Christmas Clean up

To get to your Christmas gear each year quickly and efficiently store it in large Tupperware boxes. The stores have made it easy for you to color code your boxes by offering Red with Green lids at Christmas Orange with Black lids for Halloween and Pink with Green lids at Easter. However, if you are like me I have many boxes at home already so I picked out the matching ones and store all my Christmas items in there. Not only do they stack nicely together because they are all the same size, but next year I just pull out all the same colored boxes and have all my Christmas decorations at hand. If you buy a lot of new decorations to add every year it might be worth going with a very neutral color or clear containers that way you can add to it without messing up your system.
In our garage we have several different colored totes all containing the same type items. Purple has clothes stored for the next season, or growth spurt. Green has Christmas items. Gray has items that I will pass along to my children someday and mementos. For shorter term storage I bought several backs of the filing boxes that you can write on. We sorted out videos, papers, supplies, gift bags, files, and other miscellaneous items to store and dated and labeled all the boxes. Now I not only can get to my "keeps" but because the boxes are all the same style they stack perfectly together.

The man cave

While I didn't make it into my plastic cupboard this week, we did clean out the man cave, otherwise known as the garage. My husband needed to find his tools for assembling the myriads of Christmas gifts and unscrewing the endless battery compartments. We spent a little under a hundred dollars but in the end will save ourselves many hours of looking for the screw drivers, hammers and drill bits.
We went to our local big box hardware store and bought several pieces of 2 1/2 inch by 4 feet boards. After attaching these to the walls my husband added peg board cut to fit just above the boards. We added some pegs and handy screw driver holders and a nice little 20.00 shop light. Now his tools are in easy reach.

Holidays in the Kitchen

What better time to start organizing the kitchen now, when your in it the most. With the holidays fast approaching, baking tends to take up what ever little bit of free time we have. Let's tackle one of the most used cupboards and empty it.

For about $30.00 you can find a metal pan shelf at your local All-in-One store. In my case we found it at Fred Meyer. The install was easy as long as you can find studs. While studs in the wall is necessary too, having a man around to help out here is handy. Once the shelf is up on the wall hanging your pans is simple. Put the pots towards the back and the larger frying pans towards the front. The top can handle any assortment of gadgets and large stock pots. My kids enjoyed playing little tunes on the pans with a wooden spoon so they sometimes get reorganized depending on their mood. However, they still hang nicely and we don't have to worry about the small pans being under all the biggest pans in the very back of the lowest, deepest cupboard when we need them. All the pans are always in easy reach. If your kitchen is small like mine you can use all the space you can find.

Now that you have freed up a large cupboard, we will tackle the plastic in the kitchen next.

Finding that magazine article, the easy way.

This next step will take a few extra minutes of your time but will pay off later when you want to retrieve that article you read, somewhere, in one of those magazines.

If you are like me I have several magazines that I order each year that I love. Some of them I buy because I enjoy the recipes, tips and tricks they offer. One magazine I order is very educational and is a great resource for my children when they study history.

It's a pain to sort through every magazine every time you want to find a specific article. So I finally solved my problem by ripping out the table of contents of each magazine, taking the time to write the date on the top and placed it in plastic sleeves in a 3 ring binder. It took a little time to get my magazines in order by date, but now when I know there is an article some where in those magazines I can pull out one book, and look for it. When I locate the contents page with the article I am looking for, I go to my magazine stash in the book case and find the date that corresponds. Not only did I find the magazine in very little time but I even have the page number.

This little job may take you awhile depending on how many magazines you have. Grouping them by magazine if you buy a lot of the same one is the best way to start. If you just buy magazines off the shelf when you walk by, and they are never the same, start organizing by date.

I have been known to get my cup of tea and curl up on the couch with my 3 ring notebooks looking for something to do, instead of 8 magazines.

Cut the magazine Clutter

Magazines can stack up quickly and make your office or living room look cluttered. Cut the clutter bug by organizing them into magazine holders. Stacking them neatly next to each other on a bookshelf not only helps keep them off the desk, but makes it easier for you to sort through them later at your convenience.

Magazine holders are inexpensive ways to create organization. If you are feeling extra creative and savvy try taking a cereal box, cutting it at a diagonal and covering with your favorite scrapbook paper and ribbon. This will personalize your space even more and let your creativity really shine.

Stay tuned, next time I will tell you how to organize those special magazines so that you can find that project or article quickly without searching through hundreds of pages.

Quick and Easy Organization for your craft drawers

A simple way to customize your craft drawers is to add dividers. Here you see 1 1/2 inch by 4 foot piece of wood which we cut to fit the drawer snugly. This allows me to store our paint bushes, glue guns and other craft supplies without them getting lost forever in the "junk drawer".

Another inexpensive organizing tool for the craft drawers or cupboards is clear plastic boxes. Make sure you find some that will fit in your drawer. Grouping like craft items together and labeling will not only keep it organized but aid children in helping to keep them that way. It sure makes crafting much more fun when you know what you have and where it is.

Get that desk cleaned up!

Yes, it's been awhile since I started this blog on getting organized. I have been spending many nights dreaming of how I would organize my desk, my house, my kids, my life. Well, I finally have my first tip ready for you.

At the local office supply store I found a stair step holder for files. One of the things that overwhelms my desk in no time is papers that need filing. I don't always have time to organize and take the papers out to the filing cabinet so I came up with this in between stage to help me. I now have a folder for taxes where I slip all my tax related papers, write offs and receipts into for the current year. Now, when it's time to do taxes I will just pull out my file and I won't be hunting all over the office for those receipts I thought I had.

Another folder holds my address and phone numbers that I use most frequently. This includes, websites and passwords. One of the benefits of this, if my spouse ever needs to pay our bills, or access our accounts he will be able to find everything he needs. For my husband I also set up a folder that he could put any papers that related to his business in. I did include one for my children also.

I also have a folder for current bills. This eliminates the constant archeological dig in order to find the phone bill. After the bill is paid, it goes in the Bills to file folder. The last set of folders I set up was for our health, dental and vision insurance. Now when I need to call to find out if something is covered I have the numbers and the plan right at my finger tips.

By controlling the paper explosion in my office I can finally find the stapler.

Welcome to The Get Organzied Blog

I'll be offering tips and tricks to get organized and hopefully someday stay organized. I'm a newbie at organizing and not a professional. I am just trying to find the best ways to organized my life and my kids' lives. I also run a business that is always in need to organizing. You'll hear my desperate pleas for help as well as some ideas that have worked well for me and my family.
I look forward to the journey with you. My first job is to tackle my desk.....