Getting organized: Scarves and Purses - Fast & Easy organizing solutions

After looking online for ways to store my ever-growing scarf collection,

I found different ways that scarves can be stored. 

I used to simply keep them in a basket, which resulted in me digging through it in order to find a scarf, resulting in a big mess every time.

I looked at neat ways, like hanging them on a curtain rod, or putting shower curtain rings on a hanger. But the first thing seemed too permanent, and take up too much space, while I worried that using curtain rings on a hanger would make them all shift to one side.

Then I realized I could just simply use a normal clothes hanger and loop the scarves through it.

Takes up hardly any space, and they are easy to find.

Voila, problem solved...

On to my next project: purses.

My purses had a similar problem, they were just piled in a basket.

I found these neat over-the-door hangers on Pinterest,

from an expensive store.

Neat, yes, but I wasn't willing to pay the price...

Until I happened to find the exact same product at Walmart, for way cheaper.

This is a non-permanent solution,

a strap with hooks attached, 

that clips right on the inside of your closet door.

Or outside, if you like to look at your purses ;)

Not exactly a great picture, the lighting in my closet is bad...

You can get a closer look at the product HERE.

(I don't get paid for this, but just like the product...)

There are 18 hooks, but I think it's impossible to use them all.

As my picture shows, I used it for 6 purses...that's about it.

Shared at Sugar Bee Crafts and I heart organizing.

Laundry sorting trick: Sock keepers

Sometimes there are simple things that make a job quite a bit easier.

This is one of them:

One of the things I strongly dislike about folding and sorting laundry, 

is matching socks and figure out who they belong to.

I would spend quite a bit of time holding up socks to see if they were the same length, 

and once I had paired them all, trying to figure out which child was the owner.

A few months ago I read about something that could help to eliminate this chore:

Give each child their own laundry bag, let them put their worn socks in it.

Then just wash the whole thing, throw it in the dryer like that,

and hand it back to them to be sorted. 

I used cheap laundry bags, and sewed a strip of patterned fabric along the zipper so that my girls would know which one belongs to them.

The result?

After 3 months of doing this

(yep, I am a slow blogger)

I have to say:

it works GREAT!

For them it's easy to put their worn socks in the bag every night,

and after laundry they just match up their socks and put it in their own drawer.

Should have done this YEARS ago!

Now, go make your own sock keepers :)

Shared at: Sugar Bee Crafts.

Bread Basket Condiment Carrier

 We like to eat outside a lot during the summer.

The thing I don't really like is running back and forth to the kitchen with all kind of stuff.

So today, as I was getting stuff ready to take outside,

I suddenly had an 'aha'-moment:

Why not put all our condiments in a bread basket?

This is an oval basket, and it worked great.

I'm probably not the first one to think of it,

but thought I'd share anyway...

Happy summer!

Weekly Planner Dry Erase Board - Tutorial

Just looking at my own blog during this first week of the 31 for 21 challenge, 

I realized something was sort of funny:

If you look at my blog and all these posts about Down syndrome,

it seems that it is the only thing I can think and talk about.

The reality?

It's not!

Mostly, we're just enjoying our little girl.

There are moments when we get reminded again that she has 

Down syndrome, but mostly, our life is just 'normal', 

whatever that is...

So to 'prove' that, here is another craft ;)

I needed something besides an ordinary calendar to keep track of my daughter's schedule. 

Since it would be hanging in our kitchen, I wanted it to be pretty, besides functional.

So I came up with this:

It's a dry erase board, that has her weekly schedule already printed on it, 
with things she needs to bring to school, and other things that happen every week.

I made sure I have plenty of room to fill out appointments, etc.

Now, every week, I can just add things that we need to remember that particular week.

Simple, but it works great.

Wanna make your own?

This is what you need:

* Picture frame

* Fabric, slightly larger than the glass in the frame

* Masking tape

* Cardstock (mine was just a standard 8.5x11), smaller than the glass in the frame

*Double sided tape

* A marker to write the schedule, or a computer and printer

1. Create the weekly schedule, by printing it or write it by hand.

Make sure you have enough room to write in extra things.

If you have more kids in school, you could make separate columns for each child, 
or even make a separate one for each child.

2. Take out the backing of the frame. 

3. Put the fabric on top of it, as if you were to frame it. 

4. Put some adhesive or double sided tape on the back of the schedule, and attach it to the center of the fabric.

5. Put the schedule and fabric, together with the backing of the frame, back in the frame.

(So it will be underneath the glass, that way you can write on the glass later.)

6. Fold over the extra fabric and stick it with masking tape to the back.

Not pretty, but who will see the back anyway?!

7. Grab a dry erase marker, and start using your new board!

And since this organizer thing (what do you call these?) is also hanging out in our kitchen, 
I might as well share it in this post, too...

I've had it for quite a while, but recently updated its look.

I gave it a fresh layer of spray paint and used some stencils to create this:

Since the cork board looked so plain, I stenciled part of that, too.

A fun, quick project, hardest thing for me was to wait till the spray paint was dry...

Shared at Blue Cricket Design.

Recipe Organizer

Don't know if anybody recognizes this kind of 'pile' in their kitchen. 

(I hope so, please tell me I am not the only one!)

Anyway, that is how my recipes have been 'organized' for years!

When I needed something, I would just dig through the papers till I found it.

But just recently, I couldn't stand this sight any longer.

So I decided to finally tackle it. 

I just took an old binder, made a simple cover from scrapbook paper, and put it in the transparent sleeves on the cover. Next, I put all my recipes in page protectors. The recipes that were smaller than a standard 8.5 by 11 I just glued on some white printer paper. Nothing complicated, but it looks SO much better!

Just wonder why this took me years :)

I linked up to I Heart Organizing.

Kids room toy organization solution: Picture Tags

Sometimes the mess in our playroom drives me up the wall.
Often, everything that is in the boxes pictured above is laying on the floor.

I have learned that kids like to dump boxes of toys on the floor.

I used to have a "theme" for things that belonged in every box,
but most of the time we end up just stuffing toys in the boxes,
just making sure they are not on the floor.

But that doesn't really help much, because next time when they are looking for something,
they end up dumping everything on the floor again.

So I got this idea, nothing genius, but hope it will work:
I labeled the boxes, so that they can see what belongs in there.
Not just that: we organized the boxes,
then I took a picture of the contents of the box.

I made tags using these pictures, so that my kids (who can't read yet)
can see what belongs in which box.

I uploaded the pictures to my computer,
and used Photoshop to add a nice background and titles.

I printed and cut the tags.
Then, I used clear packing tape to laminate the tags.
With a hole punch I made holes in the tags.

Then, I had my girls match the labels with the right box,
so that they would get the idea.

They did great!

We tied the tags to the boxes with ribbon.

And, now I hope I won't find all these toys on the floor anymore :)
So far, so good...

I linked up to: