Organize the Mess

Congrats to Tricia and Kristin for winning the Valentine banners.  Thanks for your comments!  If you didn't win, it is super easy to make your own.  If you need my help, just call or email me.

At the beginning of every year, I need to feel like my house is organized and clean.  Khloe's closet was anything but.  It was a mess of piles of her stuff.

So I headed to Lowes and bought a $9 shoe rack and $20 metal 3 tiered shelf.  Here's what the top of her closet looks like now.

I love the metal shelf.  It is the perfect size and provides just the right spot for all of her things.  Now she can get them in and out easily and knows where they go!  I can open her closet with peace of mind now.  Go to Lowes for some great deals!

Lastly, I had to share a picture of the new table for Porter's room.  He wanted a place for his favorite books and his water bottle.  I found this at Forget Me Not for $29.  They had them in red, pale green, pale blue, cream, and tan.  They have some awesome finds right now!



labels...

Better Homes and Gardens provides these darling labels for free on their website!  They have quite a few different ones to choose from.  You have to register on their site (which is a great one to be a part of) and it will take you through how to print them off. 

Organizing toys, mud rooms, bedroom closets and pantries is so much easier with these...and makes it so much cuter too!

They are available at www.BHG.com/labelkit.  Happy organizing!

Pottery Barn Inspiration; Budget Prices!

All week long, we are featuring great Pottery Barn inspiration at budget prices.  I love perusing the Pottery Barn catalogs for inspiration, but cannot bring myself to pay their prices.  So, this week, I am going to share with you some of the items I found for cheap elsewhere from my Pottery Barn inspiration!

These galvanized steel buckets are darling, but expensive at $19/each. 

Here's Ikea's version for $15.  They come in blue, red, green, yellow, and cream, and fit perfectly in the Expedit Shelving units featured here.  I had to have one and use it as Porter's garbage can in his room. 

Fun find...a twist on toy bins

Pottery Barn has darling steel buckets to store toys in...and they are $18 each!  I wanted to find storage bins to add a little color to my IKEA toy organizer but didn't want to spend much.  So I went on the hunt and...

Came home with 12" flower planters from Walmart for $5 each! 

They added color and also hold lots of toys!  I love the IKEA baskets but some of my boys' toys are heavy and were breaking through the bottom...so we put the heavy stuff in the planters and they hold up great!



Sometimes it takes a little thinking outside the box to come up with a great solution!  If you're in the market for toy storage, they have them in all different colors!  Just head to the garden section :)

The Best Toy Bin

 IKEA sells the best toy storage bin for the amazing price of $39.99.  It is the Expedit book shelf, and it comes in white, natural, and brn-black.  It is so well made and easy to assemble.  I've put together three, so that tells you it's easy and worth the price.  The top is a great space to display decor to tie in with any room.  They also sell a variety of bins.  These black fabric bins are $5 and also come in light blue and pink. 

They hold a ton of toys.  My OCD nature calls for organized bins.  I keep all of the Little People, superhero toys, cars, ponies, etc in their own bins.  It makes for easy clean-up and easy to find the toys later.  Also, Porter and Khloe know which bins are which so they can find their toys and help clean-up.  I have three of these toy bins in my house and recommend them to anyone to help control the toy clutter in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Being More Organized in the New Year

Here are 3 of my favorite organizing tips for the New Year:

1.  The Christmas Fund:  Set up a separate savings account attached to your checking account at your bank. (I have three savings accounts: general, car insurance paid quarterly, and Christmas).  Each month at pay day, transfer an allotted amount.  By the end of the year, you'll have the money for Christmas and won't have to scramble or charge.

2.  Tax Folder:  Keep a folder labeled "Tax Documents" in your desk drawer.  As statements come in, put them in that folder.  Also, keep any medical bills, copay receipts, prescription receipts, etc as they are all deductible!


3.  Daily Triage:

Set up a wall-mounted file holder with the posted categories.  Sort your papers daily and recycle all that doesn't fit into the categories.  Counters are made to be kept clean.  Ikea sells a metal and white version for $9.99.

Decluttering for the new year

Lisa gave me a subscription to Better Homes and Gardens magazine and I love it!  It's only $5.99 for a year...highly recommend it!  This month included an article on 25 ways to declutter your home for the new year (pg. 39 if you have a copy).  Lisa and I picked our five favorite tips to share with you and here are mine...

"A system that's a natural extension of your habits is easier to stick with than one that forces dramatic change.  So set up solutions right where clutter collects, such as a labeled pail for each family member's shoes and other equipment."



Photo courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens Magazine

  I am a huge fan of wicker baskets.  They look good and can also serve a very functional purpose.  Put one at the bottom of your stairs or near an area that often gets cluttered with "stuff".  It's an easy way to quickly gather everything and put it in it's right place! 

"Create a repair center for clothes that need mending, toys that need batteries, things that need gluing.  That way, unusable items aren't in general circulation, and you know where to look when you have time to tackle a project." 

"Relegating a sentimental item you no longer have use for to a box in the closet, basement, or attic does nothing to honor it.  Instead, take a photo of the item and put it in a scrapbook or load it on your digital picture frame.  Then donate the item.  It's both space-saving and respectful."

"Each spring and fall, do CPR on your closet:  Categorize, Purge, and Rearrange.  Carefully consider each item.  If it doesn't make you feel wonderful or look fabulous, it's a no.  Put it in the "to donate" box, and put that box in your car right away."

"If you're having trouble letting go of clutter, whether it's too many things in your house or too many commitments eating up your time, think about what it requires you to sacrifice.  Less stuff means less to organize and less money spent.  Fewer activities means less running around and more family time."  

 I also thought I'd share one organizational tip of my own.  For the longest time I had a cluttered mess of pens, phone books, papers, etc. overflowing in a larger cabinet space.  I decided to dedicate one drawer in my kitchen for these things and get rid of the rest.  It really has made such a difference! 

Organization makes me so happy.  Make a commitment in 2011 to live a more organized life and I promise it will make a positive impact on everything you do!

Oh, I Hate Clutter!

So, I absolutely HATE clutter.  I like everything to be in its place neatly organized.  When my laundry/storage/food storage room started looking like this,

 And this,

I knew it was time to do something.  Enter IKEA!  I went and looked at their cabinets.  I was able to get a wall of cabinets for around $500.  Now, that might seem expensive, but I got exactly what I wanted, size and dimension wise as well as handles, and beadboard doors for that price.  Davy and I put them together last weekend.  With two people, it goes pretty quickly.  I really like IKEA quality.  Although you put it together, they are made of high quality products and look FANTASTIC!



Here's the finished product!



Now everything has its place and my "everything" room is super organized.



If your house is short on space like mine, look for anywhere that you can hang cabinets to add extra storage space.  I am so glad that I did!

A Place for All of Those Little Things

If you have a little girl, then you know that there are lots of little things that accompany the tiny divas.  When it was time to move the changing table out of Khloe's room, I needed a place for all of those things.  Enter the over the door shoe holder.  I purchased said item at Walmart for $7.99, and it is the BEST!  It is the perfect organizer for all the little things.

 Because it hangs on the back of her closet door, it is out of the way yet easy to reach daily.

 It is where we keep the thermometers, medicine, and ribbons, lots of ribbons.  The best thing is that because of the multitude of clear pockets, I can color code her ribbons and easily find just what I need.

 It's also perfect for lotion, detangler, combs, rubberbands, etc.

I keep her bracelets at the bottom so that she can reach them herself.  All of her clips, bows, etc now have a space that is organized.  Get yours today to organize any room.  It would also be great on the back of your linen closet to hold the items that always seem to fall out anytime you open the door.