20+ Tips for a More Organized Life and the Weekly Block Party Link-Up

There is something about the New Year and the craziness of the holidays that make me want to get rid of 1/2 of my stuff and organize the other 1/2!  I have been decluttering and organizing like crazy this month and I'm sure that I can't be the only one.  If you have organization on the brain, then check out these 20+ that will make your life more organized! 

Tips and Tricks for a $0 Kitchen Makeover

A lot of us are thinking about getting more organized.  After all the extra clutter of Christmas decorations we're all craving a more organized house.  I hope you'll like some of the little tips and tricks I came up with...but first I wanted to give you the punchline...

...Take a good hard look at how you're using your space in your biggest problem area.  You might not need to buy anything to create more space if you just use the space you have in a better way.

Last week I cleaned my kitchen...really cleaned it...so much so that seriously this qualifies as a kitchen make-over, even though nothing new was installed, painted, nailed, etc.  Our kitchen has never looked this good since the day we moved in.

I have never been an impeccable house keeper...and with three kids running around the house and a tiny kitchen...well it's not always pretty.

To our kitchen's credit though...for a tiny kitchen it really does have a lot of storage and is pretty well designed.  Hubby's parents gave us a new mixer for Christmas, so I knew we had to make room for it...

but where...


...when our kitchen counters look like this...

Some days our counters look better than this...some days they look worse.

Sadly, I didn't even take a "BEFORE" picture of the most transformed corner because I didn't intend on doing anything with it when I started rearranging things.

Something had to give...because I really wanted to use that mixer (which I've still be too scared to use...but I think I might go back some bread when I'm finished writing this post.)

So here's a little of what I did...

Something to Put your Felt Food In

My kids are still having fun with all the felt food I made Firecracker for her birthday.  As anyone who knows young kids could have predicted, though, all that felt food can get scattered about and make quite a mess at times.  Ditto for the puppets I made to go with their puppet theater. 

It was time to do something about it!

I know I'm hardly the first person to slap some scrapbook paper on a can with Mod Podge to pretty it up. It's a super simple upcycle project to keep things more organized and save some cans from the landfill.

5 Minute Underwear Organizer

So I know it happens to all of us...we click on a promising sounding title or link and get to the blog and it's a less than brilliant idea.  You may be having one of these moments right now...but this was free, took about 5 minutes, and Firecracker LOVES it!

We got these cute jeans as hand-me-downs for Firecracker.  Don't you love the little hearts on the pockets?! 

Well, sometimes looks are deceiving.  The problem with these is that that they are shaped a bit wrong and the elastic was worn out, so they would NEVER stay up.  I didn't get around to adding new elastic in them and they ended up in the hand-me-down trade for my niece.  When I saw her wearing them, they were falling off her too, so when they came back to our house, I thought, "ENOUGH!"  I could have added new elastic, but they're too small for Firecracker and Sweet Pea won't fit in them for a couple more years.  So this is what I did with them...

Started by sewing a seam to seal off the legs.

I had to sew a bit of another to also seal off the inner-leg part because it was a funny shape.

Then turn it right side out and put the underwear in.

Then tuck it in your daughter's dresser drawer next to the shoe box with her socks.

Several days later...it's still keeping her underwear in one place in her drawer...SUCCESS!  Boy has a pair of pants that could use a similar treatment...

Do you have your own Hand-Me-Down REHAB or other frugal project to share? 

Grab a button for your blog post or sidebar and link up!

I'll be highlighting more projects soon!  And the left over denim from making these just might turn into some super sweet knee patches...and some of them might be part of my very first giveaway...

<center><a href=" http://helpinglittlehands.blogspot.com/search/label/Hand-Me-Down%20REHAB"><img border="1" src="http://i881.photobucket.com/albums/ac20/HelpingLittleHands/Hand-Me-DownRehabsmallbutton.jpg"/></a></center>I'm linking to:

You'll have to excuse the mess...

...while I remodel my blog.

Have any of you checked out my sister Katie's blog lately?  It's looking oh, so sleek...

It got me to thinking that my blog could use an update.

I saw a link on Camp Slop a while ago to a tutorial for making a three column blog that I've been wanting to try.  It was a rough day substitute teaching, so I decided to have some fun tinkering with my blog code, but as you can see, there is some tinkering to do.

Let me know if you have trouble seeing anything on the blog or if it is too wide for your screen.  Also let me know if you think it's too busy...I could also go back to one sidebar, but a much wider main writing area.

"Braided" Paper Organizer Tutorial

As long as you have some manila folders around, you shouldn't have to go out and buy anything for this.

As seen in the pics in the last post, our desk was in sore need of being cleaned off and organized. When I finally did it, I realized just how long it had been since I'd gone through and thoroughly cleaned off the whole thing. I've had these paper organizers on the desk that tend to eat papers. I put papers in them and they get forgotten about for a year...or more...seriously. Out of sight, out of mind definitely applies for me and paper work. Since we're getting ready to move in a couple months, there's a lot of paperwork we're working on with applying for jobs and things. Therefore, it's important to keep them organized and the process moving. I was trying to come up with a way that I could keep them visible, organized, and not all over the desk...because all over the desk quickly becomes disorganized and not visible because they get covered with stuff. Plus they don't make desks big enough for all the piles I would need to make...and if they did it wouldn't fit into our apartment, nor would we be able to afford it.

So here's what I came up with. It's not exactly braided, but I thought it kind of looked like it and when Hubby saw me working on it, it said it looked like a braid...so here it is after trying a few things:

Materials: Manila folders, stapler and staples, mailing tape, regular tape, scissors or other way of cutting, (ruler or straight edge optional)

1. I started by using my quilting ruler to make a straight line. It's not totally necessary that it be straight. In fact, I was thinking it might be cool to have kind of wavy lines, but I went simple for my first one.


2. Cut just the top along the line you drew. (I realized after the first few folders, that it really would have been better to cut the back rather than the front, so those lines along the left side wouldn't show...but it's not a big deal and I didn't want to start over.) After you cut, it should look like this if you open it up. Also, cut off the tab that would have the label.
3. Close it again, and staple the bottom about 1 1/2-2 inches up from the bottom. Then you'll want to cover the fronts of the staples with scotch tape, so that it's easier for the papers in the next compartment to slide over them.
4. Do the same thing to another folder, but make sure it's facing the opposite direction. Staple this folder an inch or so from the bottom, like you did with the last one. Cover the staples with scotch tape.


5. Line up folder #2, so that the back of the folder goes behind the first one, and the front flap goes over the first one. You'll want to make sure that it's off-set by about 1/2 an inch or so. If it's pushed all the way up next to the first one, the slots for the papers are too tight and the papers won't slide in them well.


6. Once you have them placed where you want them, carefully turn these two folders over so that they don't move. Tape it at the top and sides with mailing tape.


7. Repeat these steps for adding more folders to your "braid," although you won't need to offset the folders each time...just at the beginning. At each folder, you'll want to make sure to staple the bottom and put tape over it.


8. For the last pocket, you'll use two folders instead of one folder per pocket like it's been so far. The first of these folders you'll do going the same direction, as the previous pocket as shown here.


9. Staple this one at the bottom too, but don't tape it on the back until you've added another one to the other side and you can see how they're going to meet. Most of this folder will not be visible, because it will be covered by the final one.


10. Cut one last folder for the other side. Adust these last two folders, so that they both end at the same place. I trimmed the back folder just a bit, so they would line up evenly. You can see in the picture that the second to last folder added just shows a little bit. Once you have things lined up where you want them, you can tape up the back and tape up where they meet on the front and tape up the bottom if you want, although taping the bottom is not necessary.
11. When you're finished you have something that looks like this:
12. And with papers in it, it looks like this:

I just have this standing on it's own, leaning against the cabinet, since I didn't want to put any nails or tacks into the side of the cabinet. The attractive Costa Rican mail sorter my sister gave me as a gift if doing a nice job of keeping it from slipping on the desk or falling between the desk and cabinet. There are quite a few ways you could attach this to a door or fridge. If this set-up doesn't work long term, my original plan was to attach it to a couple of ribbons going over the top of the cabinet and secured out of sight.

There are quite a few options for making this cuter, but I had all this stuff on hand. If I end up loving this long term, then it would be worth either going and buying colored file folders or covering with scrapbook paper and making it look all cutsie.