Congratulations to Yvonne W., the winner of last week’s Recipe Nest! This week, we’re giving away a Purse Perfector!

The Purse Perfector is a handy organizing tool that helps you keep all your essentials in place and at hand, even if you switch between bags and cases throughout the day. With its two different-sized compartments that zip together and apart, “this patented, shape-shifting purse organizer contains all your daily items in sections, so you can find everything quickly and predictably” no matter what bag you’re using. This giveaway is valued at $52.95.

For more information about the Purse Perfector, or to buy one for yourself, check out their website!

To enter the contest, click below on “enter to win” and enter using your e-mail address or Facebook account. You can also leave a comment to this blog post or on our Facebook page! Entries must be received by 12:01 AM Eastern Time on Monday, May 21 (so that is a minute after mid-night Sunday night/Monday morning). Your e-mail address will not be used for any other purposes except notifying you if you are the winner. This giveaway is open to U.S. residents 18 years and older

Good luck!

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(Image from Pintrest.)

From In Style Magazine, 2011.

Straight up I’ll tell you The Good, The Bad, and The Realistic about Paula Abdul’s closet!

The Good

The first thing that I noticed in Paula’s closet was the fun way that she is displaying her sunglasses.  How fun is that?  Paula’s sunglasses are displayed as if you were shopping in a retail store.  They are super easy to browse through and pick out the perfect pair of shades in a few short seconds.

I also really like how Paula has her belts hanging at the end of the island.  This is an excellent choice as it is easy to see, easy to access, and is putting a space that is highly underutilized to work!  Bravo to that!

You can also see on Paula’s shoe shelves that there is either a thin bar or an acrylic piece that is keeping the shoes from sliding off the shelves.  This is a must when you have shelves that are tilted like Paula does!  The last thing you want is a pile of shoes on the floor!

The Bad

Although things are grouped together in their own spaces there is still a feeling of untidiness in this closet- for a dream closet that is.  Handbags are sticking out of cubby’s, straps from bags are hanging out, and the shoes are so crammed in that some have been tilted a little sideways.  As they would say on Paula’s former show American Idol, I am just offering minor areas where Paula could improve her closet.  Overall her closet is great, but adjusting these little things would truly take her closet to dream closet status.

The Reality

Paula has a lot of stuff!  In the photo you can see she has tons of belts, sunglasses, shoes, and handbags.  Like most people Paula would probably benefit from going through and purging some items from her closet.  Her closet still appears to be highly functional, but it is on the edge of heading downhill.  In situations like this I recommend going through the closet quickly and reassessing with these questions: What still fits? What do I love? What would I actually wear?  Bag up what you don’t want, love, or need and take it to a charity that makes you feel good about donating.

Overall, Paula’s closet is pretty nice and dreamy, there’s just a few things she could tweak to make it amazing just like she is!

This week, we’re giving away a Recipe Nest!

Congratulations to Debi C. who was the winner of last week’s Yummy Mummy Self Care Gift!

This weeks giveaway will include a White/Mosaic Recipe Nest (pictured above), which holds full-page printouts of your favorite recipes all in one place without having to punch holes, purchase plastic sheets, or copy the information on to cards. The Recipe Nest folds out in to an easel for easy reference while cooking. Additionally, you will receive 12 individual labels, 6 tabbed dividers (with blank labels for categories), and 2 cookbookmarks. This giveaway is valued at $28.95.

For more information about the Recipe Nest, or to buy one for yourself, check out their website!

To enter the contest, click below on “enter to win” and enter using your e-mail address or Facebook account. You can also leave a comment to this blog post or on our Facebook page! Entries must be received by 12:01 AM Eastern Time on Monday, May 14 (so that is a minute after mid-night Sunday night/Monday morning). Your e-mail address will not be used for any other purposes except notifying you if you are the winner. This giveaway is open to U.S. residents 18 years and older

Good luck!

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{Photo found on Pinterest}

One way to make a big impact in keeping your car look good is to keep the trash from piling up.  This is a fantastic idea to use a cereal box as a car trash can.  Use a small plastic grocery sack to make emptying the trash quick and mess free. I would suggest that you try using a few strips of hook and loop on the bottom and possibly the sides to keep this baby from sliding around.

{Photo from Red Envelope}

Trunks can get out of hand quickly with a wide variety of things.  Some that live in the car and some that just come along for the ride.  Keep all the items from rolling around the back of your car or SUV with a car trunk organizer like the one shown above.  It has dividers and includes a place for a little cooler!  You can also use it to keep your grocery bags from falling over and dumping your produce across the back of your car!  I hate that!  The organizer pictured above is from Red Envelope, but you could also use any large bin or tote.

{Photo from Rips in My Jeans}

One thing everyone should have in their car is a mini-emergency kit.  A little kit that has all those little things you might need while out and about, like: Band-aids, hand sanitizer, safety pins, hair tie, pen, paper, lip balm, hand lotion, etc.  Aunna from Rips in My Jeans shows us how she recycled a baby wipe container and turned it into a car kit.  Now you don’t have to feel stuck when the next mini emergency arise.  You will be prepared!

{Photo from Sew Many Ways}

I love this idea from Karen at Sew Many Ways!  She took  a plastic cup holder and  a tin can and turned  it into a craft caddy!  You could use this for long trips when you have a project you are working on or set one up for your kids with pens and markers!  There are tons of ways you could use this!  See Karen’s site for a tutorial on how to make this.

Happy car organizing!

]]> http://www.theposhspace.com/2012/05/organizing-the-car/feed/ 0 http://www.theposhspace.com/2012/05/quote-of-the-week-105/ http://www.theposhspace.com/2012/05/quote-of-the-week-105/#comments Mon, 07 May 2012 14:06:10 +0000 Angela http://www.theposhspace.com/?p=4195

(Purchase this ‘manifesto’ for yourself at the Smile Collective Shop.)

One more chance to get your shredding done this Spring!  There are two shred days coming up in the Austin area on May 19th!  So start gathering your paper and clean out those file cabinets now.

For more details, click the links below:

University Federal Credit Union:

10 AM to 2 PM (or until truck is full) at
UFCU N Guadalupe Financial Center
4611 Guadalupe St
Austin, TX 78751

City of Austin:

8 AM to 1:30 PM at
Austin High Parking Lot
1715 W. Ceasar Chavez
Austin, TX

Happy shredding!

I am jumping for joy!  My girl’s playroom makeover is FINALLY complete!  I never would have thought it would have taken five months to complete (December-April), but it did.  So why did it take FIVE months and what lessons did I learn?  Some projects you can knock out in one weekend or one week if that is all you do every day in this case, I was working on this on just the weekends which makes the progress slower.  Second, as I often tell my clients life happens and sometimes gets in the way of our plans.  In January we had some major changes happen in our household that changed our entire lifestyle as a result I took about six weeks off from the project.  Then slowly started working on it one little section at a time.

Let’s take a look!

BEFORE

Here’s where it all started.  When we moved into our house as with many people we were just using what we had.  Unfortunately what we had worked great in our other house but it did not work well at all in our new house.  The bookcase was WAY too small and there simply was not enough storage for all the girls toys.  I had some in the closet but the girls were not able to reach them so they would/could never put them back.  It was an organizers nightmare!

You can see more before pictures on my previous post in this series Organizing Stuffed Animals.

I gave serious thought to what we would need to make this space work.  I also asked my girls what was most important to them.  THIS was key.  I asked them what was their favorite thing to play with? Answer: Dress up clothes and Barbies!  I ended up devoting almost the entire closet to dress up clothes see my previous post: Playroom Makeover Part 4 – Dress Up.

So I gave lots of thought to taking the shelves high and getting the most out of our tall room and finding solutions that would grow with the girls.  Above you can see I have three Expedit shelves from IKEA.  If, I mean, when the girls decide they don’t want to share a room anymore the shelves can be split up.  But for now they gave me a great wide space at the top to put something large!

Here is what the full Expedit bookcases look like. On the second row from the bottom we have games, games, games, and puzzles.

On the bottom row we have a box with doll stuff, a  few random cars and toys, tea sets and play dishes, and a box full of play food.  You can see the boxes up close on my previous post Playroom Makeover Part 3 – Box Refresh.

On the right hand side the top three cubbies are Barbie stuff.  To the right of the bookcase you can’t see the top of the bright pink Barbie house!

We keep a folding stool in the playroom so the girls can reach those things on the upper shelves.

I love this stool because it just tucks out of the way and is not a trip hazard when it is not being used!

I added these paper lanterns from IKEA and made the pink paper flowers.  The lanterns give us a beautiful light at reading time at night!  I wish I could capture how magical it is!  My girls love it!

I am not going to lie to you, I hate to sew, but I can if needed.  So, I made the bed skirt, which was pretty easy since I just bought a white bed skirt and attached my fabric to the front of it.  Then I made these pillow shams, which I must admit turned out AMAZING!  I have NEVER made a pillow sham so I was OH SO proud of myself!  I found a few tutorials one from Cottage Magpie and another from eHow and used those along with looking at a sham that I had.

I am not kidding when I say this is how the Barbie house looks on a daily basis and I did NOT do this!  One of my sweet little ones insists that the table must be set for Barbie!  Too funny!

Finally, here is one of my sweet girls getting her lip gloss out of her bag, exactly where she put it and knew it would be!  In the poodle purse of course!  My girls have LOVED the new playroom.  Although I have been working on it for months now, the bookcase was actually up in time for Christmas so they have been using that system for about four months now and I will say it has made my life SO much easier!  They cleaned up the playroom the other day in about 7 minutes!  It’s amazing.  Now that things have a place to go AND the girls know where the things are supposed to go they can and DO put things away!

I hope this has inspired you.  Please let me know what you think about our playroom makeover!

]]> http://www.theposhspace.com/2012/05/playroom-makeover-part-6-final-reveal/feed/ 0 http://www.theposhspace.com/2012/05/win-it-wednesday-yummy-mummy-self-care-gift/ http://www.theposhspace.com/2012/05/win-it-wednesday-yummy-mummy-self-care-gift/#comments Wed, 02 May 2012 14:00:25 +0000 Angela http://www.theposhspace.com/?p=4175

Congratulations to the winner of last week’s Arc Notebook: Lizzy A.!

This week, we’re giving away a “Yummy Mummy Self-Care Gift” in honor of Mother’s Day later this month.

This giveaway will include:

• A copy of the beautifully illustrated, award-winning book The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-Balance Your Life from nationally recognized life balance expert Renee Peterson Trudeau.
• A free teleclass with Renee on The Transformative Power of Self-Care (meet Renee here).
• Your name entered into the drawing for the Yummy Mummy Year-of-Self-Care. (Winner will be announced by Renee on Mother’s Day.) This AMAZING Yummy Mummy Self Care Package is valued at $2,700.00!!!!  YOU are SO worth it!  Please be sure to enter below!

Please leave a comment below telling us “What does self care mean to you?”.

To enter the contest, click below on “enter to win” and enter using your e-mail address or Facebook account. You can also leave a comment to this blog post or on our Facebook page! Entries must be received by 12:01 AM Eastern Time on Monday, April 30th (so that is a minute after mid-night Sunday night/Monday morning). Your e-mail address will not be used for any other purposes except notifying you if you are the winner. This giveaway is open to U.S. residents 18 years and older

Good luck!

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May is National Good Car-Keeping Month so this month I will be bringing you some tips and ideas on how to get your car organized.  May is also the month of Mother’s Day so today’s post will be filled with ideas on how mom’s can keep their kiddo’s organized on the go.  After all, what mother wouldn’t want a more organized car?!

(Izze Portable Car Organizer idea from Real Simple.)

This is such a great idea!!!  I LOVE this!  Time and time again when my kids are getting out of the car and I remind them to pick up their trash or bring in their water bottle and they say they can’t because their hands are too full.  I love this idea from Real Simple because the kids can easily tote everything in and everything out.  Even better, if tote gets messy you can just recycle it or toss it out.

(Shower caddy fast food holder idea from Lookie What I Did.)

Another great idea!  Eating food on the go is a struggle even for many adults, so what a brilliant idea this is from Missy at Lookie What I Did.  Use a plastic caddy to hold you child’s (or your) lunch without anything falling on the floor. Then you can use the paper bag the food came in as a trash bag.

(Pattern and image from tinkerfrog.)

One of the biggest car clutter problems is trash!  The best way to solve this is by adding a trash bag within arms reach.  You can add a super cute trash bag like Tara did in the picture above or you can be old fashion with a super simple grocery bag.  Personally I like the little blue diaper sacks from Sassy. I keep a stash of those in my car and when the girls fill one up we just grab another one.

(From Martha Stewart.)

This idea from Martha Stewart is an excellent way to keep a lot of items organized, off the floor, and off the seats. If you have children under four I would be careful with this as I have found my little one’s arms cannot reach the back to the seat.  This is both frustrating to her and me as I’m trying to drive.  In my opinion a system like this would work best for a mom with a baby to keep extra diapers and supplies organized or for an older child.

(IKEA Flort as car organizer idea by The Odd Mom Out.)

Elizabeth from The Odd Mom Out transformed an IKEA Flort (remote control organizer) into an in car organizer for her kids!  I love this because it is so much easier for the kids to reach!  Big kudos Elizabeth!

There we have it five ideas to help get your organizing juices flowing and help you on your adventure to car organization!

Good luck!