House mess shame / Making boxes for sunglasses/suncream/phone/camera/etc

Talking to my mum today she made a little joke when I mentioned that I find it hard to keep everything in order in the house after 2 days of working in a row (I was saying how I was quite happy my working days were changing to Monday, Wednesday & Friday). She joked that surely I wouldn't find it a problem with all my organising systems in place. I love her but it made me feel uncomfortable. She didn't met the point and I want to make sure that anyone else doesn't misunderstand me! I am not all of a sudden an expert. My house is not suddenly tidy!!! Some of the systems I try don't work for me. But I try them (I need to revisit them I think for the blog so I can say what went wrong) & when it doesn't work I try something else. Yes, sometimes I'll decorate a box to make it pretty when I should be getting on with the laundry. But I do it because it makes me happy. And some of my "systems" do help me and make things run more smoothly. But I am still the person who hasn't hoovered when you come round (cos I don't DO hoovering). I'll only tidy up the kids toys until they've gone to bed cos otherwise they'll just make it messy again. And most of the time I don't mind.


Apart from when someone says they don't feel comfortable being in your home because it's messy. That hurts a bit. Especially when it's from someone you love. maybe that's why I keep trying. Because deep down I feel like a failure for not keeping on top of it.


Or maybe it's because when I have one little thing organised and pretty, even if it's just my make-up drawer, it makes me feel good. It makes me feel in control. And it makes me feel like I've accomplished something.


Here is what I did today while I SHOULD REALLY have been putting loads of laundry on:

Its a box to put sunglasses (in one side of the divider) and suncream (in the other) in. So they have a place to live (as they are always just HANGING AROUND in my house in the summer. 

Notice how nice my little chalkboard labels look.....

I was so pleased with the above that I did another smaller one for my phone & camera....

In fact, I was so pleased I made yet ANOTHER one. So now I have a whole set. A place for everything....

Decluttering box

Settled the baby again so here comes another one.....

As I said in my last post, I had a little bit of time to myself on Saturday and I was really enjoying decluttering and generally tidying up. But I often feel that I get easily distracted going from room to room achieving very little. So I had an idea to put together a "decluttering box". Basically, I thought I would set up a box that would contain a few things that I needed to carry around with me, including a notepad and pen so that as I think of other things that I need to do or buy, I can write them down, but also separate boxes inside it (compartments if you like) where I can put things that need to be moved to other parts of the house. I USED to just have ONE box that I would put everything in that didn't belong in that room but I then found that I would end up with just a box of stuff that I didn't know where to put. I felt that if I had just a smaller amount of things for the bedroom, I might actually put those things away in the bedroom next time I was there. And the same for other rooms. So, this is what I started with:

I put all my chalkboard label clips that I wasn't already using for something in there:

Then I added a couple of bags as they fitted the space as the end best. I wrote on the labels as and when something occurred to me as I wandered around tidying. I found a broken necklace and a toy phone that needed a new battery so I added them to the "NEEDS FIXING" bag. The bigger basket is "Ben to put away": 

Then there are boxes for "Our Bedroom" and "Abi's Office":

And the bag on the right, I haven't got around to labelling yet. I've just been putting stuff in there that needs putting away that doesn't fit into any of the categories above. 

I love how my labels look too. I bought a new chalk pen to use with them and it looks much better than the dress makers chalk pencil that I used before. 

Some people will probably say that the amount of time it took you to set up this box, you could have finished all your tidying and sat down and had a cup of tea. Maybe, maybe not. I just feel a lot more ready to tidy and organise when I have a system. And this box is something that can be put away in my office when I'm not using it. I wouldn't necessarily use it all the time but when there are things strewn everywhere and the house has got in an utter state due to us both working and maybe one of us studying or him being away so I'm coping on my own with the kids. It helps me to do stuff like this. 

Ending here as am in danger of rambling. 

Organising the Larder

I had SOOOOO much fun this weekend reorganising our pullout larder cupboard. Apparently, according to a dear friend of mine (grumble grumble) it isn't REALLY a larder, but its where I put all our flour and sauces and tins, so I'm going to call it my larder. So take that Mrs Lisa Smarty Pants. Hehe. Hate you really! xxx


Anyway, so I hadn't actually planned on organising the larder (although it desperately needed doing) because we were planning on replacing the pull out cupboard mechanism with an actual cupboard, because, clever as the pull out thingy is, its not all that practical because you can't pull it out as far as I for one would like and so you can never quite see everything that's in there. 


So I was just generally tidying up and trying to make the kitchen a bit cleaner, tidier and prettier and so I took everything off our little glass corner shelves, cleaned them and put things back but I found some nice jars so I put things back in jars. I only took a before picture of one of the shelves but you can imagine it. It was all dusty, it had on it a load of stuff, including a salt grinder that didn't even work (I figured we'd never get round to fixing it and have since taken to crumbling sea salt into food when cooking anyway and if we need another one we can buy one) so I threw that away. I cleaned the shelves down and put back the things in their nice new shiny (not new, but looked new as I washed and polished them). This is the before:

Ok, it doesn't look terrible, but I think this looks much better:

I had bought this jar to put sweets and things in and it was living on the window sill but I think it looks much nicer here. The kitchen roll holder that has no kitchen roll on it (we've run out) has been moved back to the window sill (that needs tidying up too but I think that's a job for another day). 


Here is the other shelf, which I think looks great. The jar at the back has black peppercorns in it. The white stuff is salt. The bigger jar in the middle has turkish red chilli in it (we love that stuff) and the smaller jar has 100% chocolate in it. My husband uses it for cooking and wanted me to leave it out (it was in a yucky plastic container before). 

I actually found a few smaller kilner type jars (like the one at the back above) hiding among the herbs so I crushed enough black pepper to fill that one (our pepper grinder died too) but I forgot to take a picture of that. 


While I was busy tidying the kitchen and doing this my husband was out with both kids (bliss for me - to be able to potter about in the house on my own). Then he came back, gave me some large kilner jars (a pack of three for about £7 from TK Maxx) and then said he was going to go to Guildford as he'd been unable to find some crocs for my daughter cos her feet are too fat, bless her (she's only 18 months but has monster boats like her mum). I doubly loved my husband at that moment. MORE time to myself AND lovely new organisey-type jars? Heaven! Yes I know, I'm selfish. But you have to make the most of time to yourself as a mum when the opportunity arises plus, as he's away Monday to Friday next week I feel a lot less guilty for enjoying it than I might otherwise have done. 


Here are a couple of BEFORE photos. Apologies for the quality of the photos. It was very sunny and the light was in COMPLETELY the wrong part of the room for the photos. HOW inconsiderate!

Anyway, so I started pulling things out of the larder to see what was there. I got everything out and loaded the nice clean/clear work surfaces with STUFF! 


Then, I had to go out to drive to Binsted to see if I could find out who owned a particular plot of land (long story) and on the way back ACCIDENTALLY went to TKMaxx and splurged on some more kilner jars (two big big ones for cereal, a set of large ones and a set of smaller ones). I also got a lovely small clipboard and notepad:

And some very pretty boxes:

But anyway, I digress..... Here is how my "larder" looked AFTER I put as many things as I could into jars:

I love how the big cereal jars look. One for bran flakes and one for weetobix. But that will probably change depending on what we use most. I may even get some more. Would be handy to have some of those big ones for pasta shapes and maybe oats as well - for porridge. 


I also love how the pulses and nuts and things look in jars.


And its amazing how much more space we got. Another benefit is that its a lot cleaner because the flour bags are gone. Because of the design of the metal cupboards the paper bags would catch on the metal bits as you got them out which would mean the bags would end up with holes in which would mean spilled flour/sugar etc. No such problem with jars. 


I did have to leave a few things in their packaging unfortunately, but I may well be unpackaging them in the future!


Oops. Baby waking up so have to leave it at that for one night. 

Medicine box for the kids

I remembered to take a BEFORE photo for this one. Yay!


As you can see, all a bit shoved together. Its good that I can see what's in there but I don't like that I had to take everything out in order to get to anything that was at the bottom:

First, I emptied everything out of the bag, threw away anything that we didn't use anymore, relocated anything that wasn't really for the children or didn't belong here. Then I worked out, by looking at what I had, what kind and size of container(s) I needed. I found this box, and the small ones inside. I did this about a month ago and its STILL tidy. So it just goes to show that it works (even though it does take up a little more space than before):

Maybe my next thing should be to decorate the box - maybe with some red and white paper.....

Hallway

Am kicking myself (again) that I don't have a BEFORE photo. But will try to explain it:


Our coats and things used to be hung up in the hall to the left as you come in the front door. I found the coats got a bit overwhelming and the hall was always very cluttered. 


This is what we did....


We put hooks up to the right of the door (these used to be in the nursery which is now my office): One set of hooks for the kids bags and scarves. 

We (the royal "we" - ie, my husband, as I wouldn't know a drill if it poked me in the eye) moved the coat hooks to the other side of the hall: 

I put some boxes on the floor. The big one is for shoes, the middle one is for hats and the smaller one is for gloves. This system works really well. Joshua, aged 3 and a bit, now knows where to put things. Although he still throws things on the floor sometimes!

I may have to reorganise for summer. What would I need? a box for summer hats, maybe suncream..... maybe a day out bag that we can just grab on the way out of the house.... hmmmm food for thought. 

Bathroom organising

Here is some organisey stuff I've done recently and less recently. I was going to post it as one single post but my organisey (I just created that word, do you like it?) nature won't let me jumble everything in one post as I prefer to keep the topics separate (divided if you will). So forgive the lack of "chat" in the next few posts. They'll probably be mostly photos. But maybe that's not a bad thing! 


Bathroom shelves. I don't have a before picture as I did this before I started blogging, but I think you'll agree it looks nice:

Since then I reorganised my contact lenses - so that rather than having one bowl for strips of lenses, I have two bowls, labelled "left" and "right" so that I just need to grab one for each eye in the morning:

This makes it much easier for me in the morning. 

Hand bags

Another thing I did today. Will make this a quick post and mainly just add the photos as you can really see what I did through them. 


As you can see from the before shot my handbag storage was a little cubby hole at the end of our wardrobe cupboards. The only problem with this was that I had to pull everything out to find what I wanted and I would often (always) just leave them strewn half way across the floor - as you can see below:

We had one of these wardrobe space-saving hangy thingies that I stopped Ben from throwing out a few months ago, and I'm SOOOO glad I stopped him because its PERFECT for this. Fits perfectly right at the end of the spare room wardrobe (as you can see, my littlest child Lala is admiring my hanging skills):

I love the way I can access anything I want without having to pull out the whole lot. I also grouped the bags by type. 

At the top I have my daytime/summery type bags. 3 Animal bags, which I love and always rotate back to eventually. Then 2nd shelf down, my expensive(ish) leather handbags. 

Next shelf down my evening bags. Then under that purses. As you can see there is plenty of room on that shelf for a few more things. I just haven't decided what yet. 

Then under that (2nd from the bottom) all my toilettries bags. 
Lastly, my large summery-type bags and beach bags. 

 Finally at the very bottom under the shelf I put my blue Estee Lauder carry bag (freebie - very useful size). 

Was very pleased with how this turned out. 


Just to recap. Before:

 And after:

Wooden clothes peg labels

My lovely friend Lisa bought me some wooden clothes peg blackboard labels ages ago. I was at the time making and selling bath bombs but shortly after she'd given them to me I stopped this little sideline due to having my second baby. And I put these label things away and forgot about them. However, since getting a bit obsessed with organising, I found them in a box of bath bomb-related stuff and I love how they look. I bought a couple of dressmakers chalk pens so I could write on them (and easily erase it to start again). 

Here is one of them on my dressing table:

I've also got two in the laundry room (spare bedroom) - one for a box that has adults socks in it (somewhere to put them before I've paired them up) and another for kids socks. I really like how they look and also how you can reuse them easily. 

First I set about trying to find more of them. I couldn't find them on ebay. I found some on Etsy - via doing an image search on google for "clothes peg blackboard label" or something similar. This is what I found:

http://pinterest.com/pin/78250112245638216/ 

They were a bit expensive (as they were in the US) and I already had some brand new wooden clothes pegs. I just needed to find some wood or woodboard to use for the label base. Luckily my dad had some board leftover from making a puzzle and he cut up the pieces for me - using his work bench which is apparently 3 years older than me!! He bought it in 1974. I was so impressed I took a picture:

He cut up nice little squares the exact same size as the one I already had. Six of them:

And he gave me some sandpaper and a block to wrap it round. I love my Daddy!

I thought mine might look pretty painted. So I mixed up some pale blue, yellow, pink, green, purple and orange paints...

I just love them! Think they are CUTE CUTE CUTE!!!!!