Don't ever lose your tweezers again

Here's a great tip I have incorporated in my bathroom: If you don't ever want to lose your tweezers in the bathroom junk drawer, take a magnet and stick it inside the medicine cabinet. You can stick the tweezers on the magnet. I've done the same with fingernail clippers.

Travel Tip

Here's a great tip which I have adopted. When traveling take along a pop up hamper. They fold flat and don't take up room in the suitcase, but will help keep the hotel room tidy and all the dirty clothes in one place.

Snip and snap containers

I bought this little set of magnetic containers on clearance several months ago for my sewing and office dittys. I thought it was kind of handy for small items like safety pins and buttons. You could do something similar with those handy little plastic baby food containers and some magnets on a metal board. It might not be as cute but it would be great in the garage for screws, nails, bolts, washers, etc. We have a metal tool bench so I wouldn't even need the metal board to hang them up.

School artwork displayed

My sister made this board for hanging up artwork or school work. She painted a MDF board black, applied the vinyl letters and used screws to attach the big clips. This way you don't have to have a million magnets on your refrigerator with artwork all over. You can also rotate the projects and as new ones come in the old ones can be thrown away or saved in a box.

Swap Meet

The other night at our church the ladies had a little swap meet. We all brought stuff we didn't use or need and then people could take home what they wanted. The rest went to the local donation center. I went through my craft things and found lots of useful things I wouldn't be using again or things I bought that just didn't work out (like 3 yds of nice fabric I bought for curtains but wasn't what I wanted when I got it home, 2 skeens of yarn that were barely used for a craft project, ).

I thought that was a fun idea in lieu of garage sales or just donating.

Wrapping Paper Cardboard Tubes and Boots

I should have posted this one right after Christmas. The fat long cardboard tubes from Christmas wrapping paper are great to save if you have tall leather boots. I have a pair of black boots and brown boots I love to wear in the winter with skirts and dresses. When I am not wearing them I put one cardboard tube in each boot, cut to size. Then the boots stay standing upright in the closet and the leather doesn't get creases in it. You can use other things like rolled up newspaper as another option if you don't have the cardboard.

House Rules

Here is my version of the House Rules poem. I kind of mixed a few versions together.

If you sleep on it...make it up.
If you wear it...hang it up.
If you drop it...pick it up.
If you eat out of it...wash it up.
If you step on it...wipe it up.
If you open it...close it.
If you empty it...fill it up.
If you fill it up...empty it.
If you spill it...wipe it up.
If you turn it on...turn it off.
If you make it dirty...wash it.
If you have garbage...trash it.
If it whines...feed it.
If it cries...love it.

2 Ideas for organizing kitchen drawers

Most all of us have at least one drawer in the kitchen that is packed with kitchen utensils. These get easily cluttered and messy. Many of the utensils aren't used very frequently.

Idea #1 is from Peter Walsh, expert organizer. He said to put all your kitchen utensils (spatulas, wire whips, etc.) in a box. Everytime you need one you get it out an then put it back in the drawer. After a month, if there are still some in the cardboard box you know you don't need them.

Idea #2: Leave only the utensils that you use almost daily in your drawer. Find a small box or basket and put the less frequently used tools on a separate shelf in a cupboard. I cleaned out my drawer yesterday. My box utensils include a meat tenderizer, pastry blender, lemon juicer, corn on the cob holders, turkey baster bulb, crab crackers, and some other odds and ends. I do use these items but not frequently. Now my drawer looks great and it will be easier to find things that I do use each day.

Uses for baby food containers

Kaitlyn is my 6 month old baby girl. She started eating solid foods a few weeks ago. I've made a small list of uses for used plastic baby food containers with snap on lids. They are the perfect size for storing many things.

Office supplies: tacks, paper clips, rubberbands
Crafts/Sewing supplies: safety pins, pins, buttons, beads
Garage: screws, nails
Miscellaneous: toothpicks, hair bands/clips, game pieces (i.e. dice), corn on the cob holders, snacks for the diaper bag

You get the idea. If you have a baby save a few containers for odds and ends and recycle the rest.

Keeping mail organized

Mail tend to pile up over the course of a week. The weekly ads, credit card offers, catalogues and other junk mail gets mixed in with bills and mail you actually like to receive.

Having a mail organizing system set up keeps the mail from taking over your counter or desktop. You won't lose bills and forget to pay them.

I have a simple system for organizing my mail. You can get an inexpensive caddy that will hopefully help you keep organized. If you don't have time to go through your mail each day then you first need an inbox. This is the mail that needs to be sorted. When you do have time, sort your mail into separate piles: junk mail, junk mail to be shredded, bills, catalogues/magazines to save, and misc. (other mail you want to file or keep). The junk mail can be immediately thrown away (preferrably in the recycle bin). I like to keep my shredder near my mail station. That way I can immediately shred credit card offers and other mail with personal information. Bills and other mail can be placed in the caddy into separate compartments. I keep one compartment for mail that needs to be filed away in my filing cabinet. I have a rule, when the compartment is full I go and file the paperwork. That way it never becomes overwhelming.

If you have a caddy with enough compartments you can also keep office supplies like scissors, paper clips, and scotch tape handy. I like to keep a calculator nearby as well.

Laundry Room Organizer

Sorry for the two week absence. I have a couple or relatively good excuses 1. 2 kids taking up all my time and 2. I lost my list of blog ideas (how's that for being organized).

Nicole (one of my sisters) suggested this item for laundry room organization. It is a $5 octopus with lots of clothes pin clips on it from Ikea. It is good for hanging up items to dry like pantyhose and bras. I always like to dry my dirty towels and dishrags before throwing them in the laundry hamper. That way they don't get stinky and grow mildew.

Clean out your closet!

I like to go through my closet about 4-5 times a year and get rid of things I don't wear anymore. I personally believe it is better to donate your unused items rather than hold onto something you may wear someday (which really means you will never wear it again). Donating clothing to Salvation Army, Goodwill, DI or other charities is a great way for many to reuse good items of clothing you no longer need or use. Another fun option I did as a teenager was have a clothing exchange with several friends. We all brought piles of clothing and could pick "new clothes" from our friends piles. Any clothing that wasn't picked was donated to Goodwill. This obviously works best if you have friends that wear the same size clothes as you.

The first thing to do when cleaning your closet is to pull out all the items that are torn, worn out, stained, etc. These almost always can be thrown away or donated. Limit yourself to 1 or 2 shirts for "painting" or "camping" and only 1 or 2 pants for "yard work" or "cleaning the bathrooms." You don't need more shirts or pants for these chores! You also probably can limit the number of exercise clothes you have. You don't need 20 t-shirts for exercising. Realistically, you may only need 5. The same goes with your exercise bottoms.

Click on the flow chart (above) for a list of questions to ask yourself when you are cleaning out the closet. If after going through this list and you still want to keep something after answering no to all the questions consider asking the following:

Why do I really want to keep this item of clothing?

1. Is it for sentimental reasons? Other than your wedding dress, we don't really need to keep pieces of clothing to remember some important event in life. I've never taken out an old pair of jeans from the closet and admired them like I would a photo album or scrapbook. If it means that much to you it should be out somewhere it can be admired instead of getting dusty in the back of the closet. For example, my neighbor's husband had a huge t-shirt collection which he didn't want to part with. She cut off all the old t-shirts logos or sayings and pieced them into a quilt. Another idea is to take a great photo of the piece of clothing and put the photo in a scrapbook along with a piece of the fabric. Be creative.

2. It may fit someday?! This is a tough one for a lot of us. It may take some tough love but think of the following: by the time I do lose (fill in the blank) pounds would this item still be in fashion? The answer is probably NOT. Buy clothing that you look good in and feel good wearing now. Buy clothing that fits your body well now and accentuates your positive features. Live in the present, not the past. (Thanks Stacy and Clinton, love you on What Not to Wear)

The only exception to the above would be maternity clothing. However, don't let this take up room in your closet. Put them away in a storage bin (only if you plan on having more children, if not give them away, duh!)

3. Other (i.e. someone may be able to use my disco pants for a Halloween costume) Why is it in your closet? If you really will use it for Halloween, put it in storage in a box labelled clearly Halloween.