happy day project- Organize Something!

The oomph for this organizational project came from the lovely Alicia of "La Famile" She started the "happy day project" where each wednesday she announces a new challenge to help make your day happy. This last weeks was to organize something.

Now, i wish i could say that the real challenge for me was finding an area in my home that needed some help in this department but the truth is, our whole, entire house is in need of organization.. Which is why, in fact, we are slowly working our way through Organized Simplicity. But....i was lagging in motivation until i remembered the happy day project! yay! i wanted to have a  happy day so i tackled this armoire in our living room.

i wish i would have taken a before but just think "stuffed to the brim...glassware precariously stacked on top of cake plates, baskets and candlesticks...trays, fake greens, tea cups. squished in between..." and you'll get a good mental picture.

Here's what the cabinet barfed out. ;)

2 hours later.....Ta- Da!

Yay! i can see to the back of the cabinet!

And here are some pics of what is leaving our house. mmm feeling lighter and happier already. ;) So, thanks Alicia for the great challenge! If you want to participate, she has a new Happy Day project for today! Look here :)

diaper box storage

 I've been busy trying to make and keep our school/craft/play room organized, functional and productive... the craft corner is turning out to be the biggest challenge of the room. My goal is to create more white space to make it feel less cluttered and one area that i tackled this week was above my sewing desk. The mismatched baskets full of fabric up on top of the shelf needed to go.  I grabbed 3 empty diaper boxes and did a little painting.

1) first i primed it to help cover the bright colors, then painted a couple coats of blue using some left-over paint samples from Ben's nursery.

 2) When the paint was dry i duck-taped the sides down

And that's it, nice, sturdy, free storage. :)

how to make "white space" happen

So, i'm sure you remember my chaotic "before" picture of this school room shelf? Well, as i mentioned earlier, i had previously tried to organize it by getting several plastic containers AND putting labels on them. Buuuuuut, it still looked messy and disorganized. THEN my friend mentioned the whole "white space" idea and i instantly knew that my clear plastic bins were the problem. However, i had just spent money on them and besides, sturdy, plastic, solid white containers are not to be had in my neck of the woods. I did found some online at IKEA and The Container Store, but those were inconvenient and more expensive than the walmart sterilite bins i already had.

So, what did i do with this clear plastic problem of mine??

Well,  I bought a couple cans of Krylon FUSION spray paint for plastic. It took about 2 coats, and i only did 3 sides on most of the containers to save on paint. But in the end, the fronts and sides were nice and opaque.

 Cool, right?!  i will admit that it can rub/chip off just a bit, but it gave me the white space that i needed and in a hurry and will do just fine until i decide to replace them. (IKEA did just move an hour away from me!!!)
Oh, and just fyi, the green crates are from Target this season. They were about $3.50 a piece.

There you have it, now you can make white space happen too. :-)


linking to

Shelves Organized!

Welllll, remember these lovely little peeks into the disastrous state of our "plool"room (this, btw, is handy andy's new name for the play/school room. isn't he clever..) Anyway, I'm very happy to show you a picture of some real progress. i have a feeling some of you might have been a bit concerned. Now, you can see for yourself that progress is being made. [at least on this side of the room] ;) 

Here is the before of our shelf area with some handy arrows highlighting the most obvious problems

BEFORE:

Now granted, this picture was taken at the worst of this shelf's disfunction. But even at its best, it still looked cluttered. Even after i put labels on every plastic bin (which i thought would surely solve the problem) it still looked cluttered and i couldn't exactly figure out why. 

Until....an old friend who also happens to be a professional organizer (how did i become friends with her?!) happened to mention the term "white space" to me.  Do you all know about this??

My bins were clear- which means even though all the stuff was organized and nicely contained AND had nice little labels, the shelves still looked cluttered because there wasn't any solid "white space". Well...that's about all i know about it, but just knowing this much has helped my naturally unorganized brain a TON. 

So. Here's.....the AFTER:

Yay for progress! Can't wait to show you the rest...

linking to life made lovely

Book Storage System

I'm here to share a little system that i {HOPE} will preserve my sanity and maybe yours too.
The kid books in the playroom have always been a source of irritation. No matter how many bins i put on the shelf to keep them standing up right, or how many times i tried to organize them into different categories etc, they ALWAYS ended up in a disorganized, half stacked, mostly stuffed-in-bins heap. Plus i could never find the right book at the right time. NOW, they all happily reside in color coded bins according to theme with matching labels on the spines. Here's how:

*Organize your books into as many categories as you want or have room for.
*Buy that # of clear plastic bins and sticky labels (1x3inch)
*Spray paint in the same # of colors.

 *Spray paint the labels. Some colors took a couple coats to get a good coverage

*Since some of my books were extremely thin i realized i could cut the page of labels into halves or smaller 

Here's one of my piles. These happens to be the non-fiction/science-related pile and since i had so many i went ahead and gave them two bins

*Wrap the label on the spine. i chose to wrap it close to the top so the kids would notice more easily.

*I might end up wrapping a small piece of clear shipping tape over the label to better secure it, but so far they seem to be sticking really well.

Ta-Da! Now, i can confidently say, "Go put the books away" and know that they should be able to do it neatly and quickly every time! Sanity restored! .....at least in this one area! :)

p.s. in case you are curious, here's the list of my bin categories:
orange: non-fiction/learning books
yellow: fiction: read-aloud/early reader type books
dark blue: poetry/rhyme books
light blue: board books
green: children's bible-related books


linking to A bowl full of lemons and SerenityYou