{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 31~ Organizing your Organizing!

Well~ Today is the last day of my 31 Days in October series. I cannot believe it is here already. This month just seemed to fly by. Now that I have organized a houseful of things in Rubbermaid tubs I wanted to share a way of organizing all of those tubs. Again, I turned to Pinterest (this is a wonderful site and very addictive) Anyway- I found this system of storing tubs. I know that I could simply stack them and put them in the garage or basement but, inevitably, the bin I need is always on the bottom. When I saw this system, I knew it was something I wanted my husband to build for me.

This is not me or my basement.....yet.

 I do plan on doing this in the near future. Here is the link for the directions and supplies needed. (Scroll down for the directions.) 

I hope you enjoyed my 31 Days to Organize the Hidden Areas of Your Home. I want to leave you with one last, but most important, organizing tip. I find that I get better results organizing my home when I take things slow. Start with one area at a time each week. It takes longer this way but I do a better job and don't get burned out trying to get it all done at once. The clutter didn't happen overnight so it is going to take more than one day to get it organized. I also like to reward myself with something special after an area is completed. Happy Organizing!!

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 30~ Gift Storing

Have you ever been cleaning out a closet or drawer and found a gift that you had hidden there and forgot about and therefore the gift never made it to the recipient? Well- that used to happen to me a lot so I decided to do something about it. Again, I turn to Rubbermaid containers. I keep a few, very large, Rubbermaid containers in the basement. I just write the word "Christmas" on the outside so nobody knows they contain gifts. I suppose you could label them with some catchy thing like, mismatched socks or something but Christmas 1 and Christmas 2 is also easy for me to remember. When I purchase something, I add it to the box. I then go back to the spreadsheet and in the last column write down which box it is in. If the item is too large for the boxes and therefore stored someplace else, I put the location in the last column on the spreadsheet. (Sometimes, I wrap and tag the gift (no bows-they get squished) before I put it in the box. This saves time wrapping.) Now my children get all of the gifts we buy for them on Christmas day or their birthday and not six months later. I store them with all of the other Christmas storage containers so they don't look out of place. 
What do you do to help keep track of gifts you purchase through the year?

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 29~ Gift Buying

About 20 some odd years ago, I decided to really look at a way to organize my Christmas gift buying. I felt like I was just going from store to store and buying things as I remembered who I needed to buy for. I know you can probably imagine how stressful this was. I also spent money I shouldn't have. My gift buying strategy is almost too simple to write about but, nevertheless, I will share it. I create a spread sheet in Excel with four columns. I save this as my master list. Right now, I am the only one that uses my laptop but if you share it with inquiring eyes, you may want to name it something clever like household chores or something that you know nobody is going to willingly open up.  In the first column, I list everyone I need to buy or make something for in one column. In the next column, I type in what I would like to buy or make for each person and the last two columns are left blank.  I make this list small enough to print out and put in my purse so when I am out I have it with me. If I actually purchase the item I have listed I put a check mark beside it. If I purchase something else, I write the item in the blank space. As soon as I can, I like to take the list I had in my purse and update the master list by adding what purchases I have made or what gift I finished making. That, in a nutshell, is it. I told you it was way too simple. I started this with our Christmas buying but I have also made a separate spreadsheet with the months of the year for birthday gifts. 
Last year, my 31 days of October was on having a stress free Christmas. I wrote a post on making a Christmas Gift buying list that you might find interesting. You can find it here. 
Check back tomorrow for some tips on storing the gifts you purchase until you give them.  

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 28~ Kid's Hand-me-downs

 After I had my first baby, I did what most moms do when that cute little one grew out of her baby clothes- I put them in storage for the next baby. Little did I know it would be 14 years before the next little baby girl joined our family. I was really glad I kept all of the baby clothes I had  because we only had seven weeks notice before baby number 2 was born and came home with us. The easiest way that I found to store hand-me-downs is again...Rubbermaid tubs. They are large enough to hold all of the outfits that I had for each size and they kept everything clean and dry. Every piece of clothing was in the same condition as it was when it went into the bucket 14 years before. I wrote the size on both sides so it was easily identified. After baby number 2 grew out of the clothing, we packed it back up into the bucket and now grand-baby number 1 is enjoying the same like-new clothing that her mommy and aunt wore. It did cost a few bucks for the container but we have saved much much more than we spent by getting so much use out of these beautiful little outfits.  

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 27~Hi-Ho Hi-Ho it's off to work they go...Kids Chores!

 I love teaching my kiddos to take responsibility around the house and rewarding them for their efforts. Every week for years, I would make lists or print out free chore charts from the Internet. The first few weeks all went well. Then week after week I would forget to print out a new list/chart or we would be out of ink in the printer. One day while browsing in a local children's book store I saw something called "My Magnetic Responsibility Chart" made by the Melissa and Doug company. I love Melissa and Doug stuff to start with but when I saw that this chart not only had chores listed but also character qualities- Sold! When Abi finishes a chore she puts a smiley face in the right spot and when I see that she has demonstrated the character quality she is working on, I add the smiley face. She gets a pre-determined amount of money at the end of the week for each smiley face she has earned. This is motivation to really work on the character quality because mom doesn't put the smiley face on the board for a one time a day effort. We can change the chores every week or keep the same ones for several weeks. But the best part of this is....I have one less thing to remember each week!

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 26~ Fabric, Fat Quarters, and Thread- Oh my!

If you are "hooked" on sewing of any kind, I am sure you have an abundance of fabric we quilters like to call "our stash". Keeping it under control is a difficult task, to say the least. With two quilters in the house (my mom & I both share this love) our stash is multiplied by two. Our dream would be to have a sewing/craft room separate from any other room in the house but that is not the case. We are blessed to have a very large dining room that is doubling as our sewing room for the time being. We have had to get very clever about hiding our stash. Armoires to the rescue. 

  









We measured the inside of the armoire and were able to fit three sets of plastic drawers side by side. We moved the two shelves to the highest position and were able to use them for smaller plastic bins with notions. In each drawer we folded the fabric into small squares and lined them up on end. Two drawers hold all of our cones of thread. Everything is at our fingertips and easy to find. This makes finding fabric for that next quilting project a breeze. 

This armoire has two doors underneath it with shelves where we store larger pieces of fabric. We have also collected many quilting magazines for patterns etc. We picked up some magazine holders at the local office supply store to keep them organized. When we decided to organize the fabric this way, we just went out and purchased the drawer units. I would normally suggest waiting until they go on sale but we wanted to get this job completed in a timely manner so choose not                                                                    to wait.                                                   

We have tried to put similar colors in the same drawer to make it easy to find what we are looking for but sometimes they get moved around. I just saw an idea on pinterest that I am thinking about adding to this system and that is to take a small swatch of each fabric that is in the drawer and glue it to a small rectangle piece of card stock. Then punch a hole in the top of the card and string them on a ring that can be hung or stored in each drawer. The pinner said that it made finding what was in each drawer easier but I think it would be a great thing to be able to take several of the swatches to the fabric store with you when you need to purchase fabrics to match what you already have for a new project. 

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 25~ The Seasonal Decorations

Today I am going to talk about organizing your seasonal decorations. This may be a no-brainer to most people, but as I said in the introduction to this series, these organizing tips are for those out there that struggle with organizing. Once again, I am going to suggest purchasing plastic storage containers. They are easy to stack in your basement or garage. They keep things dry, which is important if your storage area may become exposed to the elements. I also like the fact that they protect anything fragile you may have. My dream would be to purchase orange containers for fall decorations, red or green for Christmas etc. but we now have way too many containers to replace them all so I just use a good old sharpie marker to label them. I do like to also label what is in the boxes, especially for Christmas decorations. Not only do I know what is in there when I decorate but it makes putting things away a breeze because anyone in the family can look at a tub and put the designated items inside. To read last years 31 days post on ornament storage click here.

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 24~ The Dreaded Dresser Drawers

One of the easiest "hidden" places to turn into chaos can be those dreaded dresser drawers......dum di dum dum dahh.
I tend to take after my OCD Grandmother when it comes to dresser drawers. Grammy's famous saying was "If I ever go blind I will know exactly which shirt is where in the drawer!" (how can you argue with Italian logic?) Anyway, I took a page out of her book on this and found that it is easier to find things if they are always put back in the same order. Once a year I take everything out and wipe out the drawers. Get rid of items I no longer need or want to wear and put everything back. I like to fold all of my shirts, that I don't hang in a closet, the same way so they all fit nicely. I also stack the items in each drawer by shade and from light to dark. ( I know the OCD taking over here!) But the system works well and I can find the item I am looking for quickly....

.......Everything is buttoned up and beautiful! 

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 23~ Laundry Time

To cut down on my time in the Laundry room I looked into those fancy laundry sorters. They just didn't look like they would be big enough for all of our laundry so I decided to purchase two tall kitchen garbage cans and label one with a "w" and one "c"(so the family doesn't get confused which one to put their clothes in). On laundry day I just grab the cans and haul them to the laundry room. No time wasted sorting anything. It isn't a huge time savings but every little bit helps. The kitchen garbage cans were cheaper than the fancy laundry sorting system too. I think they hold up better than other laundry sorters. My daughter bought a canvas type laundry sorter at a yard sale and it fell apart not long after she started using it. I have made space in the closet in our bedroom to fit these two cans.
That way they are easy to get to but out of sight. 

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 22~ Grocery Shopping/coupons

Now that you have organized your weekly menus it's time to go shopping. I know it may seem like grocery shopping should be an easy area to organize. Just write down what you need and go to the store-right? Sounds simple enough but for years I would go food shopping only to get home and realized that I had forgotten to buy something I needed. Or that I had cut out several coupons to use and forgot them at home or in my purse etc. Over the years, I have heard about several different ways to organize this task. One magazine I read years ago suggested to write your shopping list in the same order as the aisles in the store. I must confess, I did try this for a while but then one day the store decided to reorganize their aisles without telling me first so and I had no time to adjust my shopping list! The nerve. I really wasn't that put out but saw the reality that this option would probably be a time-waster in the long run. It also did not solve the problem of organizing the coupons. One of my long time friends is a major couponer. She has a huge system in file boxes that she takes to the store with her. Years ago I joined her in this type of couponing. I realized that there were many products that I was buying just because I had a coupon and not because we needed the item. So I wanted to achieve a happy medium. Now I only take coupons for things that I am planning on buying or know we will need. That being the case, I saw an idea on line to write your shopping list on a legal size envelope and put the coupons you are going to use inside. I had my wonderful husband make this into a printable pdf document. All you need to do is put a business size envelope in your printer and print side one. After it is printed flip the envelope over and print if you want the back side printed with reminders. After I make my menu for the week I print out an envelope and add all of the ingredients I will need for the week onto the list. I like to keep the envelope in the kitchen so I can easily add anything that we run out of. Once I have all my items on the list I go through the coupons in the paper and see if there is anything that I will be purchasing and add them to the envelope. On shopping day just grab the envelope and go. Click here to download the free envelope shopping list. 

We Have a Winner!!!

And the winner of the handmade cosmetic bag is....
 

Joanne M. 

Congratulations. I will make arraignments to get the bag to you.

Congratulations!!!

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 21~ Menu Planning

Today I am going to share a few ideas on organizing a weekly menu plan. Over the past several years, I have heard several different sources say that one thing that is going by the wayside in our country is the family dinner hour. I have also heard the statistics that many families turn regularly to fast food or take out several times a week. Not only can our budget not handle this type of meal time but I don't think it is a very healthy way of eating. It may seem that as a homeschool mom, I have plenty of time during the day to figure out what's for dinner. I may be home, but between schooling my children and running to lessons and other activities during the week, I have fallen into the rut of fast food/take out cuisine or running to the store every day to pick up something quick to make. Don't get me wrong, I love a good rotisserie chicken just like the next gal, but this really isn't the way I want my family to remember our home life. So- I sat down one day with my calendar. Wait....calendar? Yes my calendar. I wanted to see what things were going on each day/evening and which day/evening we would be home. On the days that we would be home during the day but had an evening activity, I planned a meal that could be made in the afternoon but would be easy to clean up like tacos, spaghetti etc. On the days that we would be gone most of the day I chose a crock-pot meal. Then, I went from the meals to the shopping list and wrote out what I needed. From this simple plan, I decided that I would pick one day a week to try a new recipe. For a season, when my oldest was learning to plan meals, I had her choose one breakfast, lunch and dinner to make each week. I let her choose which days she wanted to fix which meals and we put them into the plan. I must say that we not only have decent meals each week but I saved money. We do, occasionally, still pick up a rotisserie chicken but not as often.

Do you have a way of planning your weekly menus? I'd love to hear any and all tips from my readers so leave a comment. 

Tomorrow's topic- Organizing that grocery list!

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 20~ Organizing Jewelry

 Recently I was getting ready for church 

This is the jumbled mess I found!

and went to my jewelry box to find a necklace that I wanted to wear and realized that my eight year old had decided to "play" with my jewelry. Needless to say I had a mess on my hands. I decided that since I couldn't remember when the last time I cleaned and organized my jewelry it was time.  My jewelry box has three drawers. One divided into small compartments, one with ring holders and a large center compartment and one that is all open. 
I started with the divided compartment for my earrings. I went through each pair, cleaned them and organized them by those that I wear daily, those that are for dressier occasions or holidays etc.

With earrings like hoops I like to lock them together. It is easier to keep track of them that way.

Next I went through my bracelets and rings and stored them neatly in the second drawer. When I got to the jumbled mess that my necklaces had begun I painstakingly untied them all. Here enters my problem...the space in the last drawer wasn't big enough to lay each necklace out flat and fit them all. (I also keep all of Abi's jewelry in my jewelry box for safe keeping.) I really wanted to finish this project today without having to go out an buy anything. What's a girl to do? One word....Pinterest! I searched for jewelry storage solutions for necklaces and after only a few minutes I had my answer. I remembered that I was given a covered bulletin board that was hanging around the laundry room doing nothing so.........

I grabbed the bulletin board and found some clear pushpins in a drawer and arrainged the necklaces in a somewhat artistic way and hung the board on the wall next to my dresser. I am very pleased with the results. In the last drawer, I put all of Abi's jewelry. Because there are not divided compartments in the drawer to keep earring separated, I opted to keep her earrings on several of the cards we bought them with. This way they don't get lost. 


I took the time to clean all the jewelry that was tarnished and threw out things that were broken or that I wouldn't wear anymore. The project took about 2 hours but was worth it in the end.                          

A job well done!

52 Weeks Book Challenge

 This week I picked a book from my book shelves that has been there for a while. Lynn Austin's Until We Reach Home. The Carlson sisters, Elin, Kirsten, and Sophia, have had many struggles in their home country of Sweden. After both parents die and their older brother running away, Elin decides that she and her sisters should begin a new life in America, so she contacts her mother's favorite brother who sends her tickets for their trip to a new land. Each sister has a secret that she is keeping from the others. Will they truly be able to start over in America or will their secrets destroy all their hopes and dreams?

I must say, I loved this book. Lynn Austin is one of my favorite authors. This book is available on Amazon in book form or on Kindle.

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 19~ A Cleaning Schedule

Cleaning the house is not a "hidden area" but I thought that it would be good to share some ideas to keep things clean after they are all organized. Having an OCD nature, this area has never really been a struggle for me but I know there are some out there that do struggle with how and where to start cleaning the house. (My struggle was the opposite- I didn't know when to stop cleaning my house and live a little.)  Many years ago, a friend told me about the book "Sidetracked Home Executives". This book was written by sisters, Pam Young and Peggy Jones, who call themselves "the slob sisters". Their lighthearted writing style tells how they came out of their slobbish ways and developed a cleaning/home management system that really works. It uses a note card system and divides chores throughout the month. I began using the system so that when I completed a job I could file it away until next month and not keep obsessing about it. (That's a whole other blog series!) It begins by having you set up a basic weekly plan that works with your schedule. Once that has been decided, the book lists lots of cleaning chores that need to be done and how often to do them. The system really is easy enough for anyone to use- you just have to have the commitment to look at your card each day and do what you planned. Amazon has the book for around $10. If you are struggling with this area it would be $10 well spent. 

Maybe you are not totally sidetracked but are still wondering why have a cleaning schedule? Well- for me- it saves me from that last minute rushing around to clean up the house before we have people over. We can have people drop by unannounced and everything is usually picked up and cleaned. It helps me not be anxious or embarrassed. My Grammy would be so proud! Her famous saying was-"Don't ever leave the house without everything in its place. You never know, you could have an accident and strangers might have to bring you home. What will they think then?!" This may quite possibly be the reason behind the OCD!!

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 18~ Organize Your Car

Don't forget to leave a comment on Day 16~ Organize your purse to enter the give-a-way for the cosmetic bag.




Today I am going give you some tips on organizing your car. This seems to be one of the hardest areas to keep clean and organized for me. I have a little one who loves to "take" stuff with her but doesn't like to "take" it back into the house when we get home. So the first thing I have to make myself do on a weekly basis is to do what we call a 10 second tidy to clean out all the "stuff" we have left in the car. But after all is clean what types of things need to be kept in your car. Obviously, in the glove box I keep our registration and insurance info but after that what things come in handy and how should those things be stored? When we owned mini-vans I stored things in an under the bed plastic container under the last set of seats. My current vehicle is an SUV and because of the design of the seats there is no room to store anything under them. I do have a storage compartment near the back gate that is sunk into the floor. So what to store? Over the years the items have changed. One thing I kept in the car when my children were toddlers, and I didn't need to carry a diaper bag any longer, was an extra set of clothes in a plastic storage bag in case we had an accident of some sort. These days the things I keep in the storage area are: a roll of paper towels, a few plastic grocery bags, an umbrella, & jumper cables. On the back of the front seats there are two pockets. I like to keep some thin books or magazines to keep my daughter occupied while we are on the road. In the glove box, I like to keep a large plastic storage bag with extra napkins and coffee stirrers. The most unusual item that I keep in my car is a small local phone book. I cannot tell you how many times we have used it to call for store hours or to look up a restaurant's number to place a carry-out order. I keep it tucked in a door pocket. Years ago, our cell phone service charged a fee every time you called information for a number,  so it also saved us a little bit of money to be able to look up numbers ourselves. The spare tire and jack are built into the car so I didn't include those items but if your vehicle doesn't have them built in, it is a good idea to include these items.  I find the less we keep in the car the cleaner and more organized it stays.   

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 17~ Pantry Perfection

Ok...so maybe a pantry can't be perfect but I can dream. I would love to have a walk in pantry with everything stored in matching containers but that is not what I have...one can dream though. I am glad that we have a large closet pantry off the kitchen so I don't need to use my kitchen cabinets for food storage. I like to put like items together. The top shelf that is too high to reach daily stores the extra flours and stocked things we don't need as often. The next shelf stores Cereals, then crackers, then things like jello and pudding mixes. I put all of the baking supplies on the next shelf from dried fruits to chocolate chips and extra spices that can't fit in the spice cabinet. Canned vegetables and pastas make up the bottom two shelves. Snacks get stored on a small wire shelving unit to the side. I like to keep things sorted from larger boxes to smaller with some part of the label showing so we know what it is. I read an article in a magazine once about organizing a pantry and they suggested having 7 buckets, one for each day of the week on the shelves. After planning your menu and doing the shopping you put the ingredients for each nights dinner in the appropriate box. Sounds like a really clever idea but it hasn't been feasible for us to try right now. 

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 16~ Organizing Your Purse

It may seem obvious as to how to organize your purse but it took me many years of struggling with this before I found something that works for me. I was always at a loss as to how much to keep in my purse. You never know- I might need that...and that...and that...etc. And you guessed it...my purse weighed a T-O-N! So I decided to do something about that. I emptied everything out and asked myself "do I absolutely need this in here?" Like anything else, the answer on most things was a resounding NO. The must-haves for me include my favorite lipstick (not 3) a small bottle of Ibuprofen, a small hand sanitizer, tissues, 1 pen, a small notepad, my wallet, a small mirror, a key-ring with cards from stores or libraries, keys, mints, and my smart-phone. (I do not carry my checkbook with me any longer. We have a check-card that I carry instead. It takes up much less space.) Currently, I am using a Vera Bradley purse that has pockets inside on both sides of the purse. I put things in these pockets that I might need to get at quickly- like my phone and keys. I also made two small quilted cosmetic type bags, one is pink and the other is yellow. In the pink one I put things that are of a personal nature like mints, lipstick etc and in the yellow one I put things like the notepad, card ring etc. This way I can find things quickly and spend less time digging through the bottomless pit that everything used to fall into. This also makes changing purses a very quick process-just grab it all and put it in the new bag. 

Let's have some fun- leave me a comment with what you think are "must-haves" in your purses and I will enter your name in a drawing for this handmade cosmetic bag. I will put all the names in a basket between now and Sunday night October 20th. On Monday the 21st I will have Abi pick a name out of the basket and will announce the winner on my blog. So share the word about the give-a-way with your family and friends.

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 15~ Kids' Clothing

Abi's room is not very big so in order to give her more room to play we decided not to put another piece of furniture in her room to take up space. I had Dan install two wire shelves in her double closet and we added plastic buckets that are labeled so she can easily put her things away. I wanted this to be an easy system for her to be able to manage on her own. I do occasionally have to go in and straighten up the buckets. To have the extra floor space in a small room was worth giving up the dresser. 

 We left enough space so hanging things can still be hung above the buckets. I decided to hang her shoes in a shoe bag on the back of the bedroom door. I think this would work well if you had multiple kids sharing a room. Not having dressers leaves more room for the beds and play space in a small room. 

52 Weeks Book Challenge

 This week I finished the final book in the Sisters of Holmes County series, A Sister's Hope by Wanda E. Brunstetter. This book focuses on the youngest of the Hostettler sisters, Martha. Martha has fallen in love with an young Amish man, Luke Friesen, but her father thinks that Luke is behind all the attacks that have been happening on the family's farm. Luke also has feelings for Martha, however, unless he can prove his innocence to her father, he knows a courtship will never happen. 

Luke and Martha decide to team up together to investigate the attacks and clear Luke's name. You will have to read the book to find out if they are successful in finding the culprit or if Luke is just covering up his crimes.