Mission Organization: Gift Journal

This year, I hope to make gift giving even more joyous by keeping things a bit more, ahem, organized. Last week I began a gift journal. I found a small journal that fits in the pocket of my purse for easy carrying and reference. I began by listing the gifts I gave for Christmas last year. This might seem a bit odd, but if you had spent an evening agonizing over whether or not you had already given someone the gift you had in mind (and yes, I have accidentally given someone the same gift twice, realizing my error during a deja vu moment watching her open it the second time around), it might sound more like a solution than crazy talk. The following pages included a list of birthdays to remember (written down in chronological order for quick monthly reference as to who I need a gift for that month); pages of gift ideas listing a specific person, occasion, and potential gift; and lists of gifts I already have (whether they have a recipient in mind or not).

There are blank pages to spare, pages I plan to fill with sketches of gifts I hope to create this year and lists of materials needed to make said gifts. It's a little thing, stashed with me as I go about my typical errands, just in case something strikes me when I'm out (or I need to remember who I might need to grab a gift for). I'm not promising that all of my gifts will be given or finished on time this year (I didn't wake up on New Year's Day to find I'd been reincarnated as a punctual, together woman with an impeccably sheered bob, manicured nails, the perfect trench and a Filofax tucked under my arm - although, I wouldn't mind the trench). But, it might be one more step in a direction toward a simpler 2011.

Ah, That's Better...

You may remember a paint job I started in March. That fresh coat was the first step in a plan to reorganize a little space we use daily: the coat closet. Somewhere there is a before picture, but I can't seem to find it, so we'll just skip to the after shots, which were not taken during the best time of day for lighting in this space. But, sometimes, you have to let the lighting go and enjoy your "ah, that's better moment" before a toddler takes a marker to your wall or some other such incident and the moment has passed. So without further adieu, or marker fiascoes, welcome to our new closet.



My concept was simple: make it functional, make it organized, make it helpful in streamlining our day, and if possible, make it pretty. Oh, and make it as inexpensive as possible. Following the paint job, I brought in items to organize: a bin for each family member to house hats, gloves, scarves - basically any small out-the-door items; a shoe rack for frequently worn shoes to be dropped as we come in the door (behind the door with Audrey's backpack is our garage door); a canister for umbrellas; and a large basket for blankets (this closet is about ten steps from our family room where blankets for cuddling or building forts are a necessity).




Next, I maximized space and strove for a little more closet-bang-for-your-buck. I wanted to add hooks to the doors, but was afraid of actually drilling holes in the doors. I ended up using Command adhesive hooks (they're removable) in different sizes, depending on the items I wanted to hang. On one door is a large hook for cloth shopping bags and two smaller hooks that will eventually be Nathan's, but for now will be used to hold bags like Audrey's swim bag. I can pack it the night before with her suit, goggles, towel, etc. and simply grab it as we head out the door for swim lessons. The other door has two hooks on Audrey's level, which she uses to hang up her in-season coats and her backpack. I had originally thought it would be fantastic to have a bulletin board hanging above these hooks to tack those shopping lists, permission slips, and things I always find myself searching the desktop for as I'm trying to scoot everyone out the door. But, I wasn't sure how to do that without drilling a couple holes. My solution: more hooks and a couple strands of clear twine. Clothespins make it easy to hang those lists and the hooks do double-duty to hold keys (I attached some velcro to a piece of ribbon this morning to make an easy key "wristlet").





Just to add a little whimsy (they are really misshapen and a bit awkward, but let's call it whimsy) and a bit more organization, I made a tag for each bin. These were made from scrap fabric and stenciled using freezer paper (I feel like I've shown snippets of them from time to time on here as I worked on them). Of course, like most of my best ideas they were stolen. You can find my inspiration here. Now there is no confusion over whose bin is whose. Audrey's is kept on the shoe rack so she can grab things and return them herself. Of course, being in her reach, it also contains some items that may or may not be deemed out-the-door necessities.

There you have it, a more organized closet that doesn't have me stepping back for my own safety when I open the doors. One that's helping us to get out the door just a bit quicker these days. Most of the purchased items were found on sale. The hooks that weren't I used a gift card for and the container for the umbrellas I found for $10. But, sometimes, you can't put a price tag on the peace of mind gained from an organized space. Ahhh...now, just don't open my kitchen cabinets.

The Should Have List

I'm not big on regrets. Trust me, I have them; I'm just not a fan of mulling them over. Today, however, I optimistically began a Should Have list. More often than not, I'm a bit slow on the uptake. It's not that I don't strive to keep up with all duties/hobbies regarding my home and family. It's just, well...sometimes, I don't think about what those duties are or forget them until the moment (or planting season, whichever the case may be) has passed me by. Sometimes, I receive the life-changing tip after the life-changing event. Hence, the Should Have list - for all the things I should have done this year and hope to remember next year.

This list began simply enough. I asked Audrey if she wanted to get the mail. (I give her about a two-minutes lead before heading out the door, myself). As she stalled by the tulips, I took a gander at the front landscaping, a little awed by all the new green that's just sprouted up in the past few days. That's when I noticed the growing-without-abandon rosebush looked a bit snacked on. Which, is when I remembered the rose spray sitting, untouched from last year, in the garage. Which, is when I began the Should Have List. I took out the calendar, flipped to April, and scribbled "should have: begun spraying roses." (Next, I instantly turned to a month in fall and wrote "should have: planted more tulips. In bunches!") The plan is, come time to fill out next year's calendar, I take this year's notes and rewrite them on the headers of next year's months. Instant reminder. I should have done this last year.

A Little Project Preparation...

Here's to freezer paper, x-acto knives, late night thoughts of a hot cinnamon-scented bowl of oatmeal, and those tempting projects that just won't let you go to bed - yet.

A Fresh Coat for Coats

Do you have lingering projects? Say, you start painting your kitchen New Years of 2009. You remind yourself to not forget to paint the teeny space under the built-in desk. In the wee hours of the morning, due to things you can't remember (fatigue, perhaps) you decide not to pull the refrigerator out to paint the wall behind it. By this time, you've totally forgotten that you've forgotten not to forget to paint under the desk. Come another day, and a clearer mind, you realize your mistake. You think, it's just the space under the desk and behind the fridge, it will take only a moment - some other day (after all, you can barely see it). Fifteen months pass. Yes, months! You would plead the baby, but there are those pesky three months pre-pregnancy or baby that you can't really spin. Never happens to you, you say? Hmm...me, neither (holding my nose in case it spontaneously doubles in size).

As much as I'd like to tell you that after fifteen months I just couldn't stand myself anymore and had to drag out the paintbrushes in utter shame, let's call a duck a duck (I hear the first step is admitting the problem), I only pulled out the paintbrushes because I had a new project in mind. I decided to paint the closet.

Several friends have mentioned Dave Ramsey's "snowball" method of paying off debt. It goes something like this: you pay off the credit cards with the least amount due on them first, therefore getting the first one paid off faster, which gives you the adrenaline rush needed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and pay off the next bigger debt, followed by the next, until you're debt-free. I've been using this same theory in regards to cleaning for years. I am not a cleaner/organizer by nature (in college, the only thing that could bring me to clean my room was finals avoidance - study for finals? Have you seen this mess?). I need a little snowball action to give me the chutzpah needed to think I could possibly undertake the seemingly daunting task of cleaning the entire house. I start with the smallest room, typically the laundry room (although, I'm not above counting the tiny closet that houses the toilet as its own room). This method works for me. Seeing one clean (albeit, tiny) room typically gives me the jolt of accomplishment I need to tackle another room. So, when I made the goal to get a little more organized this year, I decided to do it snowball-style, starting with one small closet: the coat closet. Which brings me back to the paint:

One of my first steps in organizing the coat closet was to paint it the same color as the kitchen that it enters into (this step got overlooked at the same time as the wall behind the refrigerator and space under the desk). This might seem like a ridiculous step for a "room" in which most of the walls will be covered by objects, but I'm aiming to make the closet a cohesive, functional, and peaceful-looking part of the kitchen, which to me, means a worthy paint job. Paint job done, I'm ready to move on to organization. I have a few ideas that I hope to employ this week if I can get a little time at the sewing machine. So stay tuned...and wish me luck.

Oh, and if you're wondering just what you're looking at in the picture above, the fish "drop cloth" is really an old shower curtain that we repurposed when we changed our bathroom decor. The aluminum foil lining the paint tray is a quick clean-up trick my Dad taught me. (And if you need to step away from your paint for awhile but don't want to bother with clean-up, tuck the wet brushes and paint tray in the fridge and it won't dry out on you. My friend, Jill, gave me that piece of advice and it worked like I charm when I had to step away from my work to eat dinner).

Need some organizational inspiration to get your spring cleaning/organizing underway? Let me suggest a perusal of this blog, Penelope Loves Lists. Blogger Meredith (she refers to her organizationally like-minded kindred spirits as Penelopes), an organizational maven, gives tips and suggests products to help organize just about everything - and this week, she's hosting a give away. I might have to go enter now, aspire to Penelope-status.

Mission Organization: The Ribbon Board

I am not what you would call inherently organized. This never bothered me until I got married. Jason was the neater of our duo, which sadly (as all neater spouses do), he noticed. I am a pile-maker. He is a declutterer. I felt as if my piles were off to the side. He felt as if he was always tripping over them. He handled this with little complaining and a lot of laughing at our differences of opinion concerning geography. I began to notice my own piles. Jason began to let it go. Somehow, we met in the middle and, for the most part, kept a pretty tidy house (with my piles neatly hidden). Then, we entered toddler parenthood.

Two things happened. 1) We realized that we had been married for 8 years. Our belongings, which were once easily transported in a tiny Uhaul pulled by a 2-door Saturn had reproduced at the rate of fruit flies, now requiring moving vans (plural). 2) Audrey entered toddlerhood, a stage where a child's items seem to multiply at the rate of aphrodisiac-induced fruit flies AND she stopped napping, which put an end to my mid-day decluttering rituals. 3) Okay, I suppose there is a third force at work here. I tend to choose craft projects, trips to the zoo, gardening, going to the gym (insert any other activity you wish) over cleaning or organizing. Any day. Hence, the current state of our kitchen (or any other room in our house you care to substitute here).

The picture above was taken this afternoon, but could be any day with other objects of clutter standing in. Audrey's discarded school items; a grocery bag filled with baby hand-me-downs from a generous neighbor; a hat that never made it to the closet; a folder of mail and magazines I'm pretending I'll get to later; a bag from yesterday's gym excursion; a bag of knitting; I'm sure there are some bills tucked under that pile somewhere. The counter you see belongs to the kitchen desk, something the builder threw into the blueprints to add, ahem, functionality to the homeowners' lives. I've yet to make it function. But I will not be deterred.

One thing that the impending birth of a child brings about in me is the need to create systems (I have no medical proof, but would argue that there is an organizational hormone that kicks in during the last trimester, particularly month 9). I can only stare at the kitchen counters for so long before I must get out and do something about them. Yesterday, armed with coupons, I ran to the fabric store in search of cork board, ribbon, linen, and upholstery tacks to make a ribbon board like the ones in Martha Stewart's Good Things for Organizing.

I think I check Stewart's book out from the library every other month. I keep flipping through the pages, stashing away ideas for all rooms of the house, and daydreaming about a day when I can tell you exactly where to find our staple gun (all the while taking comfort in the fact that Stewart, herself, gives a nod to her housekeepers and assistants in her introduction saying that if she can't find an item, she "can be certain they can" - followed by the thought, well, if Martha Stewart can't keep track of her stuff with all of these organizational systems and help, then what iota of a shot does a pregnancy-mush-brained chaser of a toddler have? But I didn't dwell on these thoughts for long, having a project at hand). An assistant or housekeeper not in my budget, I opted for starting with the ribbon board.

Stewart uses Homasote board for her ribbon boards, which sounds like a fantastic product (and is apparently available at Menards), but I needed fabric for this project as well as some others I'm hoping to get to, and well, Menards doesn't have that. So I substituted a magnetic cork board that I found on sale at Joanns. Stewart suggests covering the board with linen, a fabric that I substituted with a linen/cotton mix when I found almost a yard-length remnant in a 50%-off bin. A couple $1 spools of different sizes of black ribbon and a pack of small black upholstery tacks and I was set.

The steps were pretty simple. Wrap the fabric around the board and use a staple gun (once I scoured the house to find it) to secure it to the back side (see the third photo). I serged the edges of my fabric beforehand, just to keep it from fraying. (You may notice some extra seams on the back of board, that's because I misjudged how much fabric I needed, and rather than waste the piece I had already cut, I just added a bit more fabric to each side). Next, add the ribbon in any decorative pattern that you wish, using the upholstery tacks to secure it. My lines are not perfect, since I freehanded the design rather than using a measuring tape. I'm sure that's not the Martha Stewart way (I'm also sure she's never had to add fabric to the edges of her project because she cut the fabric too short). But, I figure, if someone is spending their time in my kitchen contemplating the straightness of my ribbon board lines, well, the conversation or the food has gone horribly wrong. Last, hardware is supposed to be added to hang the board to the wall. My board came with hardware built in, so rather than follow the book, I sewed a couple of buttonholes into the fabric that line up with the existing hardware holes (see the picture above). When it comes time to hang it, I will cut the buttonholes open and fit the screws through them (I have no idea if this will work or not).

And, voila, a new ribbon board to help me make our kitchen desk a bit more functional. I haven't hung my board yet. I have enough space to make another (and enough ribbon, tacks, and fabric left as well) and hang them side-by-side. So another board or dry erase board, calendar, or other such item may be in our near future. Until then, things are looking a little clearer. Now if only I could make that mail/magazine folder disappear.

Mission Organization

One of my goals this year is to become more organized. I keep telling myself that were this to happen, I would become that efficient-everything-is-right-at-her-fingertips-lady who arrives places looking refreshed rather than the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants while hoping that somehow I'll have all the supplies in my car to pull off a Macgyver-esque save (Swiss army knife, shoelace, and a flashlight battery anyone?) when I realize I've forgotten the item I must have once I get to my destination. Five minutes late. Again.

Yes. Denial runs deep. We're not even going to talk about how it is already September and I haven't moved forward on this goal one iota. Until last weekend.

My parents came over on Saturday, bringing with them tools, food, and a whole lot of gumption. While my Mom watched Audrey and spent the day feeding everyone, my Dad built some selves in this odd little nook in our guest bedroom closet (as seen in the first picture). As I helped - by which I mean I sat outside the closet keeping my Father company and finishing a knitting project. Meanwhile, Jason worked on landscaping and using up the last of our eight yards of mulch that has taken up the driveway all summer long.

It was like a vacation day with a sprinkling of fairy dust - where you sit around doing a fun project, and yet somehow all the things that need to get done that day do, without you lifting a finger. Seriously. A day for the record books.

My Dad measured, sawed, leveled, and installed some wooden brackets then topped them with shelves, and finished them off with a nice trim detail. Now they need a coat of paint and to be stocked with two closets-worth of odds and ends I've been meaning to sort through.

You know, so I can start leaving the Swiss army knife at home.