Getting Organized Challenge—17, 18, 19 & 20 (Mail Center, Keepsakes, Master Closet and Photos)

I’m starting to think I’m a little too organized for this challenge.  lol.  Its just that I’m used to living in tiny spaces and I ‘m not a fan of clutter, so a lot of these things were already in pretty good shape.  I’m skipping the mail center because we don’t get much mail.  The only two things we get regularly are bills, which go straight on the fridge, and Netflix dvds, which get opened and put on the TV stand.  Plus we really don’t have a good place to put a mail station, so it just didn’t seem worth it.
The next challenge was to organize your keepsakes.  The example Toni gave was her kids’ art and stuff.  Well I don’t have kids, but I do keep my “I’m cool” papers in a binder (I have stuff from middle school-college).  The only other thing I would consider to be a keepsake is my photographs and scrapbooks and these are already organized too.  Here’s the picture and then I’ll give the explanation:

I got this cool folding bookshelf from my parents and it sits in the living room and holds all of my photo albums and scrapbooks.  The bottom shelf is random photoalbums, mostly of college and law school.  Every so often I got though my computer and print any pictures that I want hard copies of and put them into the current album.  I like the ones that have space to write what the picture is.  I’m pretty good about not letting the pictures pile up.  The next shelf up is all pictures from when I studied abroad in college. Each album has a theme and I am almost done labeling all the pictures (its only taken me 3.5 years lol).  The small box on that shelf also hold some England momentos.  Next is my scrapbooks and finally various frames and some small boxes that hold stuff for the guitar (one of these days I’m going to teach myself how to play my little brother’s acoustic guitar) and batteries. 

Edit: Well it turns out that challenge no. 20 is to organize your photos, so I guess I have that one covered too.  :)
I figured that since it is its own challenge, I'd let you know how exactly my photos are organized.  I prefer to keep my pictures in albums rather than in boxes because it makes them easier to look though.  I get most of my albums from Target and I like to get the ones that give you space to caption each picture.  For the most part, the pictures go straight from the envelopes into the albums.  Any pictures that I am going to use for scrapbooking go into a box with my scrapbooking supplies. 

I also back my pictures up both on CD and on the internet (I use my skydrive though Windows Live).  This way if something happens to my computer (knock on wood), I won't loose all my pictures.

The next challenge is to organize the master closet.  For being super tiny, our apartment actually has a good amount of closet space.  The master bedroom has two closets, so I get one and Boyfriend gets one.  Then we have another closet in the office which we share. 

So here’s my closet.  The striped bin holds strappy heels that I don’t wear very often and the stack next to it is my travel backpack and by briefcase (I only use it when I’m going to court).  I didn’t take any pictures of the floor because there’s nothing down there right now—normally that is where our laundry baskets go (one for lights, one for darks and one for reds) but right now the laundry is all out in the bedroom sorted so I can get it done.  As for the clothes, they are arranged by type—suits, dress pants & skirts, work tops, jerseys, t-shirts, polos, long sleeved t-shirts, long sleeved shirts with collars, long sleeve buttons ups, jackets, sweaters and hoodies.  You may notice that, while the hangers match, they are not all facing the same way and you may think that is weird.  While it is a little weird, there is a method to my madness.  Instead of just getting rid of things a few weeks ago I went though and turned all the hangers around.  Now when I put clothes back in the closet I put the hangers facing the right way. This way I have a visual representation of what I do not wear.  Once most of the hangers are facing the right way, I will go though and get rid of the stuff that I don’t ever wear.  Now some things got a free pass, because its not really my fault that I haven’t worn my Royals baseball jersey yet this year.