Organizing the Boys Bathroom - Labeling Project

I have been busy working on the boys bathroom and thought I would give you a quick peek at part of the project that I have been working on. I love to make tags and label. Being that I am a digital scrapbook and I am on a creative team for Bella Gypsy I knew when I saw this kit I wanted to use the colors in the boys bathroom. 

Isn't this a great kit! You can pick it up here. I printed out some of the papers and used Photoshop to create my tags. I trimmed and matted them and then ran them through my laminator to help make them durable. 

Wa-la! Instant, colorful, tags!

Organizing the Boys Bathroom - Preview

My next goal is to organize the boys bathroom!

Here in Chicago we have had some major rain so it was nice to see the sun shine again! The only good thing about the rain is I have been cooped up in the house with lots of time to organize! We are due for some more rain this week so I plan on getting our boys bathroom completely organized. I knew I would need to make it simple for them, label the spaces, and have a space for everything.

Just like my bathroom, I pulled everything out to see what I was dealing with. I sorted it by keep, throw and donate and then planned out what I would need to buy, and what I will need to make to organized this bathroom. Here are my before pictures:

Yep, that's a mess! Look at the curler set I still have! I am pretty sure that is from the 80's!  My boys have to share some of their storage under the sink with me for my curling irons and other hair tools but they don't mind!

This is all the items that my boys have in their drawers and under the sink. Not much but they are boys. If I had a girl I am sure it would have been doubled! 

Really?? Look at all those medicine dispensing tools! My boys are 4 and 7 so any medicine I have to give them they drink from a cup. I will only be keeping a few cups and the rest are going!

I can't wait to revel their finish bathroom later this week! 

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Organizing the Master Bathroom -Reveal

I had a great week of getting my Master Bathroom organized.  I feel great getting my bathroom neat and organized. As I stated in my previous post I accidentally deleted my before pictures so I only have my big reveal pictures only. Sorry about that but lets get to it. 

I have a large bathroom but not large in storage. Our linen closet consists of some wire shelving in our closet and is something I want to work on in the future. So I have to work with what I got which is my vanity drawer, 3 drawer on the cabinet and the other half of the cabinet is open. Function was the key element for me when planning where my things would have a home. I need to have any item required to get beautiful at my finger tips. 

The first thing I do in any organizing project is empty everything out, see what I got and what I can get rid of. I then prioritize items based on needs. I find storage for like items, that serve a purpose, and are functional. 

I LOVE color so when I found this super cute liner I knew it was going in my drawers (Hubby was not interested in having his drawers lined in it - gee I wonder why?).

Now I didn't want to cover up that pretty paper so I found some clear drawer organizers and put my everyday items that I use in them.

Next I lined, and organized the 3 drawers in my cabinet. The first drawer houses my make up and contact, oh and my iphone charger (hehe!)

The second drawer holds my teeth items and some extra supplies like my razor refills, extra toothbrushes and toothpaste.

The last drawer is more of a storage drawer. I do not like lots of items on my counters so I tuck my tissues, travel make-up bags and a few smaller daily items I use.

Under my sink on the other half of the cabinet I have used bins to help me stay organized. A drawer organizer holds all my medicines and vitamins. A bin holds hair product, mouth wash, and contact solution. I thought about lining the bottom of this too but couldn't decide.....I may go back and do it :)

I maximized my height in the cabinet by using stacking bins. Most areas under the sink are hard to maximize the space because of those lovely pipes, but they have to be there so just try to find storage that will adapt to your space limits.

I love to label so as you can see the top bin holds extra hair items like rubber bands, clips, barrets, and headbands. The second bin holds all my smaller/travel size items for when we travel. The last bin holds all items required to paint up and take care of my nails! 

Bins ~ I love them. In my supply bin I keep all larger items that will not fit in my drawers. Keeping items I use on a daily basis close to the front and less frequent items or replacement items towards the back.

Many of these items I used to organized I had already and most came from dollar stores.

Organizing The Master Bathroom

I need to get organized! I am going to start with my Master Bathroom.

I wanted to post my bathroom before pictures but I had a whoops....I accidentally deleted my pictures. Boo! So I thought I would share some inspirational ideas I saw on Pinterest.

I love the pull out drawers on this one!

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Trays are my favorite. They help to keep items where they belong in drawers that open all the time!

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I love lining the drawers with colorful paper!

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I love labels, therefore I love labeled bathrooms!!

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For those of you that share a bathroom I loved this idea.

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And one more, remember to get creative and use what you have in your house. I loved this bucket idea

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Now it's time to take some of this inspiration and get started on my Master Bathroom!

Free To Do List

I'm working on getting organized. I always have a to do list! I have to look at it constantly to see what is next on the list so I thought why not make it pretty! 

What do you think? With summer right around the corner I thought the ladybugs were perfect for my summer to do list. Today I am sharing this with you. Please remember this is for personal use only. 

Go here to download it!

Happy Organizing!

See Jane Work

The FedEx man came today!!! I love it when I get goodies at my door. I have fallen in love with the See Jane Work line. They are a wonderful product line and are going to help me keep things organize! I can't wait to play with these goodies and incorporate them into my life to keep me organized in a stylish way! This line is the Herringbone Line. I currently have two other lines from See Jane Work. 

This is the Linen Line. I love this line as it is a more sophisticated rich line. The bins and photo box are my favorite!

This line is the assorted dots and stripes line. I love that it is black and white. It will work so awesome in my office!

The concept I love the most about the See Jane Work lines is you can mix and match them

They are all compatible with each other and the same size and height. The best part about my See Jane Work items is I got them all for FREE!!! Check back soon to see how I used my awesome goodies to help organize my life!

All of these products and other See Jane Work lines can be found at Office Depot or See Jane Work

Happy Organizing!

Household Binder

I live by binders! I have a binder for everything! I was introduced to the system of a home management binder (I call it our household binder) about 3 years ago. I have been using this system but tweaking it from time to time to fit my needs. Recently, with us moving, I stopped using my binder. Life was crazy with the move,and we were so off schedule. Now that we are settled in our new home and life is returning to more of a schedule/routine life I knew I needed to get back on track with my household binder. 

Supplies: 

1 inch binder

forms (links below)

cardstock

pocket folder

tab inserts

computer/printer

colorful markers

label maker

My previous binders contained many forms made by me and some I found on the internet. With Pinterest there are oodles of forms out there. I found Jamie from DIY Home Sweet Home on Pinterest and she has amazing forms. I just loved the bright colors (and those of you who know me, know I love color). I used a majority of her forms and with some help from Photoshop I customized them for my family needs. 

My binder tabs are as follows: calendar, to do, menu, cleaning, thoughts, projects, kids school, my school, dates, and tabs for each family member. 

The calendar I found at Anders Ruff (love their goodies). Here is were I keep track of important events for our family. I love color so every family member has a color - I am pink, kids are orange and blue, hubby is green and I use purple for our family events. 

Next is my to do list section. I have used a daily to do list but found myself transferring tasks to the next day over and over again when I could not get to them. I have been using an on-going to do list that I just keep adding to for awhile now, and that is what works for me.

On Sunday evening I sit down and plan. This is an important step to a household binder. You have to plan! I plan our menu, write down my to do list, review my project list, update my calendar, jot down ideas and more every Sunday night.

Next tab is my menu. This is a new tab for me. In my previous post on my wall unit that organizes my paper work, I hung my menu for the week. I've been using laminated weekly menus that I made. I decided to switch and keep my menu in my household binder. The reason for this is when I would sit down to plan on Sunday I was grabbing too many things to plan. Now I just need to grab my household binder and recipe binder. Also I have only one place to go for everything I need....my household binder!

Menu tab is next. I use several different forms one is from Jamie (link above) the others are from Ginny over at Organizing Homelife. I used to just plan our dinners but my eating habits really need to change. I skip or just have a granola bar for breakfast, turkey sandwich for lunch, and a few snacks here and there. My dinners are usually healthy but the rest of my day is not. I believe my dinners are healthy because I plan them. So Jamie had a menu planner that includes breakfast, lunch and dinner. I also grabbed Ginny's forms so I can jot down our favorite recipes, recipes for entertaining, and recipes I would like to try. When I am planning I can easily browse these 3 forms and jot them into the weekly menu instead of searching through my recipe binder for that "OMG that recipe was so good I just have to make that when our friends come over this weekend!"

The cleaning tab is next! Love this form as it is broke down by daily, days of the week, monthly, quarterly and annually sections. Nicer weather is right around the corner so I hate to waste a whole day cleaning so I break my cleaning up into just a few small tasks a day. For example on Mondays I wash the darks, and dust the whole house. Tuesdays I wash the lights/whites, vacuum the first floor and clean the powder bathroom. Wednesday I wash cleaning towels, vacuum the basement and clean the basement bathroom.....and so on. By Saturday everything in the house has been cleaned. The tasks are minimal in time so I get them done in the morning and I am outside with the kids by the afternoon. This also helps the kids as they know on  Tuesday night they have to clean up all their toys because Mommy has to vacuum the next day. My kids love to build trains but they take over the floor so this helps them to breakdown their sets. My house is also for the most part company ready (I may just have to do a quick wipe down of bathrooms - I have boys!). The biggest benefit is I am happy when my house is neat and clean! What's that saying...."Happy wife, happy life." 

When I saw this form in Jamie's group my heart screamed. I constantly have thoughts and ideas running through my head. So many times I thought..."what was that idea I thought of, what was that website, what did I run out of?" I now have a spot to jot down these random thoughts down. I used to jot them down on a post it, notebook, dry erase board and just ended up with lots of thoughts on lots of types of paper and all were unorganized. I titled this tab in my binder "thoughts" :)

Next is my project tab. I added this form as we have just moved into a new house and there is a lot to be done. After the house to do list I have project that I am working on - organizing project, pictures of projects I want to do, information on projects, kids projects to do in the summer and more. 

After the project tab I have a school tab where I keep all the kids important school information, calendars, field trip forms, hot lunch menus, registration info,and more. Right now I keep both elementary school and preschool info in one tab as my youngest will be in the same elementary school in the

 fall so I did not want to make two separate tabs.

Then I have a tab for my school (I am currently getting my Bachelors) where I keep all my important paper work on my grades, scholarships I have applied for, loan paperwork, and any other school paperwork 

that I need to keep track of. 

Dates is the next tab. All my family and friends birthdays, and anniversaries go in here. I take a look at this at the end of every month to make sure I have cards made or on hand for the next month!

My last 4 tabs are for each family member. My tab have the above forms and I also keep anything the pertains to me only. In my husband's tab I keep his travel itinerary when he has to travel for work so I have it at my fingertips. In my kids I keep doctor info that I need from time to time, their sizes, and birthday plans for them, gift ideas and more.

I have some extra tabs in case I find I need to add a tab and I also keep a pocket folder at the back of my binder to stick paperwork in that needs to find a home in a tab when I sit down to plan on Sunday. I also printed several forms on cardstock. I am hard on this binder and I need some of my pages to stand up to the test of time. I print my calendar, to do list, cleaning list, project list, dates to remember, and my personal lists on cardstock. 

I hope you enjoyed a peek into my household binder! Head on over to the sights list above to grab their free printables. I would love to see your binders so leave me a comment with a link to yours! 

Happy Organizing!

Recipe Binder!!

Do you ever feel like you are making the same meals over and over again? I was in this funk. We have our family favorites, our quick meals, and our "oops I forgot to thaw the meat" meals. I have been reading some of my favorite blogs for meals, searching online and looking on Pinterest. I have found some great meals and have been trying several out, but my recipe binder was in desperate need of a make-over. Plus all the new recipes I was printing out were being thrown into the cabinet.

I knew the first thing I wanted to do was find some cute, colorful binders. I scored these at Target and also picked up some new tabbed dividers. I of course had to add some Washi tape to the tabs.

 

While I was in my favorite office store, Office Depot, I found these 4x6 photo page protectors. I knew these would be perfect to slip my recipes in. Also several sites I have been printing recipes from have the option to print the recipe in a 4 x 6 format. It also has a narrow pocket great for those recipes you cut out of a magazine.

I broke out my label maker and labeled all the tabs for my categories. My first binder is all my main meals for dinner organized by the main meat in the recipe. My second binder (that I still have to finish) will be all my

 sides, salads, and desserts.

I began the project by going through my recipes, throwing out the ones that we did not oooh and ahhh over, or the ones that I never made, that sounded good at the time, but now don't sound that great anymore. I also trimmed them down. The pictures are nice to look at and can even encourage me but I felt I really didn't need them and they took up space. For my larger recipes I placed them on one sheet of scrapbook paper and slipped them into a full sheet page protector. I like using page protectors because if I splash while cooking they are easy to wipe off. 

 

I also added color dots to some recipes. Green dots meant the recipe was yummy, red dots meant the recipe required marination (I can't tell you how many times I went to make a recipe only to find out the meat needed to marinate for x amount of hours....grrr!) blue dots meant it was a kid favorite meal (those are hard to come by in my family) and yellow dots meant the recipe was a slow cooker or a long cook time recipe.

I also color coded my each section to help easily identify them. Plus I did not want to see the back of the recipes I cut out of magazines. I needed it to be neat and pretty! 

I put a pocket folder in the front to keep the recipes I have printed out but not tried. Once I try them if we like them I will find a home for them in the binder.

I hope you picked up some helpful tips on how to organize your recipes! I would love to see what you came up with and how you organize yours!

Happy Organizing!

TV Cart - Thinking Outside The Box!

When we moved into our new home we made sure we got the new TV but did not have the new TV cart. We thought it would be easy to find a cart we liked as there was so many to choose from.....wrong!! We found we didn't like the color, the knobs, the storage, but most of all the height was an issue for us. You see when we moved in we of course couldn't have the TV on the floor and I came home to this temporary fix that my husband came up with.

Yep.....that's my sofa table! The last 4 months I have been looking at this mess of a set up, and it was almost enough to put me over the edge! Look at all those cords!! That was screaming at me to be organized!

The remotes were driving me crazy as well. They did not have a home and ended up all over the table, our sofa, or ottoman. Also we had no where to put DVD's so a basket was holding them to at least keep them tidy.

Since a sofa table is higher than most TV carts we got used to the TV being up high. Here is were our next problem came into play. None of the TV carts we even remotely liked were high enough. To give you a sense of the height here is a picture compared to our rocker/recliner.

One day while at Costco (we really need to stay out of that place) I cut down the aisle that had the bedroom furniture. I stopped dead in my tracks as a haze lit up around the perfect TV cart and angels started to sing....ok well maybe it didn't happen quite like that but I was giddy, that's for sure! The TV cart/TV dresser is made for the bedroom and is higher, I guess because you would be watching TV from your bed. I always have to step out of the norm and instantly could picture it in my family room. Who would have thought to look at bedroom sets to find a TV cart for your family room - thinking outside the box!

 

I love it!!! The storage for the media was perfect, I love the drawers, the height was a bit higher than we wanted but loved it after a day of watching TV, and the best part...............all those cords are now neat and out of sight!! The remote and DVD's now have a home in the drawers. Another project off my to-do list!

Happy Organizing!!!