Organizing Stamps

I have quite the collection of acrylic stamps.  

They are great because you don't have the chunky wooden

 backs to store.  You only need an acrylic block to stick

 them too and your ready to stamp.  

Then when your done just clean them and put them away.  

Now putting them away became a challenge for me. 

 I stuffed them in little bags and had to dig through them to find the one I wanted to use.  So I decided to follow my DIL's idea to store them in baseball card page protectors.

 You can find them at Target or Walmart.  I think I paid 5 bucks for these.  Not a bad investment for my sanity.

 Next I cut out little white cards, to fit in each of the places.  I choose white so you can read the stamps clearly. 

I was going to put a set of stamps on each side, but it was too bulky.  So I decided to just use one side.  

So much better!  Don't you agree.  Now I placed them in a binder that I can carry to crops and classes.  No more digging for the right stamp, woo hoo!

Organizing makes me happy!

 I hope you found this little tip helpful.

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a blessed day!

Craft Room Organization

 My desk has been bugging me for awhile now.  I use this desk for painting and smashing.  But as you can see I don't have a lot of room to do either. 

Let me introduce you to the solution.  It is called the Raskog, from IKEA.  I was going to use it for my smash stuff, but I decided to make it my art cart.  I can fit all my paints, markers, brushes... in this lovely cart!

I was able to clean off all my supplies and I have easy access to it all!

Now I have a large work space and I can spread out as much as I want.  I don't have to worry about knocking things over and making more of a mess.  I am glad I made the investment of this pretty little cart.

In celebration of my new work area, I created a winter canvas.  Our little part of Virginia is covered in snow.  So I though I would create a street scene.

Thanks for stopping by 
and 
have a blessed day.  

Organizing Friday

Not sure why this won't rotate?

Over at ORG Junkie Laura wrote about organizing your children's school papers and memorabilia.  I had a tub with each of the kids names on it.  I put all there school pics, writings, certificates and art project in it as they were made.  Then I took the things that would fit in an 8x10 binder and made a chronological book.  I gave each of my three kids a binder at the High School graduation.

I left all the rest of the "big" stuff in their baby box for them to have after I am no longer around. 

Congrats Brenda for winning the Clutter Rehab book. I put in the mail today. This is her organizing tip she shared.

"I have designated give away bags. Bag for my daughters outgrown clothes, bag that goes to my sister, my Mom etc. When the bag gets full it goes to them, and I get rid of clutter, and continue on my organization mission."

Organizing Friday Finale (For Me)

I was an active with 52 Weeks of Organizing in the beginning of this year.  But then we put our house up for sale and moved.  So I had to make our house “sellable” and then move all our stuff to the new house. 

In this process we were able to get rid of the things we don’t use anymore J  As we unpacked all the boxes we again put everything in its “home” and got rid things that didn’t fit into our new space. 

During the moving process I picked up Laura’s book. I am finished reading and implementing the 101 fabulous tips so I want to pass the book onto someone else.

But first I want to tell you my top 10 tips from the book.



 1. Less is More. My husband and I have realized “stuff” had taken over our lives. We want to live simply and not be defined by all of our things.



2. Give everything a designated place. Since we just moved it was easy to start fresh and give all our things a “home”


3. Never leave a room empty handed. I have made this a habit and find my house less cluttered.


4. Set up a beverage station. My husband is the coffee drinker and he has his coffee pot below a cabinet with all the necessities above. Great idea!


5. Start every week with a menu plan. I have a menu board for the month and my family picks out what they want to eat each week. See LINK Scroll down to the end of the post.


6. Toss your junk mail right away. We go through our mail right away and recycle all our junk mail and file the rest. No more piles to go through!


7. Streamline kitchen utensils. How many of those tools do you really use? Take them all out and put them in a box. Return them to your drawer as you use them. After a month get rid of what you don’t use. Yes, can keep the special occasion ones.


8. Organize while watching TV. While I don’t organize so much anymore I use the commercial time to clean. I can load a dishwasher, start laundry, fold laundry, dust, clean a toilet…. And still watch my show. I don’t feel like such a couch potato.


9. Have a house keeping mission statement. You will have to get the book to read Laura’s. I totally agree with what she says.


10. Invite company over for motivation. Nothing like a deadline.



Don’t you want to know the other 91 tips???? If you would like a chance at receiving my gently used Clutter Rehab book, you have to tell me an organizing tip you use in your house and give me your email. I will then put you all in a hat and pick the winner. Deadline: July 20th.

Of course I will continue to read Laura's Fridays post and read all the great tips! 

Thanks for stopping by.

Tupper WAR!

It is week #13 over at ORG JUNKIE

I took on a small but agonizing project this week, the dreaded plastic container cabinet. As you know I am a confessed stuffoholic. This area is no different. I just toss and stuff these little plastic container and lids in the cabinet. When it is time to put the leftovers in one of them I am digging and wasting precious time looking for matching pieces.

I use to keep every butter, cool whip, and meat….. container, because “that would make great storage for…..” I know other persons (to remain nameless) did/do this too. I have broken that habit for the most part.

So I took ALL the containers, lids, bowls, bottles, ice trays, cookie cutters (really?)  out of the cabinet.  I matched all the containers with lids.  I put the unmatched items and ones that I haven’t used in over a year into the recycle bin.  The cookie cutters back into its home. I sorted and stacked the bowls and containers.  Then I grabbed an unused basket for all the lids.

So there you have it.  It took about 20 minutes to complete this project.  I feel much lighter and I can find things much more easily.  Have a great weekend!

Organizing with a FRIEND!

It is week 12 over at

During my recent trip to NY, I helped my friend organize her collection of frames. She had been collecting them over a very long period of time. She would pick them up at garage sales and auctions. So when she saw this picture I posted last year. She had an idea to make a similar wall of photos.

The process went pretty smoothly. We sat down and cleaned all the glass and frames. Our noses were itchy from all the dust flying around the room. She picked out the pictures she wanted in each of the frames. We had to take a trip to Ace Hardware to get some hanging supplies. When we were done we had 41 framed pictures of her family.

We thought about how we were going to begin to put them up on the wall.  I said that we should begin with her favorite frame and put that in the middle of the wall and work out from there.  No measuring, planning….  Just try to keep the same type frame from being next to each other.  It took us about an hour to nail all the pictures to the wall.  O’ but the results was THIS:

We stood back and admired our handy work.   What an amazing wall!  All of her family history displayed on the wall.  Generations of pictures!  So COOL!  I am glad I was able to help Jule complete this organization project with her. 



Mini-makeover

It is week #10 over at

We did a mini makeover in the kid’s bathroom.   The kids really gave that room a beating over the years.  So it was time to clean it up and freshen up!  The first thing was to wash the wall and give it a couple of coats of paint.  Then my hubby laid down the sticky tile flooring.  I scraped off the old caulking and put on new caulking.  New rugs, towels, shower curtain and dollar store finds, were the finishing touches. 

Closet and Frames

It is week #9 over at:

Laura spoke about what is our “good enough” for our homes.  Go check out the rest of what she has to say about the subject.

1. Do you know what your “good enough” is? I have different levels of “good enough”. For the main floor I like it to be clutter free, clear surfaces, basically ready for visitors at any time. The kid’s rooms I have learned to close the door. But I do expect them to keep it sanitary (no food experiments, bathrooms clean…)

2. What did you organize this week? This week I cleaned our game closet. I more or less took out all the outgrown games. They are going to families that still have little kiddos. We still have a ton of puzzles, but I think when we are true empty nesters we will be doing them a lot more.


3. Are there areas you are struggling with in this challenge? N/A

We are trying to downsize so we can move to

 a smaller home someday.  So this week I hit the game closet. 

We are addicted to PUZZES!

I took out all the games that are no longer used. 

I plan to give these to families with younger children. 

Now it looks like this:

I kept a few toys incase a family with young kids stop by. 

So basically it left us with all our puzzles. 

We go in phases on how much we do them. 

I may widdle that collection down again before we move.

The next thing I finished this week is

doing something with these.

I spray painted them all black. 

I ordered some of my favorite flower pictures. 

( I love taking pictures of flowers!) 

I found some cheap mats and made some of my own. 

I needed some glass too. 

So I went to ACE Hardware and they

cut me some pieces for real cheap!

  I put them into our guest room. 

I think they look great.

Stuff Stuff Stuff...

It is week #7 over at:

I have been busy with work so I only had time to organize my junk drawer.

I may not have a lot of stuff but I am a stuffer!  I hate to see things on the counters, tables, chairs…. So I stuff things!  My new goal is to put stuff back to where it belongs,  Ha! I will let you know how that works out.

So after paring down the tools and office supplies

and putting things back to where they belong, we have THIS!

Not too shabby!

So the questions to ponder this week are:  
 1.   Let’s talk stuff!  What have you tossed out this week?  I haven’t tossed too much out this week, just a broken flashlight.  My junk drawer was full of misplaced items.  So they all went back to the homes!
2.  Have you ever regretted something you’ve gotten rid of? I am not a big STUFF person so NO I really don’t miss anything I have gotten rid of. 
Why? N/A
3. How tempted are you to rush out and pick up pretty organizing containers first?  I have learned to go through my area I am organizing and THEN look around the house to see if I can use anything I already have to contain it.  If I don’t then I go to the dollar store (great place) to get the containers I need.  I am trying to make this organizing adventure cost as little as possible!

I will be away from my computer next week so

I wanted to leave you a little hint as to what I am working on. 

Do any of you have old frames?  I have a storage tub full of them. 

So I thought, do I love them? NO

Do I use them? NO

So will I throw them out or donate them? NO

Stay tuned to see what I am going to do with them.

Pantry

This is week #5 over at

This week I chose to organize my pantry

Twirly Thing!

PANTRY, YIKES! 

Man, I didn't know I had so much food!

First thing I did was take everything OUT of all my food storage shelves.

This still looks crowded but I placed

BAKING on top and BREAKFAST on the bottom. 

So at least I know what is on the shelves.

Each shelf has a purpose!  No more diggingfor stuff!

A couple questions to ponder:

1. Name ONE reason you want to get organized. It will be neat to see the variety of answers. I organize to make our lives function more easily.

2. What did you organize last week & were you happy with the way it turnout?

I organized my pantry and Now I can SEE what I have to use.

It makes for easy menu planning!

Then I sorted them into categories.  

After that I placed things back on the shelves according to the categories. 

 I then made cute tags to place on the shelves. 

So now it looks like this:

See the cute tags I doodled!

I gathered all my sprinkles in one basket!

I emptied boxes an filled this basket!

and my “twirly” cabinet. 

You know the one in the corner that you spin. 

 I have spun this thing

around and around looking for stuff I knew I bought but couldn’t find. 

So frustrating!