Ready for Sale

I know I'm not alone when I say I get a little overwhelmed when thinking about putting together a garage sale, yard sale, tag sale, whatever you want to call it. Lucky for me {and you} there are several blogs out there who have recently posted their secrets and tips for a successful sale.

So here you go, a short cut to some fantastic blogs with all the stuff we need to know about sales...

Brown Paper Packages has some good ideas & some little chicks selling juice.

House of Grace is SO unbelievably organized when it comes to a garage sale. Heck she appears to be organized when it comes to EVERYTHING.

I wish I could channel some of her energy. I also wish I could shop her garage sale.

All Things Thrifty has her own tips and some pretty eye catching sign ideas.

There ya go. A few great blogs with several even better tips. Now I need to get to work preparing for my own garage sale.

Blessings.

Put a Pin In It

Can you name that movie? Coming from me you have to know it's either from a children's movie or something in the romantic comedy genre. Tall Man on the other hand can quote every Jim Carey or equally as "bathroom humorous" movie. This post is not about quoting movies, so let me get back on track.

My refrigerator usually looks like this...

This drives a lot of people crazy, the visual clutter right there for all to see. It's never really bothered me because it was all stuff I wanted easily visible. Our family calendar, school schedules, meal plans and of course artwork by and pictures of my little chicks. Going with the whole spring cleaning theme I decided I really needed to tidy things up on our refrigerator. I have a cabinet right next to the fridge that holds all my teas, coffee filters, coffee grinder, you know all the essentials for a good morning. I thought this would be the perfect place for some corkboard to hang all our extra, but quite important papers.

This really was an easy and inexpensive project. It would have gone even faster had I gone to Target first, instead of Michael's. I picked up a roll of corkboard from Michael's with a 40% off coupon so I spent like $3.

I was so excited until I got home, unrolled the corkboard and as I tried to flatten it, it cracked right down the middle. Not what I was expecting. So I took the roll back to Michael's and they were fantastic! They took the corkboard back and refunded my money without any hassle at all. Very nice!

I took my Michael's refund and headed down the shopping center to Target where I found these.

Perfect! These cork tiles come in a 4 pack and are much thicker than the roll. They are much thicker and super easy to install. They even come with their own 3m mounting tape. The tiles are a little more expensive, I think I spent a whopping $7. Definitely not breaking the bank with this one. After Target I drove home as fast as I could, I was actually giddy about hanging these cork tiles. Seriously five minutes later I was done. Ta da!

The tiles weren't quite wide enough to cover the entire surface of the inside of the door so I just centered them. Two tiles did fit perfectly going vertical. Now our meal plan, swimming lesson reminders, snapshots from Chuck E Cheese and school schedules are pinned nicely inside the cupboard for no one to see! Now the side of our refrigerator looks like this.

(Insert satisfied sigh.)

I could have put our calendar inside as well but then what is the point of a personalized calendar if you're not showing it off? I am very happy with how this $7 project turned out, not to mention I still have two cork tiles left over. Not sure where those will be going yet. Any ideas?

Blessings.

Inspiration Binder

I don't know about you but to me getting organized is a wee bit overwhelming. Like you have to be organized to get organized. Do you know what I'm saying? It's that whole "You need to have money to make money" mentality. Lucky for you and me, there are literally hundreds of different organizing blog posts out there. There is hope for us yet!

I have my list of things, places and rooms that need some serious organization but I decided to start with something small. Well, it will be small when I'm done. Every month I receive four magazines. I get them as gifts every year and I love it!! I receive Better Homes & Gardens, Woman's Day, Family Circle and Parents magazines. And don't forget the occasional catalog; Pottery Barn, Ikea, Lowe's Creative Ideas... the list goes on. Each of these magazines and catalogs are great for their own reason but let's be real not everything is great in every one of these magazines and catalogs is great.

When a new magazine or catalog comes in the mail I get so excited. Maybe that's where my little chicks get it from. If you have little ones you know you can't always sit right down and devour each and every page all at one time. I started dog earring my favorite pages as I read. Then once every couple of months I'll go through every bathroom (we're being honest here) and basket to collect the recent issues. I end up with a pile like this on my dining room table.

Next, I flip right to the pages that have been folded down and cut them out. Then I separate the pictures and articles into categories. Bedrooms, Bathroom, kitchen, organization, cleaning outdoor, crafts, holidays, etc.. I have a three ring binder full of page protectors and little sticky note tabs. I haven't purchased the super cute 3M tabs because I have small post it's that work just fine. I just file my inspiration into the appropriate page protectors.

I always save the paint page in Better Homes & Gardens, you know the page.

I also make little notes on the pages. Otherwise I'll forget what the page inspired.

I love it. When there's a change in seasons or a fun holiday approaching I can pull my inspiration binder out and get some great ideas. Now I have this simple, clean binder instead of magazines spread out everywhere collecting dust. It's wonderful!

How do you keep your inspiration organized?

Blessings.

Linking to: House of Hepworths, Just A Girl, House of Grace

Organized Bathroom

I have a long list of places in my home that I feel need to be organized. The coat closet, pantry, linen closet, upstairs bathroom, office, etc.. We have something BIG happening at our house in about a month and I want to be cleaned up, organized and ready when it happens. I'm even organizing places that won't be effected in a month. But I'm okay with that.

I am a thinker, plotter, planner type of person. When I know something is going to happen I want to be ready for it. Like RIGHT NOW! I like for things to be in order. With lists and labels. Sometimes this is good, other times when I think things need to be done RIGHT NOW I get started on one thing, think of another that needs to be done and go there. So I have several random projects going all over the house all at the same time. On occasion I get all my projects done before the Tall Man comes home and he never knows what our home looked like. Other times he comes home in the middle of three or four random projects and probably thinks "What the crap?!?!"

Anyway, back to be getting organized. I am working slowly on my list. I have the junk drawer in my kitchen organized, you can see that here. My next project was upstairs in our master bathroom, under my sink. There was makeup and hair product all over the place. With just the right humidity I have what I call "an afro on a white girl" so I require some serious hair stuff. Heat resistant cream so I can blow dry, then straighten and then curl. Thank goodness guys probably don't read this because we'd be hearing another round of "What the crap?!?!" But you ladies know I'm not crazy when I say I have to straighten then curl my hair. Right???

So here is a look at what I was dealing with before.

I had some of these plastic bins around the house from the Dollar Tree. They've had various different jobs in my house and now get to corral my hair stuff and lotions.

I'm not a big makeup girl. I'm happy with mascara, blush and a little lip gloss. So I keep it all in this red bag. In the smaller red and white canvas bag I've hidden all my... ahem... feminine products. I think it looks better than a big ol' box labeled TAMPONS.

I got rid of all this stuff. I had so many lotions and potions I haven't used in years.

Which brings me to the big picture. SOOO much better!

Blessings.

Organized Junk

I realize it's been a few days but I did organize the junk drawer in my kitchen. It's amazing to me how this drawer always gets messy, messy to the point I can barely close the darn thing. There are usually scissors poking out wrong or one of our many Hannah Montana pencils sticking up in the way. I think I've shared that I love office supplies. Pens. Pencils. White out tape. Paper clips. Everything office supply-ee (yes that is a word...well, it is now.)

Between my love for these things and the fact that everyone gives away writing utensils, we have A LOT! Apparently we've been given or pocketed pens from the following places: Custom Truck Accessories (mind you, we don't own a truck,) Rio Hotel & Casino, The Mirage Las Vegas (Tall Man goes to Sin City every year for work, luckily he doesn't really gamble & is not a fan of the lifestyle there) Total Home in Ronan, Montana (not sure I've been there) and Maple Valley Dental (we don't live near Maple Valley.) Our pencils are mostly from our little chicks. We have Hannah Montana, Care Bears, Tinkerbell and a variety of Smencils (recycled pencils that smell like a variety of fruit.) We also have one special pencil that belongs to Tall Man, it's the World's Best Boss pencil, from The Office.

So are you ready to see the awful mess we had going? I can't believe I'm showing people this. Here you go.

Look at that mess!!

This is everything spread out on the counter that was in the drawer. Yikes!

And here we are all organized. I realize it is still a lot of stuff but it is organized. Pencils, pens and markers each have their own compartment. Scissors are not poking out crazy like. I have a little compartment for batteries, glue sticks and super glue, paper clips and one for glasses wipes and lip balm.

You can see there is nothing in the way of closing the drawer now,

even with all that stuff still in there.

I want to say I picked up this drawer organizer at Wal-Mart of Target a couple years ago. I like it because you can rearrange them the way you like. Every time I clean out this drawer I come up with a "newer, better" placement. Because they're white they do get a little dingy with pencil marks and such. Next time I think I'll give them a coat of spray paint to brighten them up. Not sure what color yet but I'll let you know.

Now I should move on to my next organization project. Under the bathroom sinks. Yikes!

Blessings.

Top 5 Tuesday: Organizing

I haven't decided if I'm late on spring cleaning 2010 or early for spring cleaning 2011 but I'm on a mission for my house to be clean and ORGANIZED! I don't know about you but we've had a very busy summer and when you're busy things don't always get put away. That's our house this summer.

So I did a little looking for different ideas on organizing your home. Here are five of my favorites.

This isn't very practical for my home but I love the old barn look of it.

Better Home's and Gardens

Step ladder night stand. I love it!!

Everything has it's place and it doesn't take up a lot of room.

Martha Stewart

Clear containers! If you've been checking out the recent pantry & kitchen updates, you'll know clear containers are everywhere right now!! They are sleek, stylish and practical. If only Ikea wasn't five hours away I'd be snagging some for my pantry.

Martha Stewart

Under the bathroom sink. I never thought of putting hooks on the inside of my bathroom cupboard doors. I think it's a brilliant idea to hold a blow dryer, curling iron or straightener.

Martha Stewart

House of Grace just organized her junk drawers. This happens to be on my to do list for today so I appreciate her inspiration.

House of Grace

Well I suppose now that I've picked a few favorites I should go ahead and get to work. Happy Tuesday!

Blessings.