Closet Storage

If I told you this mass of crazy mess lived in my house would you believe me? Well if I told you that today, I'd be lying, but if I told you last week I would unfortunately be telling the truth.

Sometimes even organized people have contained messes. It's true. Don't let us fool you too much!

The story behind this mess is simple. Due to lack of motivation and utter laziness this closet became a bottomless pit. I have seen this happen in so many people's homes. It is so easy to let the space fall by the wayside and allow junk to build up and take over. It became a problem in my house right off the bat when I moved in because no shelves were installed and nothing in particular was done to create an organized space. But that is no longer the case in my house! All I needed was a little motivation and a couple of hours.

Here's what I did to fix the problem:

I went on a mission to Target and Lowe's and found some stackable containers and a few shelves and I came back not having spent a whole lot of money, then got to work.

Small items now are housed in stackable containers and clearly labeled. Thank goodness for this shelf! You can also maybe see that I have photo albums and old yearbooks lined up here too. My loose photos are contained in either gift boxes or photo boxes.

I found these shelves at Lowe's - Target has a similar version. They are extremely inexpensive (yes, they look inexpensive too, but they do the job!) and easy to put together. They were just what I was looking for. I used the shelves to neatly store games, candles, magazines, old 3-ring binders and college paperwork that I am just not ready to part with, and wrapping paper/accessories. Hint: I use stackable bins to store ribbon and miscellaneous accessories and I use a gift bag to store other gift bags in. Wrapping paper is happily standing next to the shelf waiting for next Christmas.

These drawers I have had since I was in college, and boy did they come in handy in my dorm room! The top drawer is mostly an organized junk drawer - there is everything from a 3-hole punch to my camera to a box of checks. But! It's organized. In the bottom drawers I keep wires and electronic stuff. The wires are all coiled up individually and secured with a zip tie. If you don't have any zip ties, rubber bands or the twist ties that come on a loaf of bread work just as well!

We still haven't decided on any bookshelves that we can both agree on. So all of those books that were causing the problem in the first place are still here. But now they are neatly stacked in the corner instead of piled on top of each other.

I have high hopes that this new system of organization for the closet will work for me because everything is easily accessible, it's well-displayed and I am able to see everything inside the space to know what's there. No more laziness here! All I needed was a little time and a lot of motivation and the rest is history.

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Organizing on a Budget

While the current economic state is still in recovery mode, I am in spring cleaning mode, so I thought that I'd put together a melange of options and ideas for organizing on a budget this spring. It is completely possible with some creativity and time!



Let's start with the kitchen since that's where I started my spring cleaning this year.

Stackable Bamboo Organizers



These are perfect for silverware, utensils or even your junk drawer or office drawer. As low as $2.99 at The Container Store - wow!

Mesh Packet Holder



I have to admit, here, that I had never seen this before! I love this idea and really think I'm going to get one of these. We all have single packets of this that and 12 other things in our pantry, but this is an excellent idea on keeping them together and organized. Nice job Container Store.


Silver Mesh Storage Bin



If only I had more of these! I've got a mesh storage bin like this in my pantry where I keep coupons, pens, pencils and post-it notes.

Cupboard Shelf



I have a couple wire shelves that I stick in my cupboards for extra elevated storage. They are wonderful! The best ones I have are in my bathroom cupboard and under the sink - they maximize space and promote the ease in finding your stuff.

Cabinet Organizers



If you have as many spices as I do - this is a great organizational tool for being able to find spices in the back of the cabinet.

Spice Jars



I love the idea of transferring store-bought spices into cute individual jars. These are adorable. And totally multi-functioning - you could use this easily as a multi-tasker.

Ceiling Pot Rack




This is a fantastic space-saving idea if you have an excess of pots & pans and not much extra storage space to give.

Let's move to closet and storage organization.

Over the door hooks




These are a wonderful space saving option for bathrooms, closets, storage rooms and kids play rooms. $2.99 from The Container Store is a great steal!

Over-the-door shoe organizers



There are tons of options for over-the-door shoe organization currently on the market. Here is Crate & Barrel's take.

Shoe Storage




Keeping your shoes off the floor allows for a clutter-free closet. This is a great solution to storing your shoes on the floor.


Sweater Bag Drawer



Don't have enough room in your closet for your winter and summer clothes? That's ok - grab a few sweater bags or containers and slide them under your bed with your seasonal apparel.


The Container Store is currently in Spring Organizational Sale mode - click here to find the closet location to you.

I happen to enjoy Crate & Barrel and The Container Store; neither company knows who I am or is in any way affiliated to Organized Ali. I write about products I use or would like to use.


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Happy Spring... Cleaning!

Spring is finally here! I know much of the nation has had a very rough winter and is thrilled at the sight of spring. Now that it is officially here, it's time to jump into spring cleaning! Well, in my house it is anyway. I know that spring cleaning is a daunting task for anyone, myself included. It's really not that much fun to spend hours or days inside cleaning the house. I like to break up my spring cleaning tasks so that it doesn't feel quite so overwhelming.



Yesterday I marked the start of spring by tackling most of my kitchen. Sometime this week I plan on scrubbing my bathroom until it shines. Other spring cleaning tasks will just have to wait until April.

If you're one of those people who is too busy to even think about spring cleaning but knows it needs to happen, I have some tips for you on how to do just that:

*Start by making a list of what needs to be cleaned in your house - if you've got a really long list, as most people do, break it down by room or section of your house.

*Choose the one room or project that is of the highest importance and continue to rank order your list of tasks until it is prioritized.

*Now it's time to take a close look at your #1 priority and break that down into specific tasks. For example, in my kitchen I made a specific "to do list" so that I could cross off the little things I did instead of having to clean out the entire kitchen all at once.

Kitchen:
-Wipe out refrigerator
-Wipe out freezer
-Clean cabinet faces
-Wipe down pantry shelves, clean out
-Scrub oven inside
-Wipe out oven drawer
-Detail appliances
-Complete recipe organization

*Once you have come up with your specific task lists for each room or area in your house it's time to dedicate some time to accomplishing these tasks. I think it's perfectly acceptable to spend all spring getting this stuff done because, well, it's no fun and it's a lot of work. If you're one of those people who'd prefer to get everything done in a weekend - fine, clean your heart out!

*I like allocating part of a day most weekends to spend time knocking out tasks, plus I can usually afford to sacrifice one night each week to get some stuff done at home. After all, it's lighter out now and I usually have more motivation to be productive when I can see daylight.

*Don't forget about adding projects that you've been putting off to your spring cleaning list. Some of mine are: hanging art on the walls, vacuum cobwebs/clean out unfinished portion of my basement, and clean the car!

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Organizing using Microsoft OneNote

I have found my new favorite computer program. Microsoft OneNote. Have you heard of OneNote? No, you say? You’re in luck: if you have Microsoft Office 2003 or later, I believe you will have OneNote.

What in the world is OneNote, you ask?



It is like having a notebook on your computer that you can do anything you would do with a regular old notebook or piece of paper.

Here are some things I have come up with where you could use OneNote:

*Taking notes in class
*Writing notes from a meeting at work
*Making a to-do list
*Creating a shopping list
*Managing a project
*Minimizing paperwork/messy buildup
*Maximizing productivity for work and school by connecting OneNote projects with Outlook (!!!!)

What makes OneNote so special?

If you're familiar with Microsoft Word, you'll probably find a lot of similarities to OneNote; however, there are a lot of things that you can do on OneNote that you can't do on Word. The most important being linking your OneNote notes or lists to your Outlook. If you create a to-do list on OneNote you can link it to your task list on Outlook with the click of a button. Better yet, you can pin a "side note" to your desktop to remind you of something that needs doing.

For those of you who are doodlers, getting bored in class can now be spent doodling in the margins of your electronic notebook just as you would if you were using a piece of paper. Drawings or mathematical formulas can be turned into text or a computer generated symbol.

Best of all: OneNote reduces clutter and saves time by eliminating the use of paper. I don't know about you, but I would much rather sort through a well-organized folder on my desktop than page through a spiral-bound notebook trying to find a to-do list or my notes from Biology 101. You can use OneNote on your PC or on your smartphone. I have not downloaded the app yet, but plan to do so!

My Current OneNote Project:



I am preparing to embark on some new housing projects, mostly filling my house with furniture, adding some organizational features to a couple closets and work on making our outdoor space amazing so we can enjoy every moment of the sunny Seattle summers (I think we’re on day 143 of rain right now). I decided to use OneNote to help organize some of my thoughts and ideas.

By using OneNote I was able to create a page for each room or space that we’re looking at making changes to. Each page lists the items we are planning to purchase or the projects that need to be done. Because of how OneNote allows you to make notes like it’s a piece of paper I can copy and paste pictures, images or swatches to help me keep track of different options. With things like our “Major Projects” I can keep track of bids and estimates we get, as well as the contractors and their contact information. I can highlight different items to note their priority status. I can check things off when I purchase them or complete a task (or I can cross it off).

So far I am really enjoying OneNote. I plan to utilize this program to be more organized at work by linking notes/to-do lists to my Outlook. I haven’t gotten this far yet, but I can tell you I am really looking forward to it. I think that OneNote and Outlook are the two best organizational features you can have on your computer.

For more information about OneNote, check out these websites:

Demo of OneNote

Download a trial

More to come next time: Windows Live SkyDrive and why it deserves a gold star.

Microsoft Corporation has no idea who I am. I am only writing about their products because I use them and love them. Microsoft is no way a sponsor of this blog.


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Recipe Organization

The need for a recipe organization makeover comes with a love of cooking. Pursuant to a conversation I had with a friend, Nora, over the holidays, I decided to revamp my need to maintain organization with all of my “loose” recipes. I have my fair share of cookbooks, which require little effort to keep organized, but where the challenge lies is the recipes I print off the internet and the recipes I rip out of my many cooking magazine subscriptions.


I was able to house my loose recipes in file folders until I filled two to capacity and couldn’t find anything. If you only have a few favorite recipes, this could work well for you; however, those of you who see a picture of something delicious and decide to rip it out of the Food Network Magazine like I do… well, you need something bigger and better to stay sane and also to save time.

One of the problems I had with keeping all of my recipes in file folders was that I would have to sort through hundreds of recipes just to find something to eat for dinner or to find a favorite recipe that I wanted to try again. No fun that is. So I picked a beautiful rainy evening (living in Seattle, I have had many to choose from!) and went through all of the recipes about four times trying to consolidate and weed out the recipes I just knew I would never ever try. You’d be surprised how many I got rid of!



Then….. I came up with several categories and sorted recipes based on categories, including: baking, breads, meat, chicken, fish, brunch, sandwiches, slow cookers, sauces, soups, salads, beverages, holiday, ethnic, pasta, etc. After categorizing the recipes I went out and found a recipe organization book on Amazon.com. It took me quite a while to narrow down which book to buy; my selection was based mostly on the categories on the dividing tabs that it came with. I chose a C.R. Gibson recipe organizer; C.R. Gibson makes a lot of different recipe organization paraphernalia you might be interested in. I’d recommend browsing Amazon to find a wide variety. There are certainly plenty to choose from! Be advised that these binders don’t come with too terribly many sheet protectors, so you may want to run out and get a pack of them. I quickly ran out!



Aside from the greatness in organization, one of my favorite parts of the new recipe binder is that all of my recipes are kept in sheet protectors, which allows me to wipe off all of the cooking remnants after I’m done with the recipe. I can always tell what recipes I’ve tried before because they have been destroyed.

Another organizational tool I employ for my recipes is for the 3x5” notecard size recipes I print from the internet. Mostly these are from www.allrecipes.com, a personal favorite site of mine (I keep an online recipe box here, too!). I keep these in a little notecard box that I used to use for school, I think. There are some great notecard boxes on the market that will fit 3x5 or 4x6” recipe cards. I like this idea, too, because it’s alphabetized. I usually remember the name of the recipe that I am looking for if I liked it, so I can find it pretty quickly; but regardless of the recipe’s name, I keep all chicken in the “c” and all pasta in the “p” instead of having, say, “Anniversary Chicken” in the “a” category or “Lemon Pasta” in the “l” category. I just think that’s easier to keep track of everything.



I have to tell you, though, my dream kitchen would include a touch-screen computer in my that pops down from under the cabinet and magically stores all of my recipes and allows me to view online recipe collections for easy kitchen access. I have a feeling I’ll be dreaming for a while.



P.S. – you may be wondering how I keep this system up! That is a “resolution” for me this year. I have subscriptions to three (or more?) food magazines. I have formed some new habits around ripping recipes out of these magazines, due to the fact that with all of the recipes in my house I would need to try a new recipe every day at every meal time for about 900 years in order to actually try something, so I am only allowing myself to rip out a recipe if I am really going to make it. I do look through the ingredients and determine if that’s something I’m even remotely interested in, and if so, then it comes out and goes into a file folder. Yes, a file folder. Also, I should note, after I page through each magazine and determine what I'm going to use, I recycle the magazine, so as to avoid messy buildup. Well, actually, I keep my Cooks Illustrated magazines, but only because every page is filled with delicious goodness and fantastic tips.

From that point, I plan my weekly menus around new recipes. Err, I try to, anyway. If I try the recipe and enjoy it, it goes in my recipe binder, if not, it goes to the curb. So far this is working for me, but I have a lot of new recipes to try and a very, very excellent new cookbook from friend Nora that I am ecstatic about (Williams-Sonoma’s Cooking at Home)…. Off to the kitchen I go!

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Kitchen Counter Clutter

Next time you see a celebrity kitchen or a featured kitchen in a catalogue, take notice on how much “stuff” is sitting on their countertop. I bet you’ll find a very bare minimum. It doesn’t take much to create a cluttered kitchen – especially if yours isn’t as sizeable as most of the celeb kitchens you’re familiar with.

CLUTTERED:



UNCLUTTERED:



After we moved in and got settled and unpacked I looked back at the photos of our kitchen when it was professionally staged and noticed that there were very few items sitting on the countertop. Now, mind you, I hardly had anything on my countertop in comparison to my former kitchen and many kitchens in America. Taking note of this I decided to keep only the bare minimum essentials out on my countertop. Here is what I am keeping: coffee maker, coffee canister, butcher block, fruit bowl, stand mixer. Oh, and my little bowl with my sponge.

BEFORE:



Here is what got removed: salt, pepper, butter dish, sugar bowl, olive oil, utensil holder and probably at least four other items. Where are they now? Well, my utensil holder is no longer a member of my household; instead, all of my utensils are nesting happily in their drawer – neatly organized of course! All of the other little guys are inside a cabinet somewhere easily accessible. These are all things I use daily, but there is no reason for my butter dish to be on display. The only thing that should be on display is my mixer and granite.

AFTER:



My kitchen is now free of clutter and it looks great and very sleek. I challenge you today to remove all but the bare essentials to your cabinets to create that sleek and professional look on your kitchen countertop.

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Inbox Reduction

A little while back I read a fantastic book that was recommended to me called “Organize Yourself with Office 2007.” One of the focal points of this great text was about how many “inboxes” we have. Thinking about all of the places where we store new information is outrageous. One personal goal I have, since reading this book, is to limit all of the inboxes I have, specifically in my office.

To give you a better idea of what I mean when I say “inbox” here is a short list of inboxes that I have at work:

• E-mail inbox
• Mailbox
• Voicemail box on office phone
• Voicemail box on cell phone
• Paper messages to return a phone call
• Text messages from employees on cell phone
• Six stackable baskets for things that are coming in that I need to deal with, categorized of course
• To-do list on paper to add all of the items coming in that I need to deal with

That’s a lot! And that was just a quick 60 second brainstorm that didn’t even go into personal inboxes.

Honestly, inside that list of work-related inboxes there aren’t many spots where I can trim down and reduce incoming information overload. I can’t just cut out my voicemail on my office phone or cell, nor can I stop receiving e-mail (though I often wish I didn’t get so many e-mails!). But what I can do is manage how I store all of the information in my inboxes.
Six stackable baskets for things that are coming in that I need to deal with is a bit much, eh. I have reduced this substantially. Now, I really have one basket with things that I need to deal with, and the remaining five baskets are for filing things that I’m either working on or need to refer back to. I even turned one of those baskets into an outbox (things I need to mail).

One thing that I used to rely on heavily was little notes ALL OVER MY DESK. Those started cluttering everything and becoming a nuisance and getting lost among each other, so I have discontinued that habit. Instead – I create fewer notes but have a category for the notes. For example, I run an educational program where one of my responsibilities is to put together materials for my staff. Instead of having 17 notes all over my desk saying that Joe needs x, y, z and Jenna needs a, d, t and Hannah needs t, u, v, I have a list of who needs what materials. This sounds so trivial and obvious, but it has made such a big difference in my sanity. Oh, and I got some super cute Anne Taintor sticky notes that say “I dreamed my whole desk was clean.” They make me smile.

It’s the little things that you can do during your workday to make the 8-12 hours you spend there more organized and entertaining. Reducing my inboxes and information intake has been a minor adjustment to a major change.

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Recipe Organization

I love to cook. I love trying out as many new recipes and ways to prepare a dish as possible. Recently, I subscribed to two new cooking magazines, one of which has at least 100 different recipes in each issue. With great excitement, I rip out the recipes and add them to my pile of recipes to try. Unfortunately, that pile grows faster than I can keep up with it! I decided recently to combat that pile and get some order to its unruliness.




Initially my loose recipe pile was stashed in a bulging manila file folder. Well, three bulging manila file folders, to be exact. It was a mess, at the very least. As if that wasn’t enough, my cookbook cupboards couldn’t fit another darn thing in them (that’s another story…). I had recently seen a recipe book where you can protect recipes in sheet protectors bound together in a 3-ring binder and separated by category. Of course this could be a do-it-yourself project – find a plain old 3-ring binder, buy a ginormous package of sheet protectors and some file dividers and call it a day. I however decided that since this binder would house all of my very best recipes it needed to have a bit of style and class.

I scoured the web. I mean scoured. I needed to find the perfect recipe storage book. One of the most important components to my perspective purchase is the categories of foods that would separate the recipes I was going to store. I wanted something that didn’t just break the sections into “breakfast,” “lunch,” and “dinner;” but had some thought into them – baking is too generic, it needed to be separated into “desserts” and “bread” (I would have liked to have added “pastries” too, but I guess that was too much to ask) and pasta needed its own special place (right up front) – it doesn’t quite fit in the “main course” section with the chicken marsala. I think that I was more dedicated to my quest for the perfect recipe storage book than I was to some of my college research papers!



Finally, after hours of searching and days of pondering, I made my decision: the C.R. Gibson Pocket Page Recipe Book in Paddock Shawl.

And I thought that was going to be the hard part.

The hard part was fitting my recipes in the darn book! Let’s be real here, I have probably 14 cookbooks and several hundred loose recipes (not to mention hundreds of recipes stored in online recipe books) – how likely is it that I am ever going to cook even half of the recipes I have? Probably highly unlikely. I love to try new things, but don’t get me wrong, I do have a staple of “go-to” recipes in my back pocket when nothing else sounds good – I do tend to stick with familiar recipes I can trust. That means I must consolidate my enormous recipe collection and become a little bit more realistic. I really cut down - I probably recycled at least 100 recipes. Now, my recipe book is basically complete and I can actually find everything without sorting through hundreds of loose recipes. Every recipe has its place and I still have a little bit more room to add fun new recipes as I find them.


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Online Document Management

I am always looking for new ideas for storing files on my computer. I have a very meticulous organizational system of my documents; however, there are several inter-office documents that I refer to regularly and share with several members of my work team. I recently looked into Google Docs, as well as a few other document sharing websites and think I have found the Golden Ticket.




Check out Google Docs at: www.docs.google.com and you can see for yourself how great it is.

Why I like Google Docs: it is so easy to share documents and for others to make amendments to those documents without having to e-mail them back and forth, as well as the document that is on the screen is always live. You can control if other people can edit the document or if they can just view it.

Ideas for what to share on Google Docs:

• Spreadsheets
• Inter-office documents or information
• Travel plans and documentations
• Event logistics

How to upload & share a doc:
• Visit www.docs.google.com
• Log in (you don’t have to have a gmail/google account – you can use whatever e-mail address you have) or create a log in.
• Click “upload” on the upper left-hand side
• Click “select file to upload”
• Select the file you wish to upload
• Click “start upload”
• Click “share” and insert the e-mail addresses of friends/colleagues you want to share with
• Determine if the people you’re sharing with can view or edit the document(s)
• Save & close – and you’re set!
.
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Dorm Room Organization

As a semi-recent college graduate I remember the joys and the agony of spending an entire year living in a dorm room (I can't believe I survived!!). It's sure an exciting time in a young adult's life, but some basic organization will do any dorm room wonders. Clutter can accumulate quite quickly, especially in a college dorm, but it will begin to overpower a teeny tiny dorm room very fast if it gets out of hand.





The most important thing to think of is the layout of the room. This is so vital because dorm rooms are so teeny tiny that you must make the most out of your space to take advantage of the organizational potential. In my dorm room we were able to loft our beds. Under my bed went the futon and the comfy chair with storage ottoman and under my roommate's bed was the refrigerator, microwave and our food storage area plus one of our sets of stackable drawers. We wouldn't have been able to successfully have all of the things in our dorm room if we weren't able to loft the beds.

An absolute MUST in dorm life is at least one set of stackable drawers. Target and Bed Bath & Beyond have a huge selection of these (and they're probably on sale right now!). My dorm room had two sets in different sizes. One of the sets of drawers in my room was bright orange, which added a nice flare to the stark and dingy looking room. We stored supplies like tape, 3-M hooks, batteries, shower products and even clothes I think.



I do have to credit my roommate for pretty much all of the wonderful organizational items found in our dorm room. She brought most of them! And she is very creative so everything worked wonderfully.

My roommate brought in this great set of stacking cubes. We used these to store food in. These would also work well to store clothes, shoes, school supplies, books and shower products in.

The closets and the built in storage in my dorm room were actually quite substantial. Each of us had two sections of closets to store things in. Needless to say we had a lot of room to hang our clothes! I also employed a shoe tree and somehow hung it in my closet (mine is supposed to be an over-the-door shoe tree...). It worked really well, and I highly recommend if you're bringing a lot of shoes to college to use a shoe tree or some kind of shoe organizer.



One thing that I didn't think about at the time of my freshman year was over-the-door hooks. My roommate came prepared and brought two different sets. We used one on the back of our dorm door and the other was hanging from her bed (remember it was lofted). These were so amazingly handy to have! We used them to hang our backpacks, jackets, sweaters and big winter coats and scarves (we went to school in Iowa) from.

Under-the-bed storage is wonderful, especially in a dorm room. Since our beds were both lofted and hanging from the ceiling we couldn't really store things under our bed (well I suppose we could have...) but we did have a futon on the ground that we used to store things under. We used clear plastic containers to store little odds & ends in and then housed them under the futon.



If you need more tricks for dorm room organization, look to the upper classmen. I did take a lot of my current knowledge from their advice and experience as freshmen living in the dorms.

When it comes to dorm room organization, the name of the game is creative. You must be creative because you're working in such a small space, usually with limited resources and you're combining two people's things in to a tiny space big enough for a mouse to live in.

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Scrapbooking Corner

I've got to start by saying that I'm not a huge scrapbooker. I enjoy doing it, I think I come up with some creative ideas but it takes a lot of time and it is quite an investment, and also requires a lot of organization to keep everything in its place. I do, however, have some great organization ideas and tips for you scrapbookers out there.





For the novice scrapbookers, such as myself, I would recommend a large plastic tub to store scrapbooking materials in. At this point, all of my scrapbook materials fit into one extra large under-the-bed tub. If I accumulate much more I would expand to smaller plastic tubs that still fit under my bed.

I know there are a lot of advanced scrapbookers who are quite talented and extremely creative. You guys probably have accumulated countless scrapbooking materials that need a home. Many really good scrapbookers like to have an area or a zone for their scrapbooking or other creative activities. My suggestion would be to create a zone in your basement, take ownership of an extra bedroom or hold the office or den hostage to your materials.



A large table is quite necessary so you can spread out photos, materials and papers while you're working. I like to stand up when I work on projects like this, so I would look for a large, square, counter-height table. My ideal table would have built-in storage between the legs or at the base. I would love cabinets or cubbies or shelves where I could store baskets or buckets of materials.

I really like the idea of mounting a pegboard on the wall and hanging materials such as scissors or ribbon. You could also hang a shelf or a bucket from the pegboard and store die cutters, pens or markers and other trinkets or embellishments for your scrapbook pages.

Most expert and advanced scrapbookers have a large supply of cardstock. Small drawers on wheels are a great storage idea for scrapbooking papers, storing mementos and keeping other supplies on hand. Labeling these drawers is a great idea and makes it look really professional. I also love the idea of storing cardstock in office-style file trays that you can stack on top of each other.

Other than that I think you should be set. Just remember the basics: keep everything in its place, eliminate clutter, clean up after yourself after every scrapbooking session and create a place for everything to go. Oh, and keep a trash and recycling nearby! You'll need it. Happy scrapbooking!



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My Little Projects

I think I could set a record for the number of bags and cosmetic bags I own. AND I just got rid of a whole bunch of them last summer when I moved to Seattle. The amazing thing about this is that I have hardly bought any of them - many have come from "bonus days" at the cosmetics counter at Marshall Fields (yes, I've had them since all since then). These bags are more challenging to organize simply because of their shape and size. I have areas for all of them, but it's hard to keep them in their proper places and get to them easily. I've got myself quite a few projects that need organizing.

I could also set a record for the number of travel toiletries I own. And don't even use. Unless I'm going camping. They take up a lot of space and are really annoying to store. My solution was this: use some of my cosmetic bags to store the toiletries. I stored all the little shampoos and conditioners together, the lotions in one bag, the toothbrushes and floss and toothpaste from the dentist in one really large bag, and body washes in another. Now that the cosmetic bags have more of a purpose I stored them in the linen closet in the bathroom on a shelf.

Other ideas for storing travel toiletries would be in a bucket or basket, or a set of small drawers in the linen closet for very easy access. I love the idea of using fancy boxes (perfume boxes, etc) to store these items in as well.

Back to my enormous bag collection... When I speak of bags here, I'm talking about any kind of bag you can think of - beach bag, workout bag, ski bag, duffel bag, backpack, messenger bag, etc. I was getting sick of sorting through all of my bags to get to the one I wanted without messing up the whole pile so I knew it needed a change. I used to use the largest bag to store all of the smaller bags - but I don't really recommend that unless you never use the largest bag. It gets quite annoying to have to sort through the bag and then find a spot for the smaller bags when you need to use the largest bag.

My new solution is to arrange the larger bags (duffel and ski bags and backpack) on the top shelf of my closet, then stack some of the smaller bags (messenger bags, a few beach bags) on top of each other. For the remaining bags (mostly beach bags) I hung on hangers. This goes for some purses too (use nice hangers!). It allows for easy access without messing up the whole stack of bags. It's a win-win situation!

And I have to put this in here somewhere... whenever I get low on a supply or food I write it on my list (grocery/Target/Costco all have their own lists) and buy a new item BEFORE I run out. That is the system around here. Lo and behold last night I needed a AA battery and WE WERE OUT. I NEVER run out of things. I didn't even KNOW we were running low! And now we have zero AA batteries. Needless to say I was not the one who used the last of the batteries. I wish I knew of a service that would pick up some batteries at Target and bring them to me at midnight when I needed two.

I've had a great weekend of little organizing projects, so far...


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Organizing with Reusables

Living in Seattle has made me into more of a recycling fanatic, as well as someone who tries to waste less. I like to put on my "creative thinking cap" and re-use things that I can. This is another cheap and easy way to stay organized on a budget!



Some things you can easily re-use as a storage container:

• Ice Cream tub (gallon size)

• Yogurt container (2 pound size)

• Deli takeout containers

• Margarine/sour cream/large cream cheese tub

• Pickle/jam/spaghetti sauce jar

• Coffee can

• Shoe box

• Any size can (think tomato sauce, soup, canned green beans)



What to do with them:
If you have kids (or if you're a crafty adult) you could turn this into a really cool and unique art project. This blog is about organization, not art, but an idea is wrapping the containers in a paper bag and decorating the outside - glue on sequins, glitter, whatever you have around the house.

Or, if you don't like seeing the manufacturer's design on the container, just wrap it in white paper and write what is inside of it.



I am always in need of more storage for little things like paper clips, other office supplies, jewelry, first aid supplies, hair binders and accessories, nail polish, kids trinkets and just plain junk. It's hard to beat these nifty little containers, especially since most of you probably have several of these in your cabinets or refrigerator at home.

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Organizing Kids' Keepsakes

I do think it is really important, for sentimental reasons, to cherish and keep some of your children's school projects throughout the years, drawings, special baby clothing and photographs of your children's lives. It seems to me with regard to mementos, photographs and artwork/projects would occupy the most space, leading to the most clutter in this area.


The key to keeping the kid's souvenirs organized is to not become a hoarder. As your child grows, throw some of your favorite things into their "keepsake box" but set a limit for yourself. Remember, your child will probably spend at least 18 years living in your house, not to mention if you want to keep college papers, graduation photos, etc. in his keepsake box. I do not include photos in this category - there really shouldn't be a limit on photos, if you ask me, because they can all be stored electronically.

If you're starting from scratch (have really young children), here is my advice to you: Find a large cardboard box or purchase a very large clear plastic tub (I say clear for a reason) for each child you have. This will become his keepsake box. Label the box/decorate it/have the kid decorate it - whatever - it just needs to be identifiable by you and housed in an easily accessible spot. Once you've got your box, you're set. The challenging part now is deciding what makes the keepsake box cut and what goes in the trash. Yes, I said it, I'm giving you permission to throw your children's memories away. As your child progresses you'll probably be tempted to throw everything he does into his keepsake box. Be picky - only the best should make the cut. Regularly go through the box and keep it orderly - again, only the best should make the cut, limiting this to no more than five items per year.

For those of you who already have children and have been saving keepsakes like it's your job, my question to you is: why? What are you saving them for? I wholeheartedly support saving a few really great things - that first book that Hannah read at age 5, Tucker's first division test, Grayson's report cards, Madison's SAT scores and Evan's self-portrait drawing at age 16. If you have gotten too carried away and are running out of room but your kid is only 5, there is a problem. Take everything out of your box or bin or whatever you have been using to store things in and go through it all, limiting the contents to fewer than five objects per year per child. I will allot you one box per child per life. No negotiations.

If you're having trouble getting rid of stuff, ask yourself why you're saving it. If the answer is something along the lines of, "so my kid can see his progress" or "so my kid can save his mementos" or "so when my kid grows up he can look back on all of his old artwork," I understand. However, your child doesn't need to be able to go back to every cherished drawing he did or stuffed animal he has. If you can't bring yourself to throw away the 3,219,084,398 paintings and drawings your child will do prior to 4th grade, consider giving them to a family member or brightening a senior citizen's nursing home room/child's hospital room by giving them a painting. As for saving your children's old toys, there are so many children who can benefit from your toy donation, I seriously don't think your 18-year-old child will care if you save his Thomas the Tank Engine whistle train -- give it away.



Photos from your children's lives can take up an entire storage room by themselves. I love the idea of chronicling each year or so in its own photo book. If you must have a second copy printed of each photo I would highly recommend you stock up on photo boxes. Most shoe boxes work very well, too. Arrange the photos in their boxes chronologically with labels. Here's what I would do: upload my pictures online, print off one copy of the great one's for the photo book and leave the rest online. The kids each have their own photo book for each year and everyone has access to the photos online, assumedly forever. My favorite online photo storage site is: www.snapfish.com - 9 cent prints can't be beat!

Other creative and wonderful ways to cherish your kid's artwork outside the box: frame it and hang it as you would a fine piece of art (seriously!); post pictures/paintings in their bedroom, playroom, closet or family room; display proudly around the house (if it's not a painting/picture - use a clay bowl for change, a wire sculpture as an accent piece); give it to Grandma (or aunts/uncles/other family members/close family friends) - she'll never throw it away; hang it on the refrigerator for a period of time; create an ArtBook for each child (bind several pieces of artwork together into a book); scan it onto your computer and upload it onto your blog/picture website/kid's website and enjoy forever; take a picture of your child with the piece of art and put it in his photo book/online.



Lastly, if you are a very sentimental family, consider doing this together. Get the kids involved with starting and maintaining their keepsake box and ask their opinions about what they want to keep forever and what they can live without.

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Your Biggest Organization Dilemma

I'm always curious to learn what people's greatest organizational dilemma is. Please comment here with the answer or send me an e-mail at: acomb@live.com with what your biggest organizational dilemma is.

1. Time Management

2. Home Organization

3. Office Organization

4. Planning Ahead/Being Prepared

5. Clutter Management

6. I'm a Hoarder

7. Need Motivation


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Under the Bed Storage

Those of you who have ample room under your bed to store things should consider yourselves lucky! Especially if you can keep it out of sight with a cute bed skirt. I love that I can store things under my bed - it's easy, accessible and no one knows what's in this storage space. If you're considering purchasing a really nice wood bed frame, you aren't necessarily out in the cold on this one.


I have a lot of scrapbooking supplies/crafty stuff (not enough to warrant a separate scrapbooking table or area), extra office supplies, sewing supplies and a whole bunch of old scrapbooks and photo albums, as well as photo boxes. These go under my bed. They could go in a closet on a shelf, but I don't have any more room where they can be easily accessible.

How I do it: I went out to Target and bought a whole bunch of small clear plastic containers with lids (see picture), one for each type of belonging, and arranged my miscellaneous items inside. Each container has a neatly written label for easy searching, and I only go one box deep under the bed, meaning that just the perimeter of the bed has things under it, again to allow easy access. When I need something from under there it is exceptionally simple to locate it and grab it.

Why under the bed storage is great: the obvious point here, being, that it's hidden, plus it's incredibly easy to find - if your under the bed area is organized well, there's a lot of square footage under a bed which translates into a lot of storage space and it allows you to be creative by using your space creatively.

Other ideas: I personally love the clear plastic containers with lids, but some other ideas are: cute baskets if they fit under your bed, any other type of bucket or bin as long as it slides under your bed and won't tip over and spill, reusable food storage containers, small boxes, shoe boxes and customized under the bed storage systems (mainly for shoes).

For those of you who are considering purchasing a wooden bed frame, think about one that has storage built in. If I was to buy a new wood bed I wouldn't buy one that didn't come with any type of storage. That's not allowing you to maximize your space.

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My Questions for YOU

I'm always curious where people stray from being organized. In what way of your own life are you the least organized?

1. Frequently running late (time management)
2. Frequently forgetting things (planning ahead)
3. Messy buildup/clutter in home/office/car (clutter)
4. Putting things off until the last minute (procrastination)
5. Disorganized storage
6. Lack of motivation or follow through
7. Other

What about the opposite - where do your strengths lie with regard to being organized?

Feel free to comment or send me an e-mail, acomb@live.com -- I'm always willing to answer any personal organizing questions or dilemmas you may have!
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Neigborhood Swap

I got this idea from the Oprah show a few weeks ago. Oprah's decorator, Nate, did a neighborhood swap. You can do this too! Take it to the full extent that they did, or modify it to a lower scale.

Talk with your neighbors, colleagues and friends and analyze your needs and desires. Figure out what you can swap between the group to help each other out. It's as easy as that! If all Patty wants is a few buckets and baskets - I'm sure someone would be willing to give up some baskets in exchange for the awesome book case that sits empty in her adult son's bedroom.

Before the swap it would be helpful to go through your house and take an inventory. Figure out what you need to get rid of or what you are comfortable swapping in exchange for something else.

Let me know what happens with your swap. I'm anxious to hear what people are more in need of and what people are willing to give up!

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Get Rid of it!

I think that spring is the ultimate time to go through everything in your house and get rid of stuff that you don't use, that doesn't fit you (or your family) anymore or that's broken. This is kind of like a seasonal cleaning, but with an emphasis on de-cluttering through "stuff removal."

I would suggest going room by room through your house to create an inventory to figure out what in the world is in your house and taking over your precious space. Do this slowly so you don't overwhelm yourself. Start maybe someplace small, like your bedroom or bathroom, and work from there. Think about each thing as you go through it and ask yourself some questions:

• When was the last time I used this?
• Is it broken? Can I fix it?
• Did I even know I had this?
• Does this article of clothing fit me/children/spouse?
• When was the last time I wore this?
• Do I NEED this still?
• Could I live without this?

The questions above should get you thinking.

• If you didn't wear an article of clothing during the last season, get rid of it!
• If an article of clothing doesn't fit you at the present time, get rid of it!
• Didn't know you had something still? There's a good chance you'll forget that again, so get rid of it!
• Haven't used this in the last two years? Get rid of it!
• Is it broken? Can I fix it? If not, get rid of it!
• Is this essential to my existence? Probably not.
• Can I live without it? Probably.

It is so rewarding to go through the house with big garbage bags and clearing out things that you have no use for anymore. There is absolutely no point in keeping something just to keep it. That's called being a packrat, or worse: a hoarder. My task for you is to just get rid of it. The longer you procrastinate about getting rid of the messy buildup in your house the closer it comes to looking like you have become a hoarder.

If it helps you to think of it this way: you could throw a garage sale or sell your belongings online, give gently used clothing to consignment stores, sell appliances to secondhand stores, or donate your clothing to a charity to help others who are less fortunate. Pick one of those or your own motivator and go GET RID OF IT!

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Toys/Play Area Organization

I must mention again that I do not have kids. I have knowledge of what having kids is like and I have seen enough messy (and neat) playrooms and toy zones to understand the concept around organizing your kids stuff.



I have to start by saying that the most organized families I know corral their kids toys in specific rooms. This seems obvious but most families do not differentiate between playroom, bedroom, parent's bedroom and kitchen based on the toy storage. So, that said, I think it's important to consider setting toy boundaries. Keep the toys in a playroom and the kids room or the basement and their bedroom. Notice that I didn't include the kitchen, dining room, office, mom and dad's room, etc. I realize that sometimes it is beneficial to have toys readily available to the kids to keep them entertained -- but put them away when they're done playing with them in toy-free rooms.

Now that you've moved the toys out of every room it's time to start organizing them. This is where creativity and innovation comes into play. The options are endless with what you can do to create an organized playroom for your kids to hang out in (not to mention learn responsibility by keeping their toys picked up!).

Here are some ideas to get you thinking about what you can do with various storage containers:
• Shelves: excellent option for books, games, puzzles, DVDs and to store buckets or baskets on
• Bins (open): the perfect container for the "loose" toys, like cars or trucks, a train set, Barbie accessories, or farm animals, where the kids can toss them in and find them later
• Plastic storage bins (with lid): great place to keep art supplies, video games, Barbie's and other dolls, school supplies, sporting equipment or stuffed animals
• Baskets/buckets: good for storing small toys that need to be kept separate, like nail polish, checkers (or other game) pieces, play dough and colored pencils
• Laundry baskets or barrels: perfect for super large toys or stuffed animals that the kids can throw in there without having to leave out on the floor



Consider getting a stockpile of several of these items and having your kids help you organize their new play area. Engage them in an art project to create labels for storage bins and buckets and have them tell you how they want the room set up. The key with this organizational overhaul is to get them to be held accountable for keeping the toys picked up and kept in their appropriate spot (I see a perfect opportunity for a reward chart here!).

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