Even In My Sleep

This past week I've been organizing in every spare moment that I have. I'm even having dreams about it. Ha ha. Last night I had a dream that I walked into a closet that I had forgotten we had and there were tons of baby clothes in there. I was relieved when I woke up because I spent all day last Saturday going through every last bit of Boston's clothing from 0-3 years. I got rid of a bunch of stuff that I'm not sure why I kept because it had stains, and I separated the Winter and Summer clothes. We bought some of those Vacuum bags where you suck the air out and it condenses the clothes down so we could get two bins worth of clothes into one bin. 

I've been telling my mom and sisters about my organizing project and I told them I'd post some pictures. I'm still not done, but here's some of the stuff I've been doing. 

This was our DVD cabinet BEFORE:

There's two vertical stacks of DVD's so you can't even see all of them when you open the cabinet. If you want to watch one in the back, you have to move the front stack. Lame. It was definitely time to fix that.

I found some cute storage boxes for $10 at a store near my house called Tuesday Morning. It's sort of like a Ross or Marshall's. They have some really cute house stuff there. 

Now when we want to watch a movie we can pull out a box and see all of them at once. No more shifting stuff around. 

I put a couple more boxes in the storage cabinet that are full of DVD's as well. I left the Disney movies out for now because we watch those the most, and because $10 per box starts to add up.

I didn't take a before picture of this cupboard, but I bought that cleaning supply tote at Target, and that blue box for the cleaning rags at Walmart. I bought a ton of those blue boxes because they are only $1 at Walmart. They have them in a few different colors too, so I also bought some in clear. 

I used those $1 Walmart boxes to organize some of Boston's toys too. The flatter boxes were more than a $1, but I can't remember how much they were. I have all the receipts from this organizing project saved though, and I'll post everything we bought and how much it was when I'm done. I can't believe how fast all these organizing supplies add up, but it's so worth it to me. 

 After we added some more shelves to Boston's closet and took Scott's suits out of there, I actually had room to hang all of Boston's shirts up, and now his dresser has some free space for toy storage. I'm waiting on some different sized bins for Boston's baby clothes, so I'm not done with his closet yet, but I'll post pictures once I get the bins and finish his closet. 

I saw this idea for puzzle storage on Pinterest. I used to try to keep this puzzle stored in a horizontal position with all the letters in it. That wasn't working very well. The letters were always falling out. Now I can store it vertically in a container and the letters won't fall out. 

I finally added some real sock and underwear organizers to Boston's dresser. I was using a little shoe box for his socks before, but it was starting to overflow. 

Scott finally said good-bye to his mission shoes. After wearing these for NINE years, it was more like saying good-bye to a best friend. That's why we made sure to take some pictures. :) 

Good-bye trusty Ecco's. Lots of amazing memories were walked in your soles. :) 

I got rid of an old friend too. I've had this jewelry box since I was probably about 16. I had zero attachement to it, I just hadn't gotten around to replacing it. I was actually really excited to ship that thing off to Goodwill. I've been trying to keep my not so little earring collection in this little thing. I should have taken a before picture with all my earrings in here, but I was too excited to get them organized and I forgot. 

Now I keep my earrings in ice cube trays. My friend Stacie saw this idea on HGTV and shared it with me. It's awesome. I love it. Who needs a fancy jewelry box when you can have $3 ice cube trays? 

I've made several trips to Goodwill to donate stuff this past week, so why can't I get rid of some bags? I have too many, but for some reason I don't want to get rid of any. I went through this pile about 3 times and only managed to get rid of two tiny bags. I just think they might come in handy someday. Someone talk some sense into me. How many should I keep? 

Not only do I have more big bags than I need, but I have more little make-up bags than I need too. I always buy my make-up during the Clinique bonus time when they give you a free make-up bag filled with free make-up. I've been doing this since high school. 

Hence why I also have more make-up than I'll probably ever be able to use in my entire life span.

Here's a BEFORE picture of my old make-up drawer:

I can't throw away perfectly good make-up, so I just did a better job at hoarding, I mean organizing it.

Here's an AFTER picture of the make-up drawer:


I put the make-up that I use on a regular basis in the green bag, and then I separated all the extra stuff into different make-up bags. I used to have a variety of make-up in the different bags, but now all the eye shadows etc. are in the same bag.



I'm saving all the make-up bags as well in one of those clear Walmart boxes because I always seem to find a use for them. Like this little one for nail clippers.

Anyone need some chapstick? This was an un-intended collection, but it was an easy one to get rid of. 

Here's a BEFORE picture of my travel size supplies/hair stuff/lotion drawer:

Yikes. Too much stuff. 

I got rid of a bunch of travel size stuff that I didn't need and condensed it down to one bin. I also had hand lotion bottles in lots of random places, but now they're in one bin too. 

My hair stuff and lotion are in a basket under the sink now. 

So now you know I'm a bag, chapstick, make-up, and lotion hoarder. I don't mean to collect all these things, it just happens. Guess what else I (used to) collect?  

Receipts. I like to keep receipts for a little while just in case I want to return something, but that turned into an entire shoe box of receipts after a few years of forgetting to sort through them and throw them away. I'm pretty sure I won't need to return those jeans I bought an entire year ago. I went through all these receipts and ended up keeping about 10 of them. 

I made a file folder for all our important papers and receipts. I used to have these papers in separate folders, but I like having them all in one folder now. My new rule is that I have to go through this every month and throw anything away that I don't need anymore. 

I bought some little sticky hooks at the dollar store and they've come in handy a few different times. I hung our calendar inside our cupboard door so I could have de-clutter the fridge. Since our kitchen is so tiny, I wanted to have the fridge empty.

De-cluttered fridge. No more stuff on the top or sides, except for the side you can't see. That's where I put our magnets and a few papers. 

We've added a few of these clear drawers to our collection as well. These are in our bedroom closet that i'm still working on. The skinny drawers are perfect for socks (We don't have room for a big dresser in our bedroom). I was pretty excited when I got the skinny drawers for only $5 each at Walmart. I didn't even know they were on sale until they rung up at the register. Don't you love when that happens? When they rung up for $5, I walked right back and grabbed a couple more. I thought they were $14 when I first picked them up. I put another one of the skinny drawers in one of our our bathroom cupboards to store my running stuff. I still need to take a picture of it. I also put one in Boston's closet. 

Another little organizing thing that I love is this drawer liner. You buy it in a roll and you can line your drawers and cupboards with it to stuff doesn't slide around when you open the drawer. 

Just in case you're still reading this and you're bored to death of all my organizing blabbing, here's a few things that might make you laugh. 

I found this pregnancy journal from when I was pregnant with Boston and I was flipping through the pages and came upon a page that made me laugh. 

I guess I was having one of those days when I filled out my journal this day. Ha ha. 

And here's a more upbeat journal entry. I thought the second response was kind of funny. "Better- I ran and cleaned instead of slept." Ha ha. 

Another bit of humor for you. When I pulled back Boston's curtains this afternoon, this is what I saw:

After I had a heart attack and threw Boston's toy hammer at it, I realized it was a toy. This toy is now in the garbage where it belongs. :) I don't want to have another panic attack the next time this toy pops up somewhere. I was so freaked out that I didn't even want to touch it after I realized it was a toy. I scooped it up with his toy wrench and threw it away.