My favorite pasttime: Organizing

I have already written an organizing post not long after I first started writing this blog, but I felt like doing another one!

Why? Mainly because I love to organize, and I think I am good at it, and I suppose on some level I am hoping that someone else might say, "Wow, Rachel!  You are such a good organizer" and that would make me feel good!

So I am going to try and only post new organization tips/tricks.  You can look up my old ones in that earlier post.  My brother was telling me that you can put a link to your old posts.  I am not sure how to do that, but I can tell you that the old post was in 2009.

Before I start, I should let you know that as I was walking around my house taking pictures, I thought "If I were a serious blogger (you know, that kind that is monetized and everything), I would have super great lighting, and terrific angled shots, and most importantly, everything would be really clean."  However, I don't have a super fancy blog, and so you get pictures of my house as it usually is - in various stages of disorder/mess.

This is a shot of the cabinets about the kitchen desk.  If you have read my earlier organizing post, you know that one of my all-time favorite organizing tools is the magazine file.  I get mine at IKEA for less than $1 each.  That is right, you can get a 5-pack of white cardboard magazine files for less than $5.  I use them everywhere in my house.  I like to put a removable sticker on it as the label.  That way if I want to re-purpose the magazine file, it is easy to re-label it.

I was just telling Antonio that I am getting excited already about the August back-to-school sales at all the Office Supply Stores.  Every week they have 1-cent deals.  I will go to the store multiple times a week to get the maximum allowed quantities.  I'll ask Antonio to go as well, and sometimes even my mom to go for me!  I use those paper portfolios for TONS of things.  In each of the family member's boxes are those paper folders assigned to different topics.  Here is an example list of the kinds of categories I have in each of those files:

• Quinton  - 
• Rock Springs Elementary - I keep all of his report cards, important school information, etc that he brings home during the year.  At the end of the school year this gets transferred into his keepsake box
• A coloring book
• Cub Scouts
• Church talks
• Roman -
• MRI history
• General Medical History
• Special Education documents
• A coloring book
• Pre-school
• Domenic - 
• Medical information (height/weight percentages,etc)
• A coloring Book
• Preschool
• Rachel -
• Folder with information for the Babysitter
• Whatever my latest project is
• Cub Scout Leader stuff
• Antonio -
• I don't organize his file - he puts whatever he wants in it and I don't touch it.
• Home Maintenance
• Folder of the lawn-care paperwork
• Notebook of home maintenance
• Directories
• Folder of Restaurant Menus
• Church directories
• Neighborhood directories
• Classroom directories
• List of Metro-Atlanta activities

Well, I think you get the idea! I have more permanent filing systems downstairs in the basement.  But this is very effective for organizing the loads of paper that the children and I get every day.  This way I really only have to transfer to the filing boxes downstairs once a year or so.

Here we can see more uses for the magazine files.  You may recall that I used to have the bottom two shelve in the library dedicated to these magazine files to hold all my old magazines.  I couldn't bring myself to get rid of them because they had so many great ideas in them, but the reality was that I was never going back to look at them. 

Then, I had a brainstorm.  The way that I operate, I think in terms of holidays or themes.  For example, I think of decorating the house or craft projects in terms of what holiday is coming up.  It was a major project, but I went through EVERY ONE of 10 years (sometimes more) worth of issues of magazines and tore out the pages I was interested in.  I then put them in my penny folders by category.  Then those categorized folders go in a magazine file.  When Quinton is bored and wants a project, he knows to go to the kid's craft file and pull out a folder for ideas.

 I decided to put the kid-related files next to the kids' books to keep like things with like.

I also use these magazine files to organize all my piano music.  This is on the shelf right by where I sit as I teach piano.

I am the type to snap things up when they are really cheap, even if I am not exactly sure at the moment what I am going to do with it.  That was the case with these over-sized clothing pins. I just thought they were really cool, and they were 60% off at the $1 spot at Michaels, so I got each one for 40 cents. I bought these 4 and they stayed in my basement for over a year until I had this idea.  This is the pantry door right next to the garage door where I leave to get into the car.  I used double-sided foam tape (bought from ULINE) to attach them to the door.  I use them to put papers that I need to immediately deal with.  I am very careful to only put things that I will be delivering right away (tuition checks, camp registrations, etc) so that I don't "stop seeing" them.  If I get used to seeing papers around, after a while I don't notice them anymore, so I didn't want that to happen here. 



I LOVE cookbooks, and I have a huge collection (If you are into cookbooks, it is really worth it to join a cookbook club like "The Good Cook"  I have purchased most of these books for $8 or less (including shipping))  But back to my point, in addition to all these cookbooks, I am always finding recipes in magazines that I want to keep. I used to have a very time-consuming procedure for recipes.  I would cut them to fit on a 3x5 card and then index them by topic.   Each card was numbered.  For example, a recipe for Broccoli Cheese soup might be numbered 412.  I would then find the index card for Broccoli, write the name of the recipe with the number 412.  I would also write it on the card for Cheese and soup.  That way I could look up any of these three topics and find the recipe card.  This system if fantastic for finding things.  However, it has a couple of major drawbacks:  it is extremely time consuming to do, it is difficult to get some recipes on a 3x5 card, and most of the time the picture wouldn't fit.

My new strategy is much simpler.  Now that I am caught up on my old magazine organization, as soon as I get the most recent issue of a magazine, I go through the last month's issue and tear out any recipes, crafts, etc. that I want and then recycle the magazine.  As I collect recipes, I put them in a magazine file (of course!) to await being sorted.  I then have binders by type for each recipe.  I simply put the recipe in a sheet protector in the appropriate binder.  this way I am preserve the pictures, I have them organized by type, and it is so much faster.  However, it is not nearly as easy to find a particular recipe since I don't have them indexed.  I am willing to put up with that for the time savings!

Here is a close-up of one of the binders.  You might not have noticed it in the photo above because I try to make it blend in with my other cookbooks for a more seamless look.

Several years ago I built these shelves for the #10 cans that I LOVE for storing all the bulk food I buy.  I say that "I" built it, but I was actually working on it on a Sunday afternoon (without a lot of success, I might add) when my parents stopped by unexpectedly.  Needless to say, my dad helped me finish them!

 


Another tool that I have been using a lot lately is the over-the-door hook.  On that very pantry door I have a hook that I use for all my purses.  (And the fly swatter!)
 

 I use a hook for all my aprons on the basement door:



And I use a hook on my closet door for my pajamas/robes:





Speaking about door-storage, it has always been a struggle on storing jewelry.  I know that there are a zillion different cute and clever ways to store jewelry that you can find on-line, but they were never BIG enough for me!  I don't know about you, but I have all my old cheap jewelry from when I was a little girl in addition to all the jewelry I have collected since then!  For the real stuff (the kind of jewelry that Antonio buys me) I store it separately in a jewelry box, but the stuff the I wear on a daily basis, (AKA costume jewelry), I just didn't have a good way to display it all.  I keep EVERYTHING that I think I might possibly have a use for.  Here is an example of a use for some extra wire shelving that came grouped with a wire cart that was from Goodwill.  I had no idea what it was for, but I saved it.  I attached it to the wall and it turns out is perfect for hanging all my earrings (non-post) and bracelets on.  This is behind my closet door (the one that has my robes on it).


 


But what about all the necklaces?  They are often very bulky.  They have those really neat wood and felt lined jewelry organizers that fit in your drawers, but how wants to pay $15 each?  I just got box lids and then made origami boxes to fit inside to organize my necklaces.

 

 I have them stacked, so here is shot of the top layer taken removed.




I had also shown my second favorite organizing tool -the ULINE cardboard bin -in my previous post, but I thought I would show a few additions to them.



I still LOVE these bins, but for things like my cosmetics, it was a little messy, so I checked out my supply of containers that I save, and found that the plastic icing containers are a very convenient size.  I use them to organize within the bins to help me find things more easily.  For example, now my cosmetics are organized by lips, eyes, foundations, etc.  The dental box is organized by toothbrushes, floss, sonic brush heads, etc..

If we head down to my craft room, you can see that I am continuing with the swiffer boxes and baby wipes containers. 

 

I have a closeup of the magazine files where I have all of my holiday themed folders as well as craft ideas


 


Generally speaking, I try to coordinate the color of the folder to the holiday.  For example, Halloween is orange, Thanksgiving is yellow, Easter is purple, Valentine's day is red, etc...  That way I can easily pull out the right folder with out needing to check the front label.


I thought I would include this picture since it is another example of using what I have around.  This wood frame thing is actually the crib drawer from the boys' crib.  When we took the crib apart, the drawer was broken, but I didn't want to throw it away because I figured I might find a use for it one day.  I found that use when I wanted a really narrow shelf for behind my sewing machine.  I spray painted a ton of coffee mugs black (I don't know about you, but we had a ton of coffee mugs from different companies that were sales propaganda) and then put labels on them for my most commonly used tools.  I then put nails to hang my other frequently-used tools (tape, scissors, etc).  I was really pleased with it! 

And finally, these are the shelves that I store all of the stuff I get for a penny!  Antonio is the master at getting stuff for free from Staple with their rebates, so I just store it away here until I come up with a great use for it later!