The Great Purge of 2014

Since getting back from vacation, I've been trying to catch up on things around the house. The theme is mainly "PURGING". I've been going through things all year long but I've been in high gear lately.

First off, papers. Old receipts from 2010? Tossed. Credit card statements going back to 2004? Shredded. It's ridiculous!! I've made a dent but still have a way to go. 

It's freeing to just toss something. Crazy as it sounds, it makes me happy seeing the garbage can fill up. 

Purge purge PURGE!! 

I'm hoping to get it more under control so I won't have to dedicate so much time to it. Eventually take just one day a week to work on it. Baby steps. 

Might mix things up today and go through my closet too. I'm finding some clothes to be too loose on me (YAY) and refuse to hang onto them. The battle of the bulge has been going in the right direction and I'm a happy girl. 

The outcome of this might get my scrappy mojo moving again. I think the pressure of so much to do around here has the creative side blocked off. I have barely stepped foot in my scrap room this week. 

So the Great Purge of 2014 must continue! 

Memorial Day Weekend Organizing

We didn't do anything super exciting for Memorial Day weekend this year, unless you count organizing!

Which, for the record, I totally do. 

We started out reorganizing Marissa's room. She's been in need of a complete room makeover, suited more for her age, but we did it in steps.  Baby steps.  This weekend we purged, packed and tossed a lot!  The picture may not show the neatest room, but trust me, it's WAY better than it was.  Next step will be painting.  

We did have some fun, and managed to go see "Blended".  It was a great movie!  Romantic and funny--my kind of movie!

Gianna was ready for a new bike, now that she's had some practice on the old one.  She did so good and loves the freedom!

Then of course, we did more organizing.  The garage is like a dump around here!  We sorted, purged, and cleaned up.  There is no after picture, since we ran out of time and had to stop, but trust me, there has been major progress.  We can now fit the cars and still have room to move bikes around.  

So that was our weekend.  Nothing super exciting but it's all good.  We'll save the fun for Disney!

Re-Organizing The Scrap Room

Seems like organizing is one of my favorite things to do besides scrapping. Put them together and I'm a happy girl.

While going through a drawer looking for something, I realized I had embellies all over the place.  This just didn't make sense to me and I started moving, merging and purging things.  This was driving me crazy since once I had it started, I HAD to get it done.

These boxes had embellies, from the metal kinds to stickers...don't even start on the amount of embellies in the drawers!!  I decided to be ruthless and purged a lot of things that I'm too ashamed to admit I still had in my possession. 

Of course, I ran out of time and storage boxes.  I **needed** to go to Ikea.

****To Be Continued.......

More Purging!

Today, I was attempting to work on Project Life, when the dogs had a field day with these boxes under my scrap table.  Inside the big box are some purged scrap goodies I've been saving for a friend.

Of course, I couldn't concentrate on scrapping until I had cleaned up the mess.  I found a plastic storage container and transferred everything.  This put me in an organizing mood, and somehow I found myself purging more stuff.  I found these old decorative scissors and knowing I haven't used them in forever I decided to let them go.  I have about 4 that I'm keeping but they're more of a classic design.  

Even found these classic Heidi Swapp playing cards, that I love and can't let go.  I showed them to Marissa who is crazy about card tricks lately and she called dibs on them.  We'll see what it's worth to her!  LOL!

Not how I planned on spending my day, but in the end, I cleared stuff out and puppy-proofed under my workspace.  Makes me feel good!

January Means Purging

It seems that I go through a purging/reorganizing phase in January.  I organize constantly throughout the year, but January comes and it hits me hard.

Junk drawers are the worst.  Unfortunately, we have two in our kitchen.  One I've attempted to figure out but haven't finished it since it has mostly Joe's junk in it.  I don't know what to do with those things so I gave up. (Should've never given him that drawer years ago!  LOL!)

Lately on Instagram, I've been inspired by Becky Novacek with her 30 Bags in 30 Days purge.  She is a whirlwind!  I may not go full blast for 30 bags but I get moving.  Starting small, I hit the junk drawer that has gotten out of control lately.  I even remembered to take a before picture!

It may not look like much, and it's not really, but it's something.  It's a good start.  I tackled it while the puppies were outside playing and I could keep an eye on them from the kitchen.  Win-win!

Hoping to tackle more of the bigger areas around here soon!

Project Life Card Organization

My love of organizing has no end.  I'm always moving things around until I just can't improve it anymore and it works.  

Scrapbooking shares my love of organizing.  When I'm "stuck" and have no mojo, I organize things.  Playing with paper or any supplies really, gets my creative juices moving.  

A short while back, I saw THIS video on Pinterest and was intrigued to watch it right away.  This lady organized her Project Life cards in ROYGBIV order instead of  by "kits".  As someone who had them organized by kits, this blew my mind!  It made perfect sense to me!  I did hesitate to break up my kits, but the more I kept thinking about it, I usually choose the cards I'm working with based by COLOR instead of manufacture.  It would make working on Project Life SO much easier.

This is a picture of what my set up looked like.  My 4x6 cards are in one area, my 3x4 cards are in another, and then I have labels and stamps in another compartment.

This is a close up of what I was using for m 4x6 cards. It's a refrigerator/pantry organizer that holds all my cards and I made a simple place holder out of white paper that's 3x4 1/2 and just wrote the name of the company from where the cards are from.

This organizer is from Target, in the closet organizer area.  It held my 3x4 cards pretty well.  With a little space left over for some labels and cutouts.

This is the organizer empty.

Then on Instagram, I saw Jenny (sorry can't find a link to her blog) find the ideal storage at Staples.  I just cut down some chipboard that comes in my scrapbook orders (that I hoard), and used it as dividers.  

My 4x6 cards before I changed up the container again.  This container worked for the most part, but the open end kinda bothered me.

Then I found this container at either Marshall's, TJ Maxx, or Home Goods and switched them out.  It even has more room, which is great since I plan on cutting up some 6x6 paper pads and adding to it.  There's even room for some odds and ends in the back.

This is making me all kinds of happy and got my creative juices flowing to work on Project Life again.  Still in August with our Disney trip, but I'm getting there!

Holy Hoarder!!!

Believe it or not, Gianna was a neat child. Things has their place & if we asked her to clean her room it would be done, no problem. She basically kept a clean room.

Second grade came along & this child changed. I've heard it said that second grade is the adolescence of elementary school. Kids stretch limits & test their independence. Gianna definitely fit this description (Marissa went through it too). One of the obvious changes was her room.

This disturbing mess is pretty much what started "Operation: De-Hoarding".  That pile of books towards the bottom right was her attempt at cleaning....

So lately, Gianna's room has been a crazy mess. We would tell her to clean her room & she'd make the motions but nothing seemed a lot different. Something needed to be done. This child needed an intervention. She needed a rough, tough no holds barred clean out.

That's where I came in.

I first made her go through her books & make a donate, store & keep pile. I was happy with her decisions & ready to move on to the next step. We went through her bookcase (that holds more than her books) & I made her make some harsh choices. She had lots of those stupid little fast food toys that I made her trash. She opened a purse that had another purse in it, when we opened that purse it had yet another purse in it that had some junky toys in it.

No lie.

Don't go thinking I made her get rid of all her favorite things. I'm not entirely mean, despite what you might've heard. She had three choices with everything: keep, donate, store. This pic was just stuff from her bookcase...I basically was done for the night at this point.  Progress was made but I needed a break.

It took awhile....I made her do most of the work so she wouldn't feel like I was getting rid of things behind her back (Not that I would EVER do that...snicker...). While this was going on, I happened to peek inside her dresser & wanted to cry. All the times I've made sure her clothes came out of the dryer wrinkle free was for nothing (I do not like to iron clothes). {BTW-I make the girls put their clothes away} I took everything out & was amazed at how many things didn't fit her that were still in her drawers. I thought we had cleaned this out not that long ago??? I basically trimmed down each drawer in half. I have a friend whose daughter I can pass these on to...it'll be Christmas in August for her!

Our next attempt was made a couple days later.  This time we were focusing on her closet.  This girl doesn't get a lot of new clothes, she gets all of Marissa's hand-me-downs plus clothes from my niece Nikki.  Don't get me wrong she gets new clothes but not a whole new wardrobe.  Believe me, she's not deprived.... 

We started working on her shoes.  I made her try them all on to see whether they fit or not & about half of them didn't fit. Some were so worn out & were just trashed.  This girls basically lives in flip flops during the summer.
 

I then tackled the winter clothes on the left side of the closet & found lots of clothes that won't fit her come the cold weather months.  All her pants, Capri's & shorts were folded & put on the shelves where her shoes were.  She had trouble getting them on hangers so we made some much needed changes.  Looks so much better.  I still have to go through the right side of the closet since I can't fit anything else in there.  It's all her summer clothes (dresses or outfits on the top), but I suspect several items are small for her & have slipped through other "clean-outs". 

I feel like we accomplished something.  Her room looks so much better.  Perfect it is not, but I'm OK with that.  Now to find something to do with all these extra baby hangers.....I have tons more......

Thanks to Pinterest

Since joining Pinterest, I have been addicted. As much as it is a time waster, there are some great ideas there too.

These are some of the things I've done.... (pics are not mine)....

When I came across this pin I didn't get it until I read the caption. It's a simple, yet brilliant idea. In January, you turn all your hangers backwards. Then in June if it hasn't been turned back it means you haven't worn it in 6 months & you donate it. To read the original idea go HERE, she explains it way better than I do.
Another quick & simple idea was THIS. My batteries are kept in the hallway closet upstairs with a few in our junk drawer. They get lose & jumbled, & I don't like it. When I saw this I recognized the container & knew I had one in the basement. It had some craft supplies in it that the girls don't play with. Those went in a bag & my batteries were stored neatly.

I have to be honest that not all ideas work. I saw THIS, & thought it was a great idea. However, I had wider magazine holders in my basement & they took extra room that were wider than the cans, so they didn't work. I wanted to love this but for me it just wasn't happening.

I have to admit to just having finished packing all our Christmas decorations officially as of yesterday, but during it I managed to do this (website HERE) with some of our ornaments..I usually get the 18 pack of eggs but for awhile I bought them by the dozen & washed the cartons before using them. There might be a few more things I've done thanks to Pinterest but that's all I can remember off the top of my head. ;) I have lots of other ideas that I want to try but haven't gotten around to them yet...probably because I'm busy stalking Pinterest!

Annual January De-Cluttering & Other Ramblings

Today is the first Friday of the new year. In honor of my tradition in our house, I've been de-cluttering. Also known as "Organizing".

My main objective is to tackle the chaos that is our guest room. It's the room we toss stuff in when we don't have another place for it. It also holds the clean laundry that needs to be put away. Please tell me everyone has a room like this!

Unfortunately, this room is starting to look like a room you'd see on "Hoarders". Don't ask me when our show will be aired because I don't know when exactly Hell is due to freeze over.

Obviously, we don't have a lot of house guests since the room has been allowed to go to crap. Mostly my younger sister Chet uses it when she's babysitting & we get home too late for her to drive home. Obviously, she hasn't babysat in a long time either. Still love her. Though I wouldn't say no to a night out. HINT HINT HINT!!! Oh, & in case you're wondering, I still haven't seen Breaking Dawn. Yes I know how much I love the Twilight books & would really, really like to see the movie BUT that would require a sitter.......

So back to the room...

When I go through the girls' closets to determine what they've outgrown, I deposit the clothes into the guest room until I can pack what I want to save since I'm a sentimental sucker, pass it on to a friend, or donate to goodwill.

This is an awfully slow process for me since I procrastinate. However a few weeks ago I packed up what I'd like to keep, leaving the other 2 piles for another day. That day came today.

I made a pile of clothes to pass onto my friend's little girl & the other stuff is set to go to Goodwill.

It feels good to see the furniture again.

Joe has also been talking about getting rid of the furniture & turning it into my scraproom. Does this sound familiar? That's because I've mentioned it before in THIS POST. Once again I have outgrown my scrap area in our Den. Would I like being upstairs? Yes & no. But I would like to be able to leave projects out when we have people over without having to clean it up since my scrap area is sorta open to people walking through the room. I think overall it would be a win-win situation.

So that's been my main objective today. Tomorrow my girlfriend (whom I haven't seen in awhile) & her kids are coming over. It'll be good to catch-up as the kids play.

Sunday will hopefully bring the official start of "De-Christmas-izing the house. Yes, I do have all my decorations still up. It's the same every year. I don't take any of it down until after New Year's. When I was a kid we didn't pack it up until after my older sister Marie's birthday on the 12th. While I don't wait till the twelfth to take it down it just seems like there's other projects that need more priority.

Another thing I've added to my plate is I started walking on the treadmill again. Yes I started last January & did good until about June. Life was just too busy & when I finally re-surfaced I didn't have the "oomph" anymore. This time I hope to be more motivated. Just last night we booked a trip to Disney (again) for Easter/Spring Break in April. At the end of April, Gianna will receive her First Holy Communion (OMG! I can't believe it! It's seems like Marissa just received hers.). So there is plenty of motivation for me to lose some weight. I'm setting my goal small so it's more obtainable, to lose 10lbs by April. More would be great but I don't want to give up hope.

So if you're wondering where I am for a few days, you might not have read this entire post & I probably don't blame you since I tend to ramble on, but next time I'll make the post "pretty" with something to look at. ;)

Memorial Day Weekend

Most people take Memorial Day weekend to relax. When I was in high school it was all about going down the shore. That's the beach but here in Jersey we say "down the shore", but that's a whole different post. ;)

I spent my Saturday re-organizing my pantry. It's been a disaster lately but I didn't have time to do it before our trip so I dedicated the afternoon to it. I started at the top & emptied it shelf by shelf, wiping down the shelves & adding those wire racks to create more room.

I have to say I'm proud of the job I did. So proud that after coming home from dinner that night I opened the door just to stand back & admire my work.

Yes I have no life. ;)

Sunday morning we got up bright & early (for a Sunday), & headed to the parade in our town. Gianna was walking in it with her Daisy Girl Scout troops & we got to cheer her on.

Seeing this float in the parade always gets me. The lump in my throat is instant.

Eventually all the area Girl Scouts head toward us. As we see Gianna's troop, I walk out to take pics. Here she's digging in her bag to pick out certain candies for Marissa & Joe. She knows what they like & wants to make them happy. See her with the blue bag??
She really gets into tossing candy out, and boy does she have a good arm!

Shortly after, Joe heads over to the pick-up point to get Gianna. We usually sit near the end of the parade so it's easier to get her. She comes over, looking all tired & hot & I make sure she has some water while we watch the rest of the parade.

When it's over, we headed home for a quick lunch then we went to a local nursery & bought some hanging baskets for the yard & some other flowers for me to plant by the front doors. We didn't do a lot but boy did the weekend fly by!

Still here...

Happy 1-11-11!! (What's left of it.)

My new year has been all about organizing so far. It's a vicious cycle of moving things from one area to another.

Joe got me the iPad for Christmas & my plan for it is to use it at my scrap desk. This would move my laptop to the desk in the kitchen where my dinosaur-of-a-desktop is. So what I've been trying to do is transfer my itunes library from the desktop to my laptop. Sounds simple right? It's NOT!! Everytime I think I copy it to an external hard drive (like the directions say) it's NOT the library....just some mumbo jumbo I THINK is my library. Following?? ANYWHOO it's aggrevating to say the least.

Besides that I've been packing up the Christmas decorations.....still. I usually don't start until the 2nd week of January. This year I wanted to start much much sooner but I didn't have time. Now I've been at it for awhile but I keep getting interrupted.

I was helping my brother in law plan my sister's surprise 40th birthday party....which turned out great!! I'll be posting pics soon....

Another thing I've got going is my December Daily. I have a good start to it but have to finish de-Christmasing the house.For some reason I never seem to have time to get creative between Dec. & Jan. Too much going on. Hope to have something to share soon! Wish me luck!

Word of the Day:ORGANIZE

Not that I'm actually doing a lot of organizing.

Mostly I'm thinking about it.

A LOT.

The start of a new year always spurs ideas of un-planned organization around here.

It never fails.

After a trip to Michaels today I put together one more of those storage cubes....for my laundry room. Already had 4 in there but wanted another to store Marissa's Easy Bake Oven when she's not using it....which has been since just about when she got it. ;)~ And yes I use my laundry room for storage. Yes it's the only room in the house that is truly "mine", & yes I store other people's crap in there.

You figure that one out will ya?

Sorta before I started (already took some stuff off the top before remembering to take a pic)...
And After.....Yes I know it's not much of a change but the cube adds more secure storage so the damn thing won't come tumbling on my head as I do laundry.
Any-whooo!! Like I was saying, I've got organizing on my mind. There's a cabinet in my kitchen that needs to be completely re-done...to make room for other things from a different cabinet in my kitchen....which needs more room to store my ever growing collection of coffee mugs (that have not been all bought by me, despite my telling people I do not need anymore mugs, thankyouverymuch).

Then there's the china cabinet in the dining room that seems to have some space that I could use for all the assorted Christmas platters/plates. The plates usually takes up two huge rubbermaid containers that go in the crawl space & they are flippin' HEAVY. So I'm changing things up a bit to make room in the dining room which hardly gets used except for about two or three times a year.

I told Joe we've outgrown this house. He agreed.

Send help.

Organization: School Papers

In my attempt to do some Spring Cleaning I tackled this pile of papers the girls bring home from school on a daily basis. I don't keep every piece of school work they bring home but I do keep a good amount...sadly this pile goes back to January!! I'm a little behind in filing their papers!!

Sometimes the girls need a paper from the pile & I have to dig through it all before finding the one piece they need. Frusterating to say the least. Nevermind trying not to topple over the huge mess! So I came up with this solution...

I took these baskets & made a quick tag to distinguish whose basket is whose (M-Marissa, G-Gianna & A-Assorted).

I went through the pile & sorted everything turning the papers face down to keep the current stuff on top. When I was done the piles were more manageble & ready to file away! Not that I filed them away yet but I'm getting there! ;)

Organization: Ribbons

Remember my ribbons??

Then I decided to do this with them. I can not tell you how many hours I spent wrapping all the ribbons! I would tackle a pile during homework time, or while watching my favorite TV shows, any spare time I had! I used to have my ribbons separated in a few ways but wasn't happy with it at all!

Now all my ribbons are together by color! Found the drawers at Target (sorry can't find a link) & they are under my desk which isn't my favorite spot but it works.




I labeled the drawers simply, using my scallop circle punch. I have a couple of drawers that have more than one color, or theme but have them separeted in a way that makes sense to me.I can see using the ribbons so much better now since I can see what I have easier & get to them better. Makes me happy!!

Ribbon Wrap Up

Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned my dilema about ribbon storage? Somehow despite my declaration of NOT going to do tackle this I did it anyway.

I started on this drawer since I had been working on some Christmas related projects.

Found this idea on 2Pea's. Thought it was easy enough & took up less space so I gave it a try.

ETA: I cut 8 1/2" x 11" cardstock into 1" x 11" wide strips then wrap it around the ribbons, tape it closed & cut off the excess cardstock.


This pic shows almost the entire drawer worth of ribbon in a med sized basket. How cool is that??
I'm now working on the middle drawer. I even have Marissa helping me, while we sit & watch TV.I'm thinking this drawer unit might be finding a new home somewhere in the basement filled with toys soon!

Ribbon Storage

I don't know about you, but for me the new year always seems to put me in the mood to re-organize my scrap supplies. Usually I rethink it all & re-do everything but I'm ok with how I have things organized (for the most part).

The thing that's bugging me is my ribbons.

I have them in this 3 drawer chest under my scrap desk. I can get past the fact that I can't fit my legs comfortably under my desk. What bugs me is the ribbons are layered 2 deep in each drawer. Trying to dig out a spool of ribbon can be time-consuming & annoying. Come to think of it I haven't used ribbons on my LO's much. Now the chest holds only my spooled ribbons. The ribbons that come on cards I took apart & wrapped them on embroidery floss bobbins from Michael's & put them in these bead cases. Still not the easiest to get to & yes it's also under my desk, but I'd rather pull those out than the spooled stuff.So my question is this.....

How do you store your ribbons?

Sincerely,

Ribbon Addict

One thing leads to another...

Yes, I admit it, I've been slacking on the blog lately. In my defense I've been trying to catch up with the normal house things--like laundry (key word here is--"trying"). Another thing that's been keeping me busy is the typical January oocurance around here....Organizing! Unfortunately, this makes me fall behind in other things.

The worst part is I wasn't planning on organizing but it just seems to happen.

It all starts with Christmas. After the presents are opened & played with they need a home besides going back under the tree. Especially when the tree needs to be packed up. So that had me moving older toys to the playroom in the basement to make room for the newer stuff in the den (aka-the real playroom). Once I made the room & no longer had gifts under the tree, it was time to pack up the tree.

Once the tree (along with all the other decorations) were packed up, the normal knick-knacks needed to be put back. BUT since Christmas there are a few new knick-knacks that need a home so room needs to be made for those without making things look cluttered (still working on that).

During all this I feel guilty that I haven't scrapped since {whispers} ** November**. BUT I realize that I got new goodies (some for Christmas) that need a home. BUT my scrap area needs to be re-organized to make room for the new goodies (see where I'm going with this??). So I re-organize the hutch above my desk to make some room.

Some of those things now need a new home so I try my laundry room (which is truly the only room in the house that is completely MINE). Going into the laundry room makes me realize I NEED to do laundry, so I'll toss in a load. Then I remember that I went in there to find a new home for some things & go back in.

You should see me--it's comical at times! Thankfully my head is attached to my shoulders otherwise I'd be lost!

Back to the laundry room, I notice that in a corner I have heaven knows what! It's become a junk pile, so I tear into that & take it all out. I toss stuff, keep stuff, move stuff, all while ignoring the bell on the washer telling me that the laundry is ready.

Once that corner is organized & clean, I realize that the cabinet above holds a bunch of stuff that should not be in MY laundry room. The cabinet had tons of beads, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, glue, popsicle sticks, & pom poms in a variety of sizes. This now needs a new home! {Just for the record--there were other things in there too but these were overpowering.} Now the cabinet looks so much better & neat!

Forgot to take a "before" pic, but trust me it was crazy in there!

Now that that corner is organized I've been on Joe's case to get him to build some shelves for a different corner in there. For now the laundry room is ok....'cept for the laundry piling up again!

This is just an example of how things are around here in January. It doesn't seem to fail. I could be planning on spending the girls' 1st week back to school after the holidays on scrapping but a case of the "house guilts" gets me every time!

So now things are slightly more under control. I have fought the urge to empty out rooms, spackle & paint, but it's been a struggle! The guilt over un-washed clothes beat the urge to paint!

Better Late Than NEVER!

I was super productive today! Got the food shopping done. Got some never-ending laundry done. Then I tackled my dining room. I should have taken a pic of how bad it was. We aren't real "formal" people & hardly ever use the room except for holidays & when we have a lot of people over or parties. The rest of the time it's a "drop zone" for things that can't find a home right away.

When we were getting ready to go to Disney I was too busy getting ready for the trip to take down all the Easter decorations. I figured no one but my F-I-L would see them since he was watching the house for us & didn't bother. Last week I started taking things down & tossed them on the dining room table. Today I decided I had had enough & tackled the mess! First things first, I had to pack up the Valentine's decorations that I threw in a box & put downstairs until I could pack them up!!! I'm a procrastinator--what can I say?

So I went to work & got it all done. From the Valentine's stuff to Easter--it's all packed up!! I even put out some "Spring stuff" out, but let's stay real--I didn't finish it!! LOL!!

Button Dilema

Thanks to my button tree obsession I am left with a multitude of MORE buttons than I started with. Last night I tried getting them put away so I could broaden my crafty horizons but I couldn't come up with something I was happy with.

I have them sorted right now per color & mfg but I also have older buttons that are similar colors but I don't know the mfg. I sort of want to throw them all in a HUGE jar a 'la Heather but my anal quirkiness is holding me back!! Yes I know I need help but therapy is expensive!!! What's your method????