Free Pattern: Hanging Shoe Organizer

Learn how to make a hanging shoe organizer with this free sewing pattern!  Hold all your kiddo's shoes with this fabric DIY shoe holder.

Birthday Binder - a simple effective way to keep track of birthdays

Need a simple way to keep track of birthdays and organize birthday cards? This birthday binder does the trick. Keep track of birth dates on the left, slide in the corresponding number of cards needed on the right. Easy and effective!

Easy DIY Earring Display

For a while now, earring storage has been a bit of a problem at our house. There's a shelf in the closet of the bathroom that has been taken over by random earrings. Matches aren't always possible to find. My girls have some darling earrings, but they never wear them because, well, it's too much work to find them.

I recently made myself an jewelry organizer. I had some left over screen, so I made them each a quick little earring display. Now they can see all their earrings at a glance to decide which ones they want to wear.

Organize Your Space in 5 Steps {and a tour of my creative space}

Do you have that one place in your house where things get dumped? When you don't know where to put something, it ends up there? We have two such places at our house. My bedroom and my craft room. I have been working hard to keep my bedroom free of clutter. But the craft room was out of control. I didn't even want to go in there to make anything, which defeats the whole purpose of the room.  It was time to take action.

I spent two long afternoons and went through the entire room. I got rid of a LOT of stuff, I organized what was left and I now have my space back. Today I'll share my tips on going through a large space and organizing it. Stick around, I'll give you a tour of my creative space too.

First, and most important! - I had to get myself in the right frame of mind. 

I am by nature a bit of a pack rat. I tend think in the back of my head "what if I'm going to need that?"  So I had to try to be more like my dad. He's not one to get attached to "things". If it's not useful to him, it's gone! And that's the attitude I tried to go for.

Second, I set myself up some rules as I was going through things.

Rule #1 - Do I see myself using the item in the near future?
Rule #2 - Do I have a specific project in mind for the item?
Rule #3 - Have I used it in the last year?
Rule #4 - Do I absolutely love it?

If I couldn't say yes, to any of my rules, then I had to let it go.

Third, as I was going through things, I sorted the items into one of 6 groups:

1 - trash
2 - items to donate
3 - items to recycle - paper or textiles
4 - items I don't necessarily want, but that the kids can use to make their "creations"
5 - items to finish, use or get rid of within 1 year
6 - items to keep

I grabbed trash bags, for the first three groups.

The items for the kids went into a pile, and then into a plastic drawer organizer once it was cleaned out.


I also had one tote. If there was an unfinished item, or something I haven't used in ages, but couldn't quite part with, then it went in the tote. I'm giving myself a 1 year deadline. If, by next January, I haven't used or finished the item - I have to get rid of it.

The items I kept were organized back into their spots, whether it was a basket, tote, box or shelf.

I went through the room systematically, starting at the door and working my way around the room.

The first thing I did was go through my sewing patterns. I have a lot of patterns that I've picked up when they are on sale for $1. As I went through, I tried to think objectively. I knew I wanted to keep the dress patterns - I love making little girl dresses and even the one's that are too small for my girls, could be used to make dresses for others. I had a lot of patterns for crafts too. However, I don't see myself or my kids ever using them. Into the donation bag they went.

Next up was the fabric. I had a ton of fabric. I mostly used the "Do I absolutely love this?" rule when sorting the fabric. I do like to have fabric to choose from when making projects and not having to run to the store. However, I had a lot of fabric, particularly flannel, that I just didn't think I'd ever use. I also had fabric that I didn't even like! Out it all went into the recycling bag. I consolidated my fabric totes from 3 to 2, with room to spare.

And so it went, as I sorted through scrapbook supplies, stamps, beads, paint, ribbon, crafting books, glitter, thread, and more. I even went through the closet. In the end, I hauled 11 trash bags out of that room! Two that were trash, and the others were either donated or recycled. I have one tote that I need to use this year, and one plastic drawer organizer for the kids to dig into when they want to create.

There's is so much more room! I've already been spent an afternoon down there working on my kids scrapbooks. I've got my space back!

Fourth, get those things to donate or recycle out of the house! 

Once I had gone through the room, I immediately through out the trash and the paper items that could be recycled into our household cans. By then it was dinner time and so I hauled the other bags up, but couldn't take them to be donated/recycled until the next day.
I'm not sure why, but I had this little niggly feeling in my head, that I might need something I had put in those donation bags. Until I had taken them to the donation center, I struggled with that. Is that weird? But as soon as it was gone, I haven't given a thought to it at all.  So my point is, I had to get rid of the junk before I lost that frame of mind I had put myself in.

Fifth, maintain your space.

I don't know about you, but after all the hard work of cleaning out a space, I don't want to do it again anytime soon. I've decided that I will:
1 - put things away in the correct place when I'm done using them
2 - be conscientious about what new craft items I purchase - am I going to use it right away? do I have a specific project in mind? or do I just like it?


So now, as promised, a little tour of my creative space.

 As much as the before picture disagrees, I really do like to have a place for everything. Starting from right to left, the first set of plastic drawers is the kids supplies. The totes stacked on each other are fabric, the picnic basket has my patterns in it, the basket on top of it has all different colors of burlap in it.  The smaller set of plastic drawers holds my yarn, scrapbook embellishments and random supplies. The jewelry boxes hold small brads and eyelets and other scrapbooking supplies.

 The corner desk was a $9 yard sale find. I painted it cream with an antique finish. The shelves on the right hold scrapbook paper and the shelves on the left hold my jewelry making supplies. The basket on the shelf holds glue and other random supplies.
The closet {not pictured} holds my kids pictures to be scrapbooked, ribbon, stamps, a couple spare sewing machines, a crib, a playpen, batting and a bag of the kids old sports t-shirts that I eventually want to make a quilt with. 

 This corner is my sewing table. It was a free find, that I painted. The frames on the wall were all yardsale finds that I painted white. The basket in the stool holds sewing supplies, and the drawer in the desk holds thread and other sewing essentials.


Now, I haven't mentioned this before, but my craft room doubles as a guest room. It's also where I store my Christmas trees. We also have that old tv in there and the kids hook up the old nintendo 64 on occasion. When guests come the Christmas trees and the smaller mattress are hauled out into the living room and the larger mattress is laid on the floor.

It's not very glamorous, I know. It's kind of like the redneck version of a murphy bed. But I try to be real and open, even if I can't display a room worthy of Pinterest.

I would really like to get a box spring and have a real bed in there. I'm fine with getting rid of the smaller mattress and the tv.

I just don't know where else I would keep the Christmas trees. I can't think of any other storage space that they could go! Do you have any clever places that you store your Christmas trees? Am I overlooking someplace obvious that I could put them?

This is the longest post I've written in a while. I hope you find something useful in your efforts to organize your home.

Lunch Box Organization

Now that school's been in for over a month, I was starting to get annoyed by the lunchboxes. They were always cluttering up my pantry space. They just take up so much room!  My pantry isn't always the super neat and tidy, but I do try to keep it somewhat organized. {See 3 Steps to an Organized Pantry} I've been trying to find a solution for a while and I finally figured it out.

It turned out to be a very simple and fairly inexpensive idea. I simply added Command hooks to the inside of the pantry door. Now each lunch box has a spot, plus I can now hang my aprons instead of wadding them up and shoving them in a corner somewhere. I even have an extra hook for something I may need to hang in the future.

I was a bit worried about the lunch boxes falling off as I swung the door open, but I've had these up for a couple weeks and not once has one fallen off. I got the larger hooks that hold up to 3 pounds. They're very secure and work perfectly with this application.

I love that the hooks are removable and won't ruin my door. I love that I can now grab whatever I want in the pantry without having to reach over or move lunchboxes.

How do you store your kids lunchboxes?

You may also like: 

Game Organization

Food Storage Organization

Birthday Binder - birthday card organization

3 Steps to an Organized Pantry

I don't think that organizing the pantry should cost money. I look at all the pretty pictures from pinterest and it's tempting to want to go out and buy coordinating jars and baskets. However pretty that may be, you can still have a well organized and functional pantry in three steps without spending a bunch of money.

Since I recently reorganized my pantry I thought I'd share my three steps to get an organized pantry. I try to go through it real quick once a month when I take my major grocery shopping trip, so it wasn't too horrible. But it had been a long time since I'd done a thorough job and a lot of items that don't really belong in the pantry have ended up there.

I used the following three steps for each shelf. It's a bit time consuming and so I did a few shelves one day, and the rest the next.

Step 1 - Remove everything from the shelf.

Take a look at the expiration dates and throw out anything that is expired. If it doesn't belong in the pantry, place it in a pile to be put away. I worked on half a shelf at a time, since the shelves are so large. I found a lot of extra room by just removing the items that don't belong in the pantry. I was pretty pleased with how few things had expired.

Step 2 - Wash the shelf. 

I grabbed a bucket of soapy water a rag and quickly washed down the shelf, then dried it.

Step 3 - Place everything back on the shelf with like items together. 

I keep all the canned goods on one shelf, the boxed items on another. Noodles are at one end {beyond the camera's viewpoint}, and baking items such as salt, baking powder, cocoa, vanilla etc. are all placed together. Small items can be corralled in containers. Ice cream buckets are great to reuse in the pantry. For other cheap containers check out your local dollar store or keep you eye open for them at yard sales.

 I've pretty much found the way I like things to be organized. But when you've removed everything and are putting it back, you can sometimes see a better way to utilize your space. For example, the whole floor of my pantry has 5 gallon buckets full of flour, wheat, rice, etc. There's also my wheat grinder and food dehydrator. Once everything was out and I'd cleaned the floor, I started putting things back in. I found a much better way to put everything back.

 Bonus Step - if desired label your containers. 

This can be as simple as marking your containers with a sharpie. Which I've done with a lot of them. But I was in the mood for something a little cuter. So I got out the vinyl and cut out some labels. I used the Champagne and Limousines Font. You can download it for free.

I have all different shapes and sizes of containers that I've collected over the years.  The coordinating labels help bring them together.  I also have some containers that I opted not to label, either because I forgot about them when I was making the labels, or because the container is not for a particular item, but is used as needed. Like when I get goldfish for a snack one time, but the next time I get pretzels.

Is your pantry in need of some organization?

Food Storage Organization and No More Link Parties

I just haven't been feeling the link party lately - actually for a few months. It seems like at the last minute I'm scrambling to get features and get the party up and running. Since for me, blogging is about sharing what I love to do, I'm going to end the link party. I hope you all understand.

You may have noticed that I wasn't around last week. I spent the beginning of the week organizing all of our food storage. Then I got busy making more menu boards for the etsy shop. I've added some new colors. And I also have a new option to create a custom order. Go check it out. Also the kids were out of school for fall break, so I took a little break from the blog too.

So today I'll be sharing my food storage organization. I've been canning the last few months and have just been stacking it down in the basement. Our local grocery store had it's caselot sale. So I grabbed some more canned goods and I needed to get it all organized again.

Here's a look at what I started with:

After a few hours of organizing, I got it all in the closet.

I even got a great idea and labeled it all with the contents and the year. I found some tag stickers in my scrapbook stuff and I tried out a dry erase marker on them. It worked great! Now each year when I can, I can just erase the tag and write the new contents on the box.

Don't you just love this duct taped box? When you buy jars now, you don't get a good box with them, so I've got to make the ones I have last :)

I even labeled the store bought canned food even though I won't be keeping those boxes. Sometimes when I send the kids down to look they can't find things. I'm hoping this will help.

There is such a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment to have your food storage. Most of the canned food we will eat through out the year. Sometimes it may last two years. But there's not usually any waste.

Our freezer is also fully stocked. My husband got an elk this year, which we had ground into burger. We also ordered a pig from our local slaughter house. So we have plenty of pork chops, roasts, bacon and sausage and burger. I love not having to buy meat at the grocery store. It saves so much money in the long run.

Do you store food storage? What tips do you have on organizing it, rotating it, or getting good deals?

Linking up at Lady Behind the Curtain,  Tidy Mom,  Or so she says..., Homemade Ginger, 
Huckleberry Love,  All Things With Purpose, Clean & Scentsible, and at these parties