up just printing one on cardstock and putting it behind a sheet protector so I can use a dry erase marker on top.  That way I won’t have to waste paper and ink by printing out lots of copies!  Win!
I wanted to share my checklist with you incase you have the same dilemma I do each week!  I am sharing the actual Excel document so you can make any changes you might need to make.  This way you can include the linky parties you participate in! 
Click here to download the Linky Party Checklist!
Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great weekend!

Oh….and don’t forget about the 31 Gifts giveaway!!
     

I am linking up to many of these great parties:

M: DIY Showoff Project Parade, Metamorphosis Monday, Made by You Mondays, Just Something I Whipped Up, Today’s Creative Blog, Making Monday Marvelous

T: Get Your Craft On, Tip Junkie, Home Stories A to Z

W: Passionately Artistic, Twin Dragonfly Designs, Creative Spark @ Clean & Scentsible

Th: Just A Girl, Gluesticks, House of Hepworths

F: Sassy Sites, I’m Lovin’ It, Remodelaholic’s Anonymous, Frugal Friday, Friday Fun Finds, Feature Yourself Friday, Pity Party, Weekend Wrap-Up, Weekend Bloggy Reading

S:  I Heart Naptime, Be Different, Act Normal, A Little Lovely,

Su:  Under The Table & Dreaming, Remodelaholic