Organizing fever

I have a bad case of this right now. It actually started a couple months ago; but between a family vacation, and several holidays, I was able to hold it at bay.

Well it's back now- and not to be denied.

I told hubby last week: anything that can't be organized, will either go to Goodwill or to the dump...don't worry, I told him he could still stay around, Lol.

A couple of reasons I love having things organized:

1) It saves so much time and energy when you know where something is, and can get to it quickly.

2) An organized space is so...well, orderly. And there is no wrong way to do it, it's really whatever works best for you. Along with the fact that you can give it your own personal touch.

And there are so many different organizing tools, containers, bins, ect. to choose from. I really do love those bins...

So I thought I would post a few pictures of some things that have helped me keep organized in a specific area.

This is definitely one of the best organizing tools I've put into action. It's an over-the-door shoe bag...but I don't use it for shoes. I was having such a hard time keeping track of little odds and ends; those kinds of things that you rarely need, but when you do it's really crucial to be able to find them. Because the pockets are clear you can see what you need right away, without having to rummage around and make a general mess of things (I have a few drawers like that). This usually is on the side of the door facing my closet, but for this pic I put it facing out.


Because I homeschool, I print up a huge amount of worksheets, charts, and other helpful items from different websites...sometimes running into hundreds of copies in a weeks time. And because I often didn't have the time to sort through them all right away, they used to stack up on our printer. To remedy this, hubby brought home this great...I'm not sure what it's called:) They were throwing it away at his workplace, so their trash became my treasure. I just go through my stack quickly, and then leave the copies here til I can file them away later in the big file cabinet.
Thinking it would be handy to have another one of these, I searched for one at my local Goodwill. They had 2 of them;
both priced at $8 each... So I told hubby to just keep an eye out for another one in the junkpile at work, Lol.

My kids love to do crafts, so I'm always looking for any odds and ends that I can pick up in that area. But you have to have containers to store all those beads, buttons, gems, ect. And many of the storage containers you can buy for these are so small that my kids ended up emptying out the whole container to get to the one they wanted. So imagine how happy I was to find a link at Niki's Organizing blog where a smart mom had thought of using empty peanut butter containers for this very purpose.

I filled one with our craft feathers and it was a perfect fit, with the opening being big enough for even my oldest to reach in and pick out what he needed. When I think of all the peanut butter containers that have slipped through my fingers... Why don't I ever think of these things?