{I Heart Organizing} Feature!

My newly organized gift wrap supplies post was a featured reader space on {I Heart Organizing} today! Check it out!

Getting Organized: Hair Pretties

As soon as I knew I was having a girl, the influx of hair pretties began. I made a bunch, bought a bunch, was given a bunch. They started taking over her dresser drawer. I had them all piled together in a big heap. They were everywhere. Except on her head, because even at 21 months old, she will only wear them for 5 seconds before she pulls them off to play with them. But one day, hopefully soon, she will wear them and I'd like to be able to see what we've got. I asked my older sister who has a daughter how she stores hair pretties and she said to buy a hanging jewelry organizer. So, that's what I did. I went to Target and found this one for $8 in the closet organization section. It has 2 sides, one side is already full. The little pockets are not see-through, but opaque enough that I can see what is in them. And the best part is that I can hang it in her closet right next to her clothes and one day when she will wear them, I can see immmediately what matches. Super easy, cheap organization, yay!

Getting Organized: Gift Wrap

This year around Christmas, I realized how poorly organized my gift wrapping supplies were and how I had way too many gift bags, some of which were not in great, reusable shape. And since I've been on an organizational binge due to our upcoming move and my discovery of this website: i heart organizing, I decided it was time to do something. I was inspired by this picture on pinterest and even found the organizer pictured on Amazon. I considered that organizer but wanted something that would take full advantage of the entire back of the door on our storage area under the stairs. I have always heard wonderful things about the Elfa collection at the Container Store and they just happened to be on sale, yippee!

Here is how my wrapping stuff looked before. Shoved under the bed in Emily's room or in her closet, not ideal locations now that she is getting bigger and needing more of her bedroom space for herself and her stuff. Plus that dumb wrapping paper roll holder is too short for many of my rolls and so the lid would just sit akwardly on top. The under-the-bed storage container was all wonky from our last move and the lid wouldn't fit right, plus it was overflowing with way too many bags.
I decided I needed to purge, purge, and purge some more until I could fit all of my supplies on this over-the-door elfa rack. This rack worked perfectly for us since we are a military family and we move alot, we need something that does not get drilled into walls/doors and can go with us when we move. This organizer would also be great for a pantry or bathroom or laundry room or garage, so we will always be able to use it for something. Or at least that is how I justified the cost because Elfa is not cheap, even on sale.
Here is what I needed to purchase to create this storage:
77-3/4in Mounted Standard
Set of Two Residential Overdoor Hooks
3 Deep Baskets
1 Shallow Basket
1 Media Rack

Here is a link to all of the overdoor Elfa components

A deep basket holds about 15 paper rolls (with room for more) and the media rack holds them in place
A shallow basket on top fits all of my curling ribbons

Another deep basket holds my gift tags and stickers, a handful of gift boxes, wrapping tissue, and some more ribbon

And yet another deep basket holds all the gift bags I kept. I purged and tossed anything ripped, torn, old looking or just plain ugly. I made sure to keep a handful in each category: holiday, baby, wedding, birthdays, etc. I probably still have 40 or so bags and they all fit in this rack.

So, now all my gift wrap is in one convenient space on a door that was doing nothing to help me organize before. It kinda just stood there doing nothing. But Elfa and I put this door to work and we didn't even need to drill one hole! The whole set up of the rack took literally 3 minutes and sorting and organizing took about an hour total.

I {Heart} Organizing!

Wowwy, wowwy, you thought the post about making your own detergents was exciting, you haven't seen anything yet! Here is my super-duper exciting post about organization! Aren't you lucky? I bet you've just been sitting there wondering when I was gonna post about how I reorganized some stuff in my house! Today is your lucky day my friends!!

Okay, seriously, I've been thinking for a good year now that I need to better organize our art/crafts/games/playdough/drawing stuff, closer to our kitchen table where I might be able to convince the boy who says "coloring is boring" to actually create something for me every now and then. Before the reorg, our supplies were a huge messy pile in the playroom closet. Two things spurred my recent decision to finally get it done. 1) Emily has figured out how to open the playroom closet door (ugh!) and pull stuff out (ugh!) and on top of herself (agh!) so something needed to be done. 2) I found this a.maz.ing organizing blog, i heart organizing, with all kinds of crazy good organization ideas. Check out the blog, it's awesome!

I knew where I wanted to store our crafty stuff, in the buffet my Grandpa made (see above pic). My Grandpa recently joined Grandma in the nursing home. They share a room, which is totally adorable! Sadly, the house they have lived in since 1950 is now sitting empty and the kids have the huge task of emptying it out for the next step, which hasn't been decided yet. Lots of things in the house had already been promised to or picked by other lucky family members. I told my parents that I didn't care what I got but I wanted to have something, even if it was tiny, for sentimental reasons. I got lucky when my mom told me the buffet that my Grandpa made was still sitting in their dining room, uncalled for! DIBS! My favorite thing about it is that he made it. I guess I have a thing for homemade and DIY!

Anyways, we brought it home from CA a few months ago and I filled it with extra cereal boxes and coffee and made a little coffee station on top. All our mugs, coffee k-cups, and splenda organized in one place!

Here is the before pic, just some extra food stuff that could be moved elsewhere. I knew this cabinet would be the perfect place for storing our "boring" kids craft stuff!

Yikes, the crazy messy craft closet before the reorg!

And finally the before/after of my Grandpa's buffet. All the "boring" crafty stuff and games organized! The black bins hold all our paints and glue, flashcards, and Brian's finished art work. I purchased them at Target for $3 (small) and $5 (large).

The drawers are perfect for his coloring books and stickers and workbooks.

I got these caddies on clearance at the end of last summer at Target and they are perfect for holding each child's coloring supplies.

And I didn't stop there, I had to find a place for all the cereal and coffee so I reorganized most of the kitchen, cleared out stuff we don't use and made what we do use, easier to find.

I made each kid a school memories bin, found the bins on sale at Target for $5 each. I was inspired by this post.

I consider myself a pretty organized person, but I'd been putting off my organizing projects because I always find something more fun to do. Until I came across I heart organizing and got tons of ideas and inspiration. We will be moving in less than a year and the thought of packing out again has me on an organizational binge!! I wanted to share this on our blog because I was thinking it might inspire some of you guys to get organized yourself and I love it when other people share their favorite things! My new favorite thing: i heart organizing!