Planning binder

I started with an old black textured binder.
The binder has a cookbook put together by a Portland area church in the mid to late 70's, while I love vintage recipes I need the binder more, so the recipes moved to a box with a binder clip securing them and the binder began the process of being re-purposed.   I love the 1/2 size binders so projects like this one. Avery has come out with a line of 1/2 sized binders in various colors and clear overlays to insert you own decorations. Fun yes, but right now I was trying to spending as little as possible on the project.

  I added 2 sample painter testers in the perfect colors.  Thanks to a recent coupon specific to Walmart I was able to pick up these paint testers for $.84 each after the coupon. These are great because they have a built in brush.  I know this is not the intended use for these but you can beat the price and the having a built in brush makes them easy to use for just about any project I want to do.

Since my mission was to spend as little as possible on this project I searched my scrapbook paper stash and pulled out 4 sheets of cardstock to fold and create pocket dividers to hold brochures, notes, etc.. I have a heavy duty old school 3 hold punch designed for the 1/2 size binders so making these was super easy. I started with a 12 x 12 piece. Folded up the bottom to create the pocket (about 3 3/4 inches) then folded the piece in half creating a piece 8 1/4 x 6. I trimmed off the edge to be sure it wasn't wider than 5 1/2  and hold punched the open edge of the paper.  Super easy and can be as plain or decorative as the paper you have... The pictured piece happens to be a piece from my Creative Memories stash. The other 2 pockets in the binder are basic Basil colors of textured cardstock.

A couple of weeks ago I scored 2 packages of monthly divider tabs at my local Staples. On clearance each pack was only $.50. They are plain white which for this project is fine..  The second package went into my son's school planner and he decorated each month with some funky hip hop stickers we scored on the same shopping trip.  Also remember to check the clearance aisle at your favorite stores. I have scored some awesome deals lately.


I printed a blog planner calendar for July (I started this project in time for the Ultimate Blogging Challenge this month) through December 2011. (I'm thinking of just a basic weekly planner pages for 2012).

I included some blank pages for sketching and doodling on as well as some ruled paper to take notes one, jot ideas, and outline articles.

Clutter Rehab Toys and...

Today Mike had a car to deliver to a customer so he took Nathan with him and left Cameron with Mommy.. We went to work on the Living Room, cleaning up and purging toys we have grown out of ; namely the Duplo Blocks/ Mega Blocks. They are happily in a Rubber-maid Storage Tote in preparation of listing on Craigslist or something similar.

I also moved their Lego Blocks into a Steralite 3 drawer container and set it next to the couch just out of the line of site of the room, but still accessible.  The top makes a great building surface for just one child... Cameron tried it out and decided it was a good height to stand up and build..



 




Next I decided to move an empty game table drawer set out of the room. It was holding up a speaker for the television so I needed a replacement for that job. The speaker's mate is setting on the sub-woofer (all black) so I re-purposed the Duplo bin covering it in black fabric to match the sub and the speakers now match. (no cost involved and stores the bin for later use...) I will most likely move it our the chair slightly as it should be centered in the space, but I'm pretty happy with it..   The next step is to either get an antenna or fix the homemade one that is laying on the floor (hence the black cables hanging out of the front of the shelf.)

Back to organizing, I'm going to sort some of the ATC and Art Journal supplies into the game table drawers to clean up the front entry but still be able to create with the boys in the space. I pulled some fun pages from magazines today in the clean up / recycling efforts so I have lots of pieces to use for ATCs and Art Journal pages.  I will post the Art Journal pages for swap-bot later tonight.

Clutter Rehab: Boys' Bedroom

My husband has hopped on board the clutter rehab wagon and jumped in to help with the boys' bedroom this weekend. Actually he did most of the work.
We purged toys, we sorted and purged clothes (if it is too big it has a box in the top of the closet), we hung dress shirts, we moved Lego and game pieces out of the bedroom, and finally we pulled almost all of the Fisher Price Little People out of the bedroom and bagged them up for donation. I let the boys keep the castle and woodsman's piece as they have a lot of Playmobil Knights and no castle for the knights. I am going to continue purging as I catch up on the laundry, but it sure looks good...
We limited the boys to a couple of small blankets each and collected up the remaining to be donated as well... I am hoping this will also help them realize that even when things seem tight and they don't get what they want, we are still blessed to have so much.

Clutter Rehab: necklaces

While reading "clutter Rehab" I was happy to find the suggestion for necklace/ jewelry organization, it was one similar to what I had recently done. In the book Laura suggests making one, well I bought a tie organizer thing at Wal-Mart. It only had 6  hooks but fits perfectly on the side of the cupboard near my sink.  I alternated chunky necklaces with think delicate ones... Funny thing is I hardly wear them, but they do look pretty on the wall..

Clutter Rehab: The Christmas Decor

I took down the tree and was content to just put the ornaments in the garage cupboard until I realized they would not fit in the box I had planned for them. That started a purge and reorganization of the Christmas shelf. My husband purchased speakers for a project build recently and still had all the boxes. See how all the smaller boxes fit in the heavy duty shipping box made us both think of using them for the ornaments. 20 minutes later all 3 of the boys were cutting and building divider boxes for ornaments, while they did that I worked on sorting and purging for broken ornaments (a long sad story, but I now know ornaments should not be stored in Steralite drawers.). The boys brought me the divider boxes and I started putting ornaments in... I now have a box of black ornaments, a box of red ornaments, and 2 boxes of gold ornaments. The burgundy ornaments remained in their own box and the coca-cola ornaments are still in their previous box. Everything is put on one shelf. I still have 3 smaller boxes to sort (handmade ornaments and sentimental ornaments from growing up) but it got too cold in the garage to work on it anymore.  I am happy with the results so far and will continue on my clutter rehab journey... This afternoon I am working on a pile in my office.

Clutter Rehab part 1

I was given a copy of Clutter Rehab by Laura Wittman to read and review on Amazon and am starting the journey and sharing with you all.
101 tips to concur clutter. I'm all over that.. My life is chaos and clutter all rolled into one. So I read through the book and realized we were already doing some of the things and a few of the things we weren't doing could be easily implemented to make life easier. The first thing we decided to try was the laundry baskets. I had each of the boys put their laundry in a basket and bring it into the laundry room. I will be giving each of them their own basket but wanted to start now and not wait to find color coordinated baskets (that is another idea from the book, color coordinate the kids. We already do this for school why not for household stuff too). Any way the boys each brought in their baskets. C started and put his laundry in the washer, about 30 minutes later I had N bring in his basket and switched the laundry. There is something about knowing the load in the dryer belongs to one person, makes the idea of folding and putting it away less daunting.  So the second load is in the dryer and should be done shortly.  I also don't sort except for reds (I did a red load earlier today because red no matter how old it seems always seems to bleed into something else..).
        So our next step will be to finish the color coordinating of the kids. C is blue and N is green so I will be getting a green set of bath towels and a blue wash clothe (We already have blue bath towels) and will also be watching for colored baskets or bins for laundry, something small enough for them to handle but large enough to make a load.
       I also liked the idea of limiting bedding to 2 sheet sets per person. I am going to purge the linen closet in our bathroom tomorrow and keep 4 sets (I like the jersey knit and M likes the plain cotton but will put up with the knit once in a while). As for the boys, I will make sure we have at least 2 fitted sheets per twin bed. I'm also going to try and limit the number of blankets each of the boys has to 3 not including their comforters.    
     There are so many great ideas in this little book that I decided to put post-it notes on my favorites and blog as we implement them..

Happy New Year and Happy de-cluttering.

Paper Crafting, Scrapbooking, Etc...

I am currently purging my office... This is a project I have attempted and failed at so many times I've officially lost count. So far, I have managed to recycle, burn , or throw out 4 banker's boxes full of stuff. I'm working on 2 more boxes before the end of the day. Tomorrow's focus will be sorting to donate to our homeschool co-op as well as the boys' youth group and maybe the church's children's department.  I've decided to focus my supplies on papers that I WILL use on scrapbook layouts, stickers that the boys and I WILL use for either school or picture art, Vintage bits and pieces that will work for ATCs and finally things that will inspire me. If it doesn't fit into one of those categories then it is out of here... I need this space to inspire creativity and a sense of peace. I hope to have pretty things out where I can see them instead of crammed in boxes hiding.  So far, I am feeling better about this attempt then I have in the past so that should keep me going.