WOW, I love clean cupboards

This is for real folks, I did not edit this picture at all, I only added text for humor. In fact I must have put 10 things away before I thought to take a picture. I took things one at a time and put them in the place they belonged. I figured if I tossed them into a box of things that didn't belong I would end up with another mess on my hands. It took me a while but it makes me very happy.

This cupboard is just an easy place to stuff things I don't have time to put away.  Its in my laundry room, right in between the kitchen and the garage,  so there is some pretty seriously random stuff here! 

Here in my "new" cupboard   I organized it like this.  Top shelf - stuff preschool stuff, play do etc.into. The middle shelf - there is a basket of cleaning supplies, that the kids use to do their chores, and the bottom shelf - is my wheat grinder homework stuff and some first aid supplies.

and under this handy cupboard is 3 really deep drawers,  that all look like this now.

     Gloves                       Hats              &Scarves

I think I am done posting about organizing.  It is getting old.  I think I am ready to

decorate the basement!?!?

Hallway Command Center

Everytime I think I have this place organized there is something else I find to do.

I have spent about 6 months trying to figure out how I wanted to do this. I needed a place to keep those rascally papers that need to be kept handy, team schedules, permission slips, birthday invites etc. I also wanted a chore chart that was dry erase and IN THEIR WAY, they walk past these 10 times a day, at least! So here is what I finally came up with.

In this last picture you can even see MY BIG CALENDAR, I sold several of these vinyl calendars on windows and wanted mine to have a lot more space for notes to the kids, grocery lists and honey do lists, etc. I love this calendar and can't believe I ever managed to live without it. We write EVERYTHING here. It has helped me IMMENSELY.

I am working on some picture magnets for my 3 year old to go on this magnet board.  I hope he will catch the spirit of the whole chore thing.??

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

So tell me, do you have one place for everything?  Do you have a neat way to keep it all together?

family binder

I labeled the toy boxes using google images.  The kids are loving to put the toys away now.  lol  yah right.

My New favorite thing is the family binder.  ahhh my brain feels a little bit more organized now.  I have added some links that I got the printables from at the bottom of this page.  I purchased these great markers that are a wet erase, they don't smear everytime you touch the page.  You have to use a wet paper towel, it is nice.

http://organizedhome.com/household-notebook

http://tipnut.com/budget-worksheets/

http://tipnut.com/budget-worksheets/

good luck with your January goals. 

Back to school

Once I finished the kitchen I knew I needed to do something about the way things go down when the kids come bursting throught the door at 4:00 every afternoon. I say bursting because on 3 of those days there are 7 of those beasts that range from 1st to 8th grade. I take care of a friends kids on the days she has school. They are hungry, tired, moody, stressed out, and excited to play and hang out together. (I really need to purchase so earplugs). This homework caddy will ensure that there are plenty of pencils ready to go, a sharpener to keep them from getting up to find one, and a calculator for the same reason. I think it still needs colored pencils and a longer ruler. YAY!!!

I've never seen hungrier monsters, they will eat anything they can get their hands on and they don't care if I am making dinner or if they are making a mess. So I set aside a shelf for afterschool snacks. They can touch anything on that shelf until 5:00. Then I put my foot down and put an end to snacking.

For packing lunches, I decided to start using reusable containers most of the time.  BUT to save the hassle of always trying to find a lid, I threw all mis-matched stuff away!  on the bottom shelf I have 2 baskets,  sandwich containers and the twist top containers are for my homemade applesauce.  I canned a ton of it, the only way We will ever use it up is to send it to school. 

Hope back to school time went well for everyone else.  I think if I could find a way to get them out of bed in the morning things would pretty much be perfect.  (okay thats a lie, no body's perfect)

A fresh start project #1 organize the kitchen.

Well well my little blog, did you think I had forgotten you? not so, not so. Life has been seriously insane. I mean busy-busy-busy. But I do love to blog, however I am not making any promises to blog MORE in 2012. My plan is to "simplify". So I will simply blog when I can... I have been on a crazy organizing spree. (this is one of my January goals, yep I said goals, my new years resolution was to set a goal to set goals, monthly goals, haha) I started in the kitchen. After all January deserves a fresh start.  Here is a before picture of my most used cupboard.

WOW did I feel like a slob.  Okay, the kids help.  But I had SOOO many half full boxes of crackers, and doubles and triples of things. Iit was nice to purge and things that I had lots of  I moved downstairs into my storage room. 

Oh my goodness, I sure do love the after!!!  I used a bunch of those $1 plastic shoeboxes to organize them into categories.  The one without a label... well I couldn't think of a name for it besides, stuff that keeps falling over and getting in the way. lol

I managed to get all the bulk stuff on one shelf, and it does feel so much better

I am sure everyone has seen these chalkboard label, I was getting tired of the cricut and remembered I had a little scrap of Matte finish black vinyl I had just thrown a way, so I fished through the garbage and started cutting to see how many labels I could make. - just the right amount.

We had about 5 of these drink mix containers  each had 2 or 3 packets left.  what a waste of space.  So I put them all together and used their containers for a few of my bulk spices.  

I love it.

Happy organizing, or whatever your new Years Resolution was.  :)

Trash to treasure

Here is a project from last summer I just came across the pics. Someone was actually throwing this out. Well as I looked closer, maybe they had a point. It had been COVERED in pen and marker. Even the fabric boxes were all drawn on.

...........................

One can of spray paint and one spool of ribbon later....... I cut off the leather handles and replaced them with black ribbon. Then I used no sew glue to attach ribbon in the shape of rectagles for labels. leavinga gap to slide paper in.

I love they turned out. I like storing toys vertically since we are always in need of space.

Thrifty Organizing

I got some baskets from the thrift store, one for each of the kids. I spray painted them with paints I already had. It is pretty handy, they can keep their gloves and hats in them instead of on the FLOOR.

Craft room organizing???? (is there such a thing?) hmmm, this looks much cuter in person, I purchased these 3 shelves at thrift stores, The buckets were all from there too. Then I used baby food jars to organize all the buttons etc. cost=$10.