Storing Plastic Food Containers

How you doing? You ready for Christmas? I am seriously trying to get in the spirit this year. For whatever reason I haven't been feeling it but I'm trying to do more things that are Christmas themed in preparation for Christmas to spiritually arrive. We have a lot of family celebrations during the month of December and this year especially I've felt a sense of overwhelming stress at times. I still haven't done my Christmas cards. I addressed envelopes in June and July and already purchased stamps but just haven't gotten it together with the cards. Hopefully they will arrive today or tomorrow so I can get them out!

 

Anyway, I think I'll be there in the next couple of days. So with the stress I've been feeling this poor blog has practically been abandoned for the entire month of December. I've had other projects that have also been put on the back burner. I hope you bear with me even through my lulls!

 

One simple little thing I've finally gotten to a great point of organization is all the food storage containers in the kitchen. For years I have been so bad just throwing them in a low cabinet and fumbling around when it comes time to put food in one. Well I finally, FINALLY made  a place to put them and I'm happy with that. It is one of those silly things that probably drove my spouse nuts but now I can say we feel relief! My system is in an upper cabinet on a shelf above our plastic cups. I use IKEA containers and they stack pretty well, lids on bottom. I was able to fit all of them on one shelf and simply placed some behind these if there wasn't quite enough room.

 

My new storage stacking system has seriously simplified things! How's that for simple, silly, organization?!?! Hope you have a wonderful Monday and if you are traveling this week, may you have safe and happy travels! Peace out!  

 

More Mason Jars - Project To Come!

How's your week going? I'm hanging out, listening to music and multi-tasking tonight. Had a great day though. Great work out, great book study group, cooked a decent dinner. Overall I can't complain! Win/Win!

 

While I was cooking dinner tonight I started a little project that has been weighing me down for a while involving more mason jars. I'm so excited about it but have to get a few more jars and finish it before I can show you. It's seriously nothing BIG but it's the little things that make me happy.

 

Hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow! TGI ALMOST F!

 

Over and Out!

 

More On Organizing Kid's Clothes

How's it going? Things are good here, especially after snoozing a little this morning. I don't do it very often but man sometimes a short nap is all it takes to get going.

 

So last week I told you I found something that I thought would change our family's life...

 

TA-DA! Here it is.   

I found this hanging clothing organizer thingy online on ebay for dirt cheap! I bought two, one for each child's closet. Wasn't sure how they'd work but really they work pretty well. The youngest can dress himself now so I applied vinyl stickers in each cubby to represent Monday - Friday to organize the kiddos' clothes for the week.
 
I must share that it is working out great! I LOVE how organized it makes us all. As far as minimizing what we own, I could see now that we don't really NEED half of the clothes in their closets. I think it will especially help on days where we have dress up days for spirit week for school. This divider set has six slots and I will probably use the bottom one for sports clothing when they start sports up! 

It fits nicely and I love how much better prepared we are for school now!

 

I also found a great use for these bins I used one time as coolers for a Birthday party. I'm keeping them in the top of the closets for clothes that are either too big or that they've outgrown. So far, it's working great! YAY!

 

 

Do you do anything special to help your kids get dressed for school?

 

 

Toy Organization

H   a   p   P   y       S   a   T   u   R   d   A   y! 

School is back in session so it's time for schedules and organization! If you haven't noticed, I'm an organization FREAK. We have limited time to do things so I'm kicking it in high gear to make our lives easier! Next week I'll share one small organizational purchase i made that I think is going to change our lives for the better. 

I've been working on both my kids' rooms and closets and did this a loooong time ago. It helps keep the toys organized in the bottom of our kids' closets. They know where everything goes and it really helps keep their bedroom floors tidy.  

Organize Unsightly Cell Phone Chargers For $1.00

Hope you had a great weekend. I spent mine helping my brother's family move Saturday and then lounging at the pool Sunday because I was a little sore and tired! It was a great weekend though! So anything new on your end? 

This little organizing deal came to me at the end of last week. Another pet peeve of mine in our home is clutter on the counters. We have cell phones and mp3 players and junk which was taking up a lot of room on our kitchen counter and driving me nuts. I started moving things around again and worked on decluttering. I was using this Dollar Tree basket for storing lemons when I realized lemons would be better kept and have more life in the fridge. Oops! It freed up a basket so I started thinking...

This is what I came up with! My husband thinks I'm OCD (I'm not making light of OCD by any means) but he does like to tease me about how much I focus on little things like this! He thinks I'm a kinda nutty. Maybe so but I don't care! 

So all I did was poke a pencil through the bottoms of the basket at a corner of a woven "square", fed the charging cable through and plugged the electronic devices in. There is plenty of room to poke more holes in the basket and add more chargers if we have to. I tidied the cords with Velcro strips I cut (already had). 

It's a super simple and cheap way to organize our phones. :) 

Basket was $1.00 at Dollar Tree!

 See how simple it is to feed the cable through. You do have to do some poking but it will get through. 

Organizing Food

Can you believe it is Thursday? This week has flown by. Really the whole summer is scooting on pretty fast. I would love it if summer would just slow down some though, it's my favorite time of year!

 

So here is a little organizational tip from our pantry to yours. You might think I was a little nutty by numbering cereal boxes but one of my pet peeves is people in our house opening two of the same thing before one thing is completely gone. It just bugs me.  

 

For example, someone opens a box of cereal of Rice Krispies. They eat one bowl and next thing you know, a second box is open too. I used to store alternate boxes of items up high so we would know not to do that. With the numbering system, it's just unnecessary! We do this with Milk in the fridge too. I usually buy 3-4 gallons at a time. I buy in bulk but we don't want all of them open at once so numbering has nixed that problem all together. The family has been on board for quite some time with this. 

 

So I number them 1 to 2 or 3 or 4 and we know what order to use something until it's gone, then go to the next. Try it! You might like it!  

 

Keeping Pool Towels Handy!

Before I get to my little organizational post, I have to share what I witnessed on my way home from the gym this morning! It put a huge smile on my face and made my morning!

 

On my way home as I was cutting through a neighborhood, I got behind a cute little car with a dog hanging its head out the window behind the driver's seat. That was funny to see but the best part was pulling up beside the car at a stop sign. I pulled up next to the car when the driver was turning right and I was making a left. As I was waiting for traffic, I looked over at the car and I noticed the dog was a beagle and was wearing goggle sunglasses! I swear the dog was smiling too. It was the cutest thing ever. I started laughing and the woman and I waved to each other smiling. I wonder how many people they make smile!

 

Anyway I haven't seen something so cute that caught my attention in a loooong time. Too funny!

 

So now shifting gears and onto my post... Last night I took my kids to the neighborhood pool for a quick dip and it occurred to me that it's a pain gathering all our pool stuff. It takes the three of us FOREVER to get out the door!

 

I keep a "pool bag on wheels" holding all kinds of toys in the laundry room(next to our garage) so it's easy to throw in the back of the car when we go to the pool. I started thinking that for the summer why not store the towels in the laundry room too. Huh? Why don't I think of these things sooner? These are the little things that seem so silly but when you think about it, why not?!?! It makes perfect sense to keep them downstairs. I have the room to do it!

 

1. I wash and dry the towels more during the summer.

2. I'll avoid running up and down the stairs for towels.

3. It makes it faster to get ready for the pool.

4. Less chaos keeps everyone happier!

 

It's a win win to have the towels ready downstairs.

 

Upstairs Linen Closet Where "Pool" Towels Are Normally Kept 

Laundry Room Where "Pool" Towels Are NOW Kept During  The Summer!

It just makes more sense! Are there things like this that you find make life easier for YOU? What kinds of things have you changed up or done??? Hope you have a great day!

Organizing and Labeling Toys

Happy Tuesday! Hope you had a great Monday and a great St. Patrick's Day! I'm surprised my oldest didn't get pinched yesterday because I totally forgot to dress him in green! Way to go, Mom, huh!

So in cleaning up and organizing children's rooms and toys, I found this number at Tarjay (several months back might I add) and I found these adhesive chalkboard labels at Michaels last week. I was going to use my Cricut and make my own tag type labels but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that was overkill. The boy can read now so I didn't need to go overboard with tagged pictures on basket handles. He can read and write so I thought chalkboard labels would work great. I found them in the cheap-o section at the front of the store and they were 40% off so they were a buck something for a pack of 12 labels. Not too shabby. At first my son wrote the categories of the labels but then didn't like his handwriting and asked me to do it. He said he couldn't read his own handwriting. Uggh! Haha!

I think these labels work out great because they aren't in the way of the handles, you can see them and they can be changed with any new toy switch out we have! Below is the organizational system from Tarjay AKA Target! It works great and the kids can easily pick up after themselves with this shelving system! How do you organize the toys in your house?  

Organizing Paper Files

I don't know about you but I am up waaaaay too late on a Saturday night, and all because of a caffeinated sweet tea I ordered at dinner. I gave up sodas over eighteen months ago and every once in a while I'll splurge and have a tea. I'm kicking myself right now because I've got to be up in a few hours for church!

Anyhow, tonight has been pretty good. Our favorite college basketball team won their game and since then I've been quite productive. After the kiddos went to bed I attacked our filing cabinet. It is the one organizational thing that overwhelms me the most. I detest it. It has so many folders and so many papers and I  do not like dealing with mail and bills, yada, yada. Just like clean laundry, I don't like sorting mail and putting it away.

It's necessary though and I decided to tackle it so I can move on to more fun activities! There was a LARGE pile of papers to sort though and I made a couple labels for new file folders and finally filed the whole thing so there are no more papers floating around. RELIEF! Below is the proof of the leftovers. Now to shred and recycle (Remember: check to see if your recycling will take shredded paper and if not, check with your county recycling centers). Maybe if I file more often I won't get so overwhelmed. I'll keep trying!

Do you have a good solution for handling papers? I figure the more folders I have, the easier it is to file papers. There are more categories that help separate important items! Have a great Sunday! I plan on having some fun. Hope you get to too!

Some of Us Still Use Snail Mail

How are you??? I am tickled to have found a better use for these baskets I put together a few years ago with paint and burlap. I hung them on hooks in my pantry to hold plastic grocery bags. It wasn't the best use of the baskets so I added the black wooden letters for incoming and outgoing mail and hung them in the laundry room next to our keys. The "in" basket is currently overflowing. Uggh, another thing to go through and sort.

What have you been up to? Happy Hump Day!

Craptastic!

Crap, crap and MORE crap! My six year old would say, "That's a bad word, Mommy."  I usually don't say that word at home because of little ears but I found Craptastic fitting here. To finish off my last post, I am stoked about having all our papers filed. Working to keep on top of it now!

To simplify the filing cabinet, I made a tiny change to simplify even the most minor thing about filing. I used to keep all my tabs in different positions 1-5 on the file folders. If I had to make a new folder then I would spend time shifting all the tabs around. How ridiculous twas thee!

So I moved all my tabs front and center to keep all files uniform. Not a big deal, but yes a big time saver for someone who is way too particular for her own good.  Please don't judge!

This is a picture of the piles of crap I had collected around the house before I did the filing session. Nice huh. Laundry, two bags of paperwork, a small bin of paperwork... all the crap in the house that didn't have a home. I did however find a home for everything.

Here is a picture post crap. Post(after) my piles of crap, post the droppings of crap from our sick cat. I haven't been posting my projects this week because I've been trying to nurse my 14 year old cat back to health. Poor guy. A lot of people can take cats or leave em but my cat is my baby. He's been with me for years. Anyhow tonight I steam cleaned the carpeted rooms where he has been sick and this is probably the cleanest the carpet has been in a while.  How was that for random!?! Hope YOU are having a better than craptastic week!

Am I Going Bananas?

I think I might be! he he. So I did my bi-weekly trip for groceries this morning after church and I'm stocked up again on food. We love bananas and go through them in this house but sometimes not fast enough because a couple will go bad from time to time. This afternoon I came up with an idea to help them keep longer and give me a little more room on the kitchen counters. I will say that I am not much of a gadget keeper so I didn't want to buy a banana hanging thingy. I have read that it's best to hang "nanners" up to lengthen their shelf life and I had a 3M hook in a drawer just waiting to be used. Yeah boyeeeeee!

I wouldn't dare poke a hole in our tile back splash so hanging this sticky 3M hook is pretty safe. Plus if the hubs notices it and thinks I have gone totally bananas, I can still take it down!

Do you have a special way to keep bananas or any other food for that matter?

Love A Full And ORGANIZED Fridge

Don't you just LOVE a full fridge?!?! I know I do and especially when it is actually ORGANIZED! We made a big purchase a few months ago and got this big, bad mammer jammer of a fridge. I'm kidding but it is nice to have. I wasn't sold on upgrading but the hubs kinda talked me into it. Here is the fridge. You see, I really liked the old one. I was worried about getting stainless steel and going bonkers of little finger prints and such (which does drive me a little nutty but what can you do?). It's sorta hard letting go of things I purchased by myself too. The fridge below it was one that I picked out and bought when I bought my first house before we got married. The old fridge was great and worked well for me when I was single and worked great for us too, but we decided to start grocery shopping in bulk to save money for a family of four.

 

 

See the new fridge is much larger than the old, which I seriously didn't realize before. I'm not exactly sure of the size but it does the job.

 

Today I shopped at BJs and saved "bookoo" dollars, thanks to my mom-in-law for teaching me how to shop. I cannot give her enough credit! Do you have a Bjs near you? I just love it. I got my coupon booklet in the mail and first thing this am I matched the manufacturers coupons to the store ones for extra savings. Not everything is a great deal but you just have to shop and compare. I still go to two other grocery stores too to get everything but I made out pretty well at the one today! Sometimes I feel so silly that I never did this before. It has really forced me to be more aware of my spending. Live and learn, huh!

 

It guess it's kinda personal to see into one's refrigerator but I'm stoked that it's actually cleaned out and organized. It's goofy the things that make me smile. Now if I can just learn to be a better COOK! :-)

 

ORGANIZATION at it's best! AHHHH!

 

I picked up this little plastic bin at the dollar store for a buck to corral all the little leftovers so we can locate quick and easily.

You can't tell but I saved a lot on groceries today! I would have saved even more but had to buy milk and a few items that I didn't have a coupon for. It's such a great feeling to be fully stocked.  :-) Have a great rest of the weekend and hope you do well getting groceries!

I really do think there should be an extra day added to the weekend just so we can get more of this stuff done without it cutting into our leisure time! Ta-Ta-For-Now!

  

Repurpose Shoe Organizer To Store Medicine

YESSSS! M-I-S-S-I-O-N accomplished! 

It may not look like much but this over-the-door shoe organizer is a helpful, simple solution to calming chaos when it comes to finding medicine in our house. The whole family has been sick for a while now and we are all on different meds, which makes it confusing at dosage time! We have three medicine cabinets that have always been crammed full of various outdated items lining the shelves. I found this plastic shoe organizer at Garden Ridge in their closet organization section. It has clear pockets (easy for wiping clean) and I condensed the items by sorting and organizing. I tossed all the boxes unless they had the dosage information. That saved room!  

The new organizer is hanging on the inside of the linen closet.

Baskets make great storage containers but this one in the kitchen was overflowing with medicine. Digging is never fun when you have a fussy child who is in need of a particular medication. I luv baskets but I think they are better suited when there is plenty of room to contain items.

I luv my label maker. :) Have I said that before?!?! I found an opportunity to whip it out and I did just that to label each pocket. I used plastic labels instead of paper and I didn't go in alphabetical order because I needed to keep the bottom two rows of pockets clear of any medicine that would harm a child. I put all the pills and medicine up high so young children aren't able to access and I also installed a safety door knob cover to keep the kids out. Just make sure if you do this too, to keep baby proofing in mind and keep all dangerous items away from child's reach! Anything that can fit through a toilet paper roll is a choking hazard.

All thermometers are in ONE place. Sounds silly but it really does help.

All first aid items are in a place.

I'm happy about emptying the medicine cabinets and reorganizing! We have one place to look for ALL medicine now, so next time a kiddo is crying or fussing, we shouldn't be scrambling around the house looking for the proper meds!  YAY!

How The Bag Lady Organizes Paper

How was your weekend? Hopefully good and hopefully you got to do something fun! I spent time Saturday cleaning our kitchen table. For all you moms out there I know you get this or at least I hope I'm not alone, but I had to take the razor to the kitchen table and chairs and do some SCRAPING. So totally disgusting but so necessary. It's just one more thing that makes mom's job a dirty one!

No matter how much I clean up after the kids, the table and chairs get so grimy! EEWWWWWW period! (exclamation point) You get it. I know you do. Oh and my child went to two birthday parties and the one today, I think, went to his head a little. It was a "Jedi training" party and afterwards he kept telling me that he was using the "force" on his brother when his brother would fuss or fall down or something. Brotherly love!

Anyhow here is a small project that has made a difference in some of my paper clutter. Every little bit helps, am I right? It was so simple but has made a tremendous difference and that makes me especially happy. :)

I am an avid couponer and try and swap with friends and I save all receipts until they go through at the bank. Instead of letting things pile up all over the place, I keep these two bags hung on a wall rack. They stay there collecting coupons to be swapped and papers to be shredded. When it's time to take them to work or an office store to shred, then I'll carry the paper in grocery bags. These have really helped me stay more organized. 

For this little project you can pick up bags at a craft store. I got mine at Hobby Lobby. You also need to get iron on letters. You simply use an iron on the dry setting and follow the directions on the packaging. It'll tell you how long to hold the iron over the letters.

It's funny how the simplest things can make such an impact on organization and routines. What way works best for you in organizing? What kinds of things do you do?

 

One Organized Attic

Giddy is me! I'm very sore but excited to reveal our clean and organized attic. I have spent the past two days cleaning and reorganizing our attic and man was it a workout! Guess it was all the kneeling, squatting, crawling and lifting that did it to me. It was a project that was a looooooong time coming and now that it's done and I am so pleased with it! There is actually floor space and room to move around in there! High five to all! Booyah! Hah if you saw the BEFORE pictures you might be a tad impressed because it was, eh um - atrocious!  I was too embarrassed to share the filth and chaos before I started. 

To give you an idea; you could step into the attic but you couldn't move anywhere. These rubbbermaid boxes were unlabeled, tossed and stacked and there was junk everywhere. There was just no rhyme or reason to the organization whatsoever. We moved into this house when I was nine months pregnant with the first child (several years ago) and ever since we've lived here it feels like we have been trying to just get by. Little by little we're getting there.

Don't you just love the neat and organized Rubbermaid tubs?!?! I do. These are the types of things that give me great feelings of accomplishment! This room was a total disaster and I slowly and very carefully found a place for each item we decided to keep. I started prepping for this overwhelming undertaking a week ago by going through kid's closets to sort and weed through their clothes to update their closets by size and season. Thank heavens for my mother who helped me do that. It's hard to get much done with munchkins who want to "help" Mommy do everything. The dining room table is currently covered with clothes and misc items to sell in a garage sale. 

Night before last I went to town organizing. I pulled all cardboard boxes out of the attic that we didn't need and made a pile to take to the recycling center. I can mark that off my list because I visited recycling today!

I really tried to work with the space, feel the space and move things around to make better sense of how it's used for storage. I thought it might work to pull all the Rubbermaid tubs out and line them up one by one that way there would be no lifting and moving them around. I labeled each storage container on the lid and on the side exposed so you can make out what the contents is in each box.  

Pretty sweet! I grouped all objects and items and put them in the best possible locations as far as size and room. I flipped up my large scale paintings so they took less room. The luggage is near the door for easy access. I tried to organize things in the attic where they made the most sense.

As for the countless bins I used my label maker and put two labels on each bin, one on top and one on the side so they're easy to find. Half the bins hold children's clothing so I grouped the bins by size and put the nearest closest to the door so I can locate better.

It feels like a weight has been lifted now that the attic is organized and clean. I even took the broom to it this time! A big YAY! What does your attic look like? How do you organize yours? It's the one room you don't see in most people's homes but man does it drive me crazy in our house, well not anymore. ;)

Piling Up

Oh the piles! Tis the season for decking the house out and I'm already cluttering before getting started! It never fails that there are ALWAYS piles of things taking over rooms in our house! GRRRRR! These are bins from the attic and they are all children's clothes. I spent one day last weekend sorting and organizing hand me downs from one child to the next. They keep outgrowing everything so it feels like a constant cycle of changing out their clothes.

 

Next it's cleaning out the attic and fixing it up in an organized fashion. This means another yard sale even though I just did one in the Spring! We have way too much stuff and for sanity's sake I have to weed and get rid of things. Between sorting and organizing to put things back in the attic I'm making piles of things that we don't use to sell. The neighborhood isn't doing a Fall sale so I've got to get a permit and advertise on my own. Wish me luck! I have bags of toys and things scattered through the house to sell which will make this pile grow for the next couple of weeks. For sanity's sake I am on a mission to declutter yet again! Yee haw!

What are you doing to organize and declutter? 

Elementary But Hey It Works!

How is your weekend going? It has been good here so far. I have the luxury of living near an IKEA and so this afternoon I went to look around and pick up a few things for another small project. This time I pushed a stroller instead of using a cart. IKEA is wonderful but am I the only one alive who cannot control an IKEA cart? I swear pushing a cart at IKEA wears me out. I wouldn't consider myself a complete whimp but the carts seem to drift and it makes me crazy! I just picked up a few things but it was fun to get out and window shop!

A couple of months ago I did the following little project and it was fun and free! I covered infant formula cans in card stock scrapbook paper to corral my artsy crafty supplies in my kitchen craft cabinet. I got the idea from seeing contact paper-covered tin cans that hold pencils at the Pediatrician's office. I spend quite a bit of time at the doctor's office with my sickling tykes.

It's pretty simple as you will see. All you need is:

-A clean tin can, you can use soup cans for smaller items.

-Scrapbook paper

-ModPodge glue

-Paint brush to apply the glue

Strip the label off your can and after you've cut the paper to fit around your can, start spreading the glue! Next you'll wrap the paper around the can and apply more glue over the paper if you need to. Let it dry and the cans are ready for storage! YAY! How do you store your craft supplies?

Conquering Kitchen Clutter: Part One

How was your weekend? It was a very productive one on my end and I took sooooo many pictures of my decluttering and organizing that I am going to split it into a few parts. Decluttering and organizing for me, is such a big feeling of accomplishment, but I was up WAY too late Friday night! It's one of those things though... if I get the energy when I'm not at work and the kiddos are sleeping, I better take advantage of it! It felt like I was nesting like I did before giving birth, you know where you have that feeling that you'll NEVER get another chance to clean or organize! Man, I WENT TO TOWN organizing this weekend. Whew! All I can say is that the kitchen is DONE! Woot Woot!

I started with the pantry. The above picture is an AFTER picture of the pantry. We are very lucky to have a nice sized pantry to store food items and small kitchen appliances. I went through everything, looking at expiration dates, tossing and recycling, trying to find ways to make things simpler.

 

 

On the top shelf I had a bunch of shtuff(yes I meant to say shtuff and not stuff!) thrown on the top shelf. I had a canvas cube to store big hefty storage bags and some zippered bags I use when I'm grocery shopping.I wound up pulling the cube out of the pantry to make better use of the top shelf. I put the grocery bags in the trunk of my car so I have them when I go grocery shopping. I just need to remember to always put them back in the car after unloading groceries after doing the grocery shopping. I put the storage bags in the baby's closet since I use them to put clothes that have been outgrown. It's a constant cycle!

The big cardboard box is what I was using to store baby food. U-G-L-Y and it took up too much space!

 

The blue receptacle is a recycling bin and it was overflowing with paper and plastics!

 

This is after some rearranging. I grouped similar things together, nothing special.

It was way after my cat's bedtime but he hung out with me until the wee hours of the night, through all my kitchen rearranging. : ) 

I found a medium size basket to store the baby food jars. It came out of our downstairs closet. It was holding junk in the coat closet so this is a much better use and the basket doesn't take up much room.

I rearranged the canned goods, stacking them in two levels so I can see the labels.

I didn't make any huge changes but rearranged to make better use of the room and it has already made such a difference!