Weekly Organizing Challenge: Home Management Notebook

The first weekly challenge over at A Bowl Full of Lemons is to create a Home Management notebook.  I made Boyfriend go with me yesterday to get a notebook because the weather around here has taken a turn for the worse and is only going to get more icky as the week goes on.  I picked out a super cute one from Target and labeled it accordingly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have the following tabs:

Menus
Birthdays
Cleaning
Blogging
Finances
Calendar
Products
Deals
Organizing
Inspiration

The first page is my weekday routine.  Its not super strict but hopefully it will help me to remember to take something out for dinner in the morning and pick up the apartment every night.

The next tab is where I can keep our weekly menus.  I still use our menu board but I want to use this too because it is more detailed and so I can keep them so I’m not making the same thing all the time.

The next tab is for Birthdays.  There is one page for each month so I can keep track of birthdays and also what gifts we have gotten them.

The next tab is for cleaning.  I had been doing a daily cleaning schedule but it wasn’t really working so switched to a weekly schedule.

Under the organizing tab, I have a monthly schedule.  These are areas that don’t need constant attention.  A monthly check up should keep them in good shape.

Those are the only tabs I have done right now.  In the Calendar one, I am going to put a list of holidays and schedules like for work, school, softball, etc.  I didn’t want to do another calendar because I already have two and I think another may just add to the chaos.  In Deals, I am going to put our voucers for Groupon, Living Social, Groop Dealz, Muncharoo, and Spreesy.  Blogging will be for ideas and posts to be done here.  Finances is pretty self explanatory.  Products will be where I take notes on products that I like and don’t like and Inspiration is for things that make me happy.  :)

If you’re interested in any of my printed pages, shoot me an email and I will hook you up. 

Organizing Challenge Wrap Up

I thought I would share my “Where Are They Now” pictures from the challenge.  Getting organized is only half the battle—staying organized is just as much work if not more.  I gave myself 15 minutes last Thursday to pick up and then didn’t get around to taking pictures until Sunday night.  Here’s what it looks like now:

 

 

 

#1—Junk Drawer (yay Cadbury Egg!)

 

 

 

#2—Computer Desk (this was in the middle of doing homework)

 

 

 

#3—Tupper-ware

 

 

 

 

 

#4—Linen Closet

 

 

 

 

 

#5—Under the Kitchen Sink

 

 

 

 

    #6 Dresser Drawers

#7 The Pantry

#12 The Spice Cabinet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#8 The Coat Closet (also featuring the graduation countdown chain)

 

 

 

#11

The

Freezer

 

 

 

 

# 13 The Medicine Cabinet and # 15 Medicine and Vitamins

 

 

 

#14 Under the Bathroom Sink

 

 

 

# 16 The Fridge

 

 

 

 

#17 The Mail (I know this is kind of lame, but I didn’t want to buy something until I knew we would use it)

 

 

 

 

#18 & #20 Keepsakes and Photos

 

 

 

 

#20 Master Closet

21 Day Challenge--Day 21

I have had this post planned for a while, but am just now getting around to it.  I had a lot of fun with A Bowl Full of Lemon’s 21 Day Organizing Challenge and I am looking forward to her weekly challenges.  If you ask me, you can’t really have too much organization in your life.  You might have noticed that I didn’t do a challenge for day 21—it was to organize something of my choice and instead of doing that, I wanted to share a few miscellaneous organizing tips.  Tomorrow, I’m going to do a series of where are they now pictures.

 

I love electronic gadgets as much as the next guy, but the cords can cause a big headache.  All of our random cords live in one drawer,and are labeled.  One night Boyfriend and I sat down and figured out what every cord went to and labeled them.  Any duplicates and ones we no longer needed or didn’t know what they went to went away. 

This is how I organize my everyday scarves.  These aren’t really cold weather scarves—they’re Pashminas and other scarves that you would wear all day, not just with a coat.  I got a pack of plastic shower curtain rings at Target and stuck them on a couple of hangers (I doubled up since it got pretty heavy).  I like the plastic rings because they don’t snag the scarves.  They hang in my closet so I can grab them as I’m getting dressed.

 

 

I love flip-flops and live in them during the summer.   I have a quite a few pairs and I store them in a shoe holder on the back of the door that connects our bedroom to the bathroom (its right next to the closet).  I love that this one has clear pockets so that I can see them and grab the pair that matches my outfit best.

 

 

 

My Dad gave me this box after his collection of cufflinks outgrew it.  I use it to organize my earrings.  Having only one or two pairs in each box makes it easy to see and find exactly what I am looking for.  It also keeps things from getting tangled.

 

We love Command hooks for organizing.  They come off the wall super easily but hold well.  We use them to hang hats and purses so everything is visible and out of the way.

Hugs & Kisses

This was another super easy project.  I found some chipboard letters at Hobby Lobby—I looked at their wood ones too but I like these better because of their size and price.  I painted them black then Modge Podged them with various V-day papers.  They add such a fun pop of color to my table.  You could also very easily put them on some ribbon and hang them like a banner.

Weekly Organizing Challeges

So the 21 Day Organizing Challenge over at A Bowl Full of Lemons is over.  I'm planning a wrap-up/where are they now post but I haven't gotten around to it yet (silly law school keeps getting in the way).  If you are sad that there won't be anymore organizing going on (I was a little bit, but I'm a little bit crazy like that), have to fear.  Toni is now going to be hosting weekly challenges!

  

I'm super excited!  Toni says: "Some weeks will be very simple and some may be more challenging.  The main goal of the challenge is getting our lives clean & organized and staying that way. We will be spring cleaning together & purging winter clothes together.  My hope is that our blogging group will function to inspire each other and help each other get our lives in order. "  I would really suggest checking out her blog and joining in the challenge.

On a related note, wanna hear something funny?  I'm totally rubbing off on the Boyfriend.  See when I put my clean clothes away, I put the clean clothes at the back/bottom so I'm rotating though my clothes.  I caught Boyfriend doing this the other day.  And he told me he wants to reorganize his clothes.  I love it!  

Love Potion

This was so simple that its hardly worth posting but its not in the original pictures I posted, so I wanted to share.

I just took an empty jar (this one was from a local spice shop) and filled it with water and a few drops of red food coloring.  I used letters from my scrapbooking stash (but you could easily cut vinyl) to label it.  We don’t need any love potion around here, but I hear No. 9 is the best.  :)

Worldly Wednesday

Big Ben and Parliament—London, England
(this is my favorite picture from London—London stuck me as the type of city that needed to be photographed in sepia because of its mix of modern and historic elements)
I love to travel and have been lucky enough to have visited a lot of amazing places.  Every Wednesday I’m planning on featuring one picture of the places I’ve been.

Heart Specimen Art

Jen over at Tatertots and Jello has done some super fun specimen art that I so wanted to copy.  Here’s what I came up with:

I found these at the Dollar Tree. They’re little styrofoam hearts on sticks.

I pulled the stick out and colored the hole with red sharpie to make it less noticeable.
And then I quit taking pictures.  I wasn’t kidding about the getting over excited thing.  After that all I did was hot glue them to a piece of pink paper and stick it in the frame.  I kept the glass behind the paper for stability and also so I didn’t lose it and/or break it.  Super easy and it only cost $1 because all I had to buy was the hearts!

Coffee Filter Heart Wreath

I said I would put this up last week and didn’t, and honestly I don’t really have a good excuse other than it snowed a whole bunch last week which threw me off.  Since there is still plenty of time before Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d show you how I made my pretty decorations.  Today we’re starting with my coffee filter wreath.  Like I said before, it was inspired by Sweet Pea and Jo Jo.  Here is the finished product:

I didn’t take pictures as I was making it because most of the time when I start a project I just get so excited about it that I forget to take pictures.  This was one of those projects.   Here’s basically what I did though.

I cut my heart out of a cardboard box (we had been doing a lot of textbook ordering around here so we were up to our ears in boxes from Amazon).  It doesn’t have to be perfect because the coffee filters will cover it up.  I used a bright pink sharpie to color the edges of the coffee filters.  I found that it was MUCH easier to color them in a big group than to do them individually.  Then I folded and floofed them and glued them to the cardboard.  Really there wasn’t much of a trick here, I just did what looked best.  Sometimes I’d group them and sometimes I wouldn’t.  As you can se from the picture of the back, I changed tactics halfway though:

I’m not sure I can say which one worked better, but I kind of preferred tucking them over so that it covered up the edges.  Keep going until the whole thing is covered.  It will take a lot of coffee filters and a lot of hot glue sticks but it is so worth it in the end.  Here’s a close-up of one side:

I just hot glued a piece of ribbon on the back to hang it from.  It was pretty easy to make and it only cost me $2 ($1 for the coffee filters and $1 for a new bag of hot glue sticks).