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. 

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. 

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!!!!!