Organizing Made Fun

Fun Announcement

2013-05-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

I have a fun announcement! It's going to inspire you and maybe even motivate some others of you! Beginning at the end of this month {May 26th}, the TOP ORGANIZING BLOGGERS are going to host a monthly organizing party beginning NEXT Sunday and running the last Sunday of every month!

You can link up your organizing post OR you can link up your project via Pinterest! Don't miss it, it's coming soon!

Like what you see here? Consider becoming a follower or subscribe via email! Are you an Organized Reader? I'd love to see your organized space. Email me HERE and show me your space to possibly be featured as one of my Organized Readers.

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Keeping you charged!

2013-05-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

Once again, I'm teaming up with Office Depot, who is challenging me each month to come up with creative ways to use their office products! Secretly, I LOVE this challenge -- and I've got some really GREAT ideas brewing in my mind all the time, but this month I decided to do something pretty practical, simple, cheap, and easy! Isn't that what you want? Of course it is!

So, I organized my nightstand! What? Doesn't seem that exciting? Well, what makes it super fun and exciting is that I also added a charging station IN the top drawer of my nightstand.

Here is what my nightstand looked like before. It's not terrible. I have it pretty organized but recently got a mini Ipad that I now keep next to me and use as my alarm clock in my bedroom. So, the problem is that I want to charge it overnight but don't want to keep it on top of the nighstand {or night table you may call it} all the time. I'm sure many of you use your smart phones by your bed, also, to charge and use as an alarm clock, am I right?

So, how did I do it? How much did it cost? And was it hard? I got a 6 foot extension cord in brown, to match the inside and outside of my nightstand, and some Scotch reclosable fasteners. I only wound up using half of one pack, not two, but I have extras to do this to my husband's nightstand and other drawers if I want to later.

I used my drill - yep, I have my own drill - and used this drill bit to make a round hole the size that the plug could fit through.

It was super easy. I took the drawer out before I drilled this - so make sure you do that! It wasn't even that messy!

I took the extension cord - which is a three plug outlet - and I put the Scotch fasteners on the back. Easy, right?

And what do you get when you use some binder clips and pretty tape? You get organized cords inside your drawer.

I took them and clipped the specific cords for each device and color coded them. But, be careful not to actually pinch the cord. Just go around it like I have above using a large enough binder clip.

In the drawer it's great to have them to keep the cords from going all over, plus using the binder clips is quick and easy to unwrap them when you need to.

The rest of the drawers needed some organizing as well. I took this pretty box from Office Depot that has a beautiful pattern in it. Plus, what I really loved about it was that it had a divider that you could take out and divide however you need to.

Now my bottom drawer of my nightstand has become quite a mess. I use it to store any very special cards and things from my hubby and kids. Nice, huh? Even I have areas in my home that need improvement - there is just only so much time I can devote to this stuff and when I don't, it winds up like this.

So, here was my solution! I used these project cases to sort the cards.

I sorted the kids special cards to me and my Hubby's to me - using Post-It Notes. Now it's neat and organized and isn't making a big mess of things in that bottom drawer.

So, to answer my questions above. Was it easy? YES. The extension cord charging station took me 20 minutes to put together. Was it hard? No -- everything just took a little time to do. How much did it cost? The top drawer charging station was under $20. The other pieces - the box I used to divide and keep my things in the top drawer was also a steal! The bottom drawer project cases were really inexpensive, as well. Not bad, right? Do you have a drawer that would be perfect for a charging station?

{*I have been compensated by Office Depot, to come up with fabulous ways to organize things*}

Like what you see here? Consider becoming a follower or subscribe via email! Are you an Organized Reader? I'd love to see your organized space. Email me HERE and show me your space to possibly be featured as one of my Organized Readers.

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More green living: composting

2013-05-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to think we're trying to be the greenest family on the block! We've taken some steps to reuse and re-energize this home! We have solar panels, we have been using terry towels to cut down on paper towels, and now composting! Well, I wouldn't say we're the "greenest" but I like to try and re-use stuff cause I'm cheap and also cause it's senseless to always throw stuff out!

Take for instance throwing out all those fruit pieces and ends of stuff that you don't ever use - yard clippings, leaves, and more -- well, I feel like we are so much less wasteful now. Let me show you what we've done.

We bought a dual compost tumbler, just like {some affiliate links in this post} THIS ONE - we bought it at Costco, but I'm not sure if they still have them. My hubby is so good about putting things together, as you can see above. He lays out every piece first and looks over everything to make sure nothing is missing - smart man! How many times have you put something together and you're in the middle of it and it's missing a piece? That's why he does this!

Anyway, he put the whole thing together and we put it behind our shed area where we now keep all our trash cans - way in the back of the house. I KNOW that it's ideal to put it in a really warm/hot spot. But, honestly this is the best place for us and it gets pretty hot here in the summer so we're going to try and do this. There isn't another good spot in the sun - unless we want to look at it all the time - so we'll see how it goes! We're still newbies!

I also printed up this free printable I got HERE to keep the whole family "in the know" about what IS and what is NOT supposed to be composted. I made three printables and laminated them - one to keep on the back of the kitchen cupboard one to put out near the compost tumblers, and one to put in the shed.

We just began our composting process last month, so I'm hoping we'll start seeing some real stuff come this summer. It's working, though. I can see things changing and breaking down.

The compost pail I got on Zulilly a few weeks ago - it's so much cuter than using a plastic bag! I think I'm going to have to work on re-arranging and re-organizing under my kitchen sink to fit it under there, though instead of on the counter. But, for now I lined the bucket that fits inside of it with a plastic bag. Have you ever done composting? If you have, please leave any great tips you have! I'd love to know...I'll keep you posted as to how it's doing!

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