I love getting Christmas cards, birth announcements, birthday party invitations, etc. Especially the ones that have the pictures of the birthday girl or baby! But I never know what to do with them afterwards! Do I throw it away, they are too big to store in a photo book for the most part and they are just so darn cute with our new niece’s picture on them that I just can’t throw them away. So I decided to keep them and make something of it! Here is what you will need:

• Any Birth Announcements, Birthday Picture Invitations, Christmas Picture Cards, etc
• 2 Metal Book Rings or ribbon/string
• Hole Puncher
• Decorative Paper or Cardstock

The rest is pretty simple. Take your photos and punch holes in them where you would like to make them into a book!

Add them to the rings in the order in which you received them (or you can make multiple books for different years or events/occasions). As you receive more, just continue to add them to your book. Eventually it will be large and full of great pictures of all your friends and family!

Decorate a piece of cardstock the same size as the largest picture card and add it to the front! This has become a super cute conversational piece for my coffee table! This was our first one that I made with the kiddos!

What tasks did you complete this week to clear out your clutter?

Find more organizing ideas with my -52 Weeks to a Organized & Clutter FREE House 2012- My New Year’s Resolution!

I have to admit, I am quite embarrassed of this game shelf. I tend to let the girls do what they want with it and just throw their games up there where ever they want and how ever they want. But after a planned family game night we quickly realized that we could not find most of the pieces of some of the games and it just plain looked messy! So we got to work!

I went through each game and found the instructions or checked the back of the box to find out just what pieces were needed for each game. I then took over sized plastic storage bags and wrote on them with black sharpies as to what game it was and what all needed to be included! We quickly found that most of the game pieces were in their toy box upstairs in their bedroom, not in the games!

I did purchase 2 plastic totes to store games in their plastic storage bags since the box may have been unrepairable or lost. We did toss some games as they were just missing too many pieces and beat up pretty bad. After several hours of sorting and labeling bags, we were able to get all of our games in order and looking very organized! Only spending $5 total, we were able to get our shelf in working order! Just goes to show you, you don’t have to spend a lot to get a lot!

What tasks did you complete this week to clear out your clutter?

Find more organizing ideas with my -52 Weeks to a Organized & Clutter FREE House 2013- My New Year’s Resolution!

One thing that drives me crazy is trying to untangle computer or tv cords. Never fails, I can arrange them how I want one week and then someone moves a cord and I end up unplugging the wrong cord every time (which if it is the cable or wifi box, seems to take forever to reload)! Or they are so tangled I can never seem to find the one I want and just end up pulling them all out of the power strip! So I have found a few things that I use to help me keep our cords organized and under control!

If you don’t have little ones changing the cords on you then this pre-labeled power strip is a great tool. We use one very similar to this under neath our computer desk downstairs since our little ones can’t get to it. This is great to know exactly which cord is for what device without having to disconnect all the cords or move the desk to follow it! There are styles that come pre-labeled or you can write on it yourself.

Although these powerstrips are a great tool for people that have little ones that leave things alone, they are not great with our girls! Sometimes I think they rearrange the cords on purpose just to drive me bonkers! They will move the wii to the tv upstairs, then move it back downstairs later to only plug it in where ever on the powerstrip. No regard for the labels! Which they are kids, I know you can’t expect them to always remember to do this! So I have added tabs to the end of each of our cords to identify each cord with out the need of a cool pre-labeled powerstrip!

These tabs are from our bread bags. Once we are done with our bread, I save the colored tabs and then re-use them for keeping our cords organized! I use a permanent marker to write on the tab which cord is which and then add it to the base of the cord. This way the writing is clear to see. That’s it, simple, easy and cheap!

What tasks did you complete this week to clear out your clutter?

Find more organizing ideas with my -52 Weeks to a Organized & Clutter FREE House 2013- My New Year’s Resolution!

This time of year seems to draw our biggest amount of clutter! We always seem to have coats, wet shoes, gloves, hats and scarves all over the house. One way that I have found to help us with our scarves, is to hang them in the closet near the front door. But with 25+ scarves, no I’m not kidding, we really have that many scarves- the hooks in the hall closet won’t hold them all.

So we have added shower curtain rings to a coat hanger and I am able to now hold 12 scarves per hanger, clearing up a lot of space and keeping our hooks open for coats!! I just loop them around the hook and keeps them organized, off my floors and easily found in one place!

What tasks did you complete this week to clear out your clutter?

Find more organizing ideas with my -52 Weeks to a Organized & Clutter FREE House 2013- My New Year’s Resolution!

This time of year seems to draw our biggest amount of clutter! We always seem to have coats, wet shoes, gloves, hats and scarves all over the house. One way that I have found to help us with our scarves, is to hang them in the closet near the front door. But with 25+ scarves, no I’m not kidding, we really have that many scarves- the hooks in the hall closet won’t hold them all.

So we have added shower curtain rings to a coat hanger and I am able to now hold 12 scarves per hanger, clearing up a lot of space and keeping our hooks open for coats!! I just loop them around the hook and keeps them organized, off my floors and easily found in one place!

What tasks did you complete this week to clear out your clutter?

Find more organizing ideas with my -52 Weeks to a Organized & Clutter FREE House 2012- My New Year’s Resolution!

COME CHECK OUT 2013 LIST!!

One of the biggest problems with a family of 5 is our overwhelming amounts of clothes! With 3 girls who seem to outgrow their whole wardrobe every 2 months, I am always digging through clothes that no longer fit or are in need of repair! We do go through the girls clothing every few months and weed out pieces that they no longer need, want or can’t fit into! But my hubby and I tend to keep clothes for years before we clean out old items! So this week I decided to not only sort through the girls items, but also sort through the hubby’s clothes and mine!

I am also using the Backwards Hanger idea to see what items me and the hubby are not wearing. It is a very simple idea! Just turn all the items in your closet on hangers backwards- like above. As you wear items and add them back to your closet, turn them around the correct way. After 4-6 months any hangers still turned backwards gets donated!

We had 3 boxes to separate unwanted clothes:

Donate- clothes that are gently used that we could drop off at our local Goodwill store

Throw Away- clothes that are beyond repair and can not be donated

Pass Down- with 3 girls I have several totes in the garage that I keep clothes from the older girls to pass down to the younger ones. There has been many of times that I have gone to put a pair of jeans on our youngest daughter and none of them fit, sometimes seems to be over night. I can then rummage through the hand me downs until I can buy her new pants. This also is a great way to save a little cash, not having to always buy new clothes for all 3 girls. We do buy several new pieces to make sure the girls clothes look fresh and they don’t only have hand me downs!

We did have 1 small box of items that I may take to the re-sell shop and see if we can make a little extra cash. If not they may donated later!

Just from the girls closets I was able to donate 4 large garbage bags of clothes to our local Goodwill. Don’t forget that these donations are able to be used for your taxes. Make sure you keep track of every item you donated, the receipt from the store and the itemized value of each item. You can get a list of pricing  your donations from your local Goodwill store. Not only are you clearing out the clutter and getting a tax donation, you are helping those in need in your neighborhood!

What tasks did you complete this week to clear out your clutter?

Find more organizing ideas with my -52 Weeks to a Organized & Clutter FREE House 2012- My New Year’s Resolution!

CHECK OUT 2013 LIST!

CHECK OUT 2013 LIST!

My New Year’s Resolution is to get our home in order and keep it that way. So I have been searching 100′s of books and websites to get ideas and tips on the problem area’s of our home to find solutions for each space! I need to find a home for every item in our house so that our kiddos will know where to put all of our belongings, making our home less cluttered!

Every year I start off with a huge list of things I want to accomplish for the new year but by March I feel overwhelmed and end up “forgetting” the rest of my list. This year I figured I would try and spread my tasks out over the whole year. One a week doesn’t seem so scary! So I listed below all the tasks I plan to complete over 2012 and as I post them I will link to the post below for you to see how I organized and DE-cluttered some part of my house! Some of these tasks are to de-clutter spaces in our home that just seems to always have stuff there and to be frank, I am sick of seeing it!

If you have plans for this year share them below, I love to get fresh ideas!

Week 1: Clear Out Old and Unworn Clothes- Donate, Toss or Sell

Week 2: Organize Our Scarves

Week 3: Un-Clutter the Computer Cords

Week 4: Organize Our Socks

Week 5: Creating a Chore Chart That We Really Will Use

Week 6:  Organize The Game Shelf

Week 7:  Find a New Home For Our Batteries

Week 8: Organize Under The Sink

Week 9: COMING SOON!!

Week 10: Covering Kitchen Drawers With Contact Paper

Week 11: COMING SOON!!

Week 12: Create New Storage for Our Cooking Utensils

Week 13: COMING SOON!!

Week 14: Organizing The Tupperware

Week 15: COMING SOON!!

Week 16:  Organize and Find A Home For Our Greeting Cards, Birthday Cards, Etc

Week 17:  COMING SOON!!

Week 18: COMING SOON!!

Week 19: Organize Our 10 Year Old’s Jewelry

Week 20: Plan a Freezer Meal Cooking Day

Week 21: COMING SOON!!

Week 22: COMING SOON!!

Week 23: COMING SOON!!

Week 24: Organize Our Kiddos Outside Toys

Week 25: COMING SOON!!

Week 26: Find a Home For My 8,000 + Photos

Week 27: COMING SOON!!

Week 28: Organize Our Kitchen Silverware Drawer

Week 29: COMING SOON!!

Week 30: Create A Better Way To Store Pot & Pans and their Lids

Week 31: COMING SOON!!

Week 32: Create A Better Desk Area for Our 10 Year Old

Week 33: COMING SOON!!

Week 34: COMING SOON!!

Week 35: Organize Our 3 & 7 Year Old’s Closet

Week 36: COMING SOON!!

Week 37: COMING SOON!!

Week 38: COMING SOON!!

Week 39: Finish Our Family Home Binder

Week 40: Organize Our 10 Year Old’s Closet

Week 41: COMING SOON!!

Week 42: COMING SOON!!

Week 43: Organizing Our Entry Way Closet

Week 44: COMING SOON!!

Week 45: COMING SOON!!

Week 46: Create a New Way To Store Bath Tub Accessories

Week 47: COMING SOON!!

Week 48: COMING SOON!!

Week 49: Organizing Our Hallway Closet

Week 50: COMING SOON!!

Week 51: COMING SOON!!

Week 52: Organizing Our Holiday Decorations and Making Better Use Of the Space