What part of the house is NOT a Mess?

January 9, 2017January 8, 201710 Comments

Good morning! How are things in your neck of the woods? Our weather is pretty crazy right now with buckets of rain! We need it so badly, especially the snow in the mountains, so it is pretty wonderful!

Our house is still a complete disaster! Before we moved in, Steve had removed all the popcorn ceiling, but we hadn’t had time to do anything else. So now we had the ceiling textured. What a mess! Even though everything was covered with plastic, there is still dust everywhere! We have had everything primered now and the family room and dining room are done. There is still the living room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, the hallway, and the entry. Still a ways to go, but at least we are seeing progress. So since the house is still a mess, I had to find a project to be able to show you.

I knew I wanted to do something different with my spices, especially since I have so much more storage in this kitchen. This worked great when I didn’t have much storage space. I was able to see all my spices at once. I ordered these from Amazon. This is what I did before:

Organize Your Spices.

But I had seen this idea, and knew it would be perfect.

Here is the link to the original post I saw: How to Make a Spice Drawer Organizer

I am not going to add all the measurements, because every drawer is going to be a different size, but you can get the general idea from the pictures.We used 1/4 inch thick wood and cut 4 pieces the width of the drawer. We also made sure they were tall enough for the spice jars.

The risers were cut so that the spices could sit on them and the drawer would still open and shut.

The bottom of the jar is going to rest on the riser of the shelf in front of it.

Here is a side view so you can get a better idea of how it works. The jars in the back were a little bigger than the others., so the riser had to be shorter for that one.

I really love how this turned out! I have it right near the stove so I can reach for whatever spices I need. It also helps to keep track of what I already have or may need the next time I go to the store.

I hope your new year has been off to a good start! Thank you so much for following along on our new house adventure!

Here are a few other posts you might enjoy! Just click on the picture to be taken to the page.

Organizing my Jewelry Organizer!

August 26, 2016August 25, 20169 Comments

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a great week and you are preparing to have a wonderful, relaxing weekend.

Last weekend, I hosted a party for my friend Breanne who sells Premier Design Jewelry. If you don’t know anything about Premier Design, it is a Christian based direct sales company that helps women financially. They have some absolutely beautiful jewelry and it is totally worth the price.

And since I hosted a party, I will be getting a great deal on jewelry. I get a lot of jewelry for free! I am super excited to get all of my jewelry and give all of my friends jewelry as well. Hooray!

But, now that I have all of this jewelry, I need a way to organize it all. Breanne gave me a jewelry organizer to put all of my bling into. So, I laid all of my jewelry out to show you!

I have the Sugar Rush necklace.

The Trunk Show necklace.

Half of the Pick of the Litter earrings, Haley has the other half.

And two hostess bracelets since I hosted this party and will be hosting another one in November. I have a silver and a rose gold bracelet.

So, the jewelry fits in the organizer…to a point. The board that the earrings are on didn’t fit in one of the slots, and my Sugar Rush necklace became tangled…not fun to take apart and put back together.

So, my initial thought was to take my other jewelry organizer, which is completely full, and use it for my Premier Design stuff. Now that may seem like a lot more work (yes…it was) but in the end it was worth it.

Variety of Jewelry Earring and Bracelets

I then went through all of my jewelry and kept some jewelry and of course got rid of some stuff. But it was all good because now I can use the big organizer for all of my Premier jewelry.

This is what I’m Keeping

This is what I’m getting rid of

So this is all of my random jewelry in the new organizer.

And now that I have my new stuff, on the old organizer (confusing…yes). And I put labels for each item so I know what I have and what I don’t have.

So much nicer! And I don’t have to worry about my bigger pieces, like Sugar Rush, getting tangled up because they are hanging. Plus, I have plenty more room to add more pieces after I get my free jewelry!

Another Closet, Another Organization

May 6, 2016May 5, 201614 Comments

Everyone has a closet that is stuffed full of stuff where you can’t see what’s in there. You know, things like wrapping paper, clothes, suitcases, sheets, and other stuff.

No…just me. Okay.

Anyway. So in my apartment, I have a closet in my bedroom and a hall closet to put all of my stuff in. Now, this may seem like I have a lot of room to put stuff in and store everything. Unfortunately, I have so much stuff that this doesn’t really work out. Because this, is what my hall closet looks like.

There is so much stuff in this closet that I never want to open it because it isn’t clean. I don’t actually know what’s all in the closet, but it is a mess. I had everything from kitchen stuff I wasn’t using to a tool box to jeans because they didn’t fit in my closet or my dresser.

Step 1: Clear out everything in the closet. I literally pulled out everything that was in the closet and set it on the floor and the stairs so that I could see what I all had.

Look! It’s Empty!

Step 2: Find little things that can be stored in other things. So, I had extra sheets for my bed that I kept in the closet. I had my printer box that was still in the closet, so I was able to fit all of the sheets in the printer box to make more room for other items. I also put all of my gift and Christmas stuff (so gift bag, wrapping paper, a small Christmas tree, a tree topper, you get the point) into my big suitcase. It worked out perfectly!

Step 3: Fit everything on shelves about the same size. I put a few of the bigger items on the shelves that they were originally on. I kept the top shelf pretty much the same, printer box, movies, and a bag of craft stuff. I also kept the suitcases on the bottom shelf because they didn’t fit on other shelves. I did move some things, like me jeans, to the floor where there was more room.

Step 4: Put everything back in the closet. Now, it’s time to fit everything else on the shelves. Surprise! You may now be able to fit more stuff in the closet!

Step 5: Step back and admire how nice and neat your closet looks!

I am so happy that I took this apart and back together. It looks much cleaner and organized. I was actually able to place more things in the closet to make my bedroom a little cleaner. Now, if it can actually stay that way, that would be fantastic!

ONE WAY TO ORGANIZE YOUR SPICES

February 1, 2016February 2, 20169 Comments

Okay, I know it’s the first day of February and we are not in January anymore, but I am still doing some organizing around the house.

My spices have been driving me crazy! I had them all on a lazy susan, but I still could only find the spices that were on the outside. Then I tried lining them up, but since I couldn’t see them all, it ended up being a jumbled mess.

I had seen different ideas all over the internet, but they didn’t work out with my kitchen. I only have about 5 feet of counter on one side and 4 feet on the other, plus a microwave and a dish drainer take up some of that space. I only have 5 drawers in my kitchen, so I couldn’t use up one of them for the spices. I finally found these on Amazon. I am not affiliated with Amazon, but I love these. Here is the link if you want to order some. I ordered 2 sets to make sure I would have enough for all the jars.

Each rack holds 4 jars. There is sticky tape on the back plus a tiny screw to hold it on the door. I started out by figuring out where to line them up so the jars wouldn’t hit the shelf inside the cupboard when the door closed. I placed small jars in one row and then larger ones in the other row. This way there could be 2 rows and they would fit between the shelves.

Once I figured out how far apart they needed to be I stuck them on using the tape. I did end up putting the tiny screws on the end, especially for the racks holding the larger bottles.

My summer goal is to paint these cupboards, so I will have to take these down and hopefully they will stick again. The directions say to use heat to loosen the glue. I will probably try a blow dryer and see if that works.

So far, I love these! It’s so much easier to find the spice I need plus it cleared up space in my cupboard. A win/win! Have you been doing your January/February organizing and clean-up? I love to hear what you have been doing!

Addiction to Yarn Organization

January 29, 2016January 27, 201613 Comments

Everyone, I have a confession to make. Now, it may come as a surprise, but I have an addiction. I know, I know…shocking. But, it has finally come time to admit to my addiction.

I am addicted to buying yarn.

I know! I know! It’s horrible. But, it is time to come clean and admit to my mistake.

But, I like the feeling of knitting a scarf and finishing it and feeling good about it. Feeling a sense of accomplishment and pride as I have a scarf finished.

But it has come to this.

It has become very disorganized to the point where I didn’t know which scarves are done and what type of yarn it is. The scarves were becoming tangled together and I wasn’t too happy with it.

I also kept all of the tags from the yarn and just kept them in a bag. Unfortunately, it was hard to know which brand and color belong to which yarn when they are all just laying in a pile.

Also, you know the Banksy box that I have with all of my extra yarn? Yeah…the zipper is breaking…

So, I got started by using this crate that I made at the Do It Herself workshop at Home Depot. It should probably be used as a wine crate or something more useful, but I decided that it is perfect for yarn. Here is the before I fill it with yarn.

And here it is the after I have filled it with yarn.

Much more organized than the yarn just hanging out in the plastic tote. I can now see what yarn I have and what brand and style it is. It’s so perfect!

I also decided to create a yarn book. I wrote down all the brands, style, and color of each yarn. I also cut a small piece of each yarn so that way I knew which yarn went with each brand. So, here is my yarn book!

It is so perfect. I can now see what I have and which yarns I have knitted into scarves. Hooray!

I also took all of my scarves and put their tags with them. I had to go back and look up some of the names to see if I could find which color went with which style. But in the end, I was able to put them back in the plastic tote to store them.

And not only are they organize, but the box is now labeled as well.

So now it is all organized!

It looks so much better! I am so happy with how this got so organized and how it looks. I now know where all my yarn is and what scarves are done. Hooray!

Well…I am so glad that I was able to open up about my addiction. Now, how many people think I should be on ‘My Strange Addiction’?