Tip of the Day - Keeping a Handle on Plastic Bags

My Mom actually got this one from Real Simple, so all you organizing junkies who probably already read Real Simple probably already know this, but here's a great way to reuse two different things - empty tissue boxes and plastic grocery bags.

I'm a huge fan of the fabric tote bags for groceries and use them whenever I do my shopping. Despite that, I still end up with quite a few plastic bags. Rather than bring them back to the store to recycle them, I use them as garbage bags for our small garbage cans. I know that's nothing new, but since we have 4 bathrooms each with their own can, and one by the laundry machines, I needed a good way to keep the bags organized.

That's where the tissue box came in. I put the empty bags in the empty tissue box and put one tissue box in each room. I would refill them as I brought purchases to those rooms. The problem was sometimes I'd end up with an empty box and no bags. So now I have a 6th box in my kitchen cupboard. Now when I unpack things when I get home, I just add the plastic bags to the 6th box. As one box runs out, I swap it with the box from the kitchen, and start refilling the empty one. Problem solved.

Again this may not be the most exciting/enlightening tip ever, but definitely made my life easier once I thought of it. Since I've found so many, "why did I never think of that before?" tips on other blogs, I like to return the favor.

Purging

I love getting rid of things. I don't know what it is, I'm not into Feng Shui or anything like that, and I don't have an extreme minimalist house, but whenever I can get rid of something we no longer need it just makes me happy. Recently we've gotten rid of a lot of things - changing pad and Diaper Champ now that Little Man only wears diapers at night, the extra toddler mattress - since Little Hugger does not roll out of her bed, and of course the big one - the crib.

Ok, I didn't entirely get rid of it. I kept the springs to use as a pin board (like this one I found on Pinterest from Iheartorganizing.blogspot.com). I kept one of the sides to hang fabric on after I've ironed it in case I have to stop working on a project. I would have loved to have made a crafting desk for the kids like this one (here's the original site) but I don't have the room. A friend of mine cried the entire time she was taking apart an hauling away her sons' crib when they were done with it. I don't get that. I understand it's a symbol of a part of their life that has passed and never to return again, but it's also a sign of the beginning of a new stage of life.

It's not that I'm not sentimental. I do keep things that the kids make for me (but not every one). I keep cards, have a ton of photo albums. Tons of the songs on my iPod bring back
memories of one kind of another. I just don't feel the need to keep a lot of stuff.

Little Reader is like me. She often asks me to help her organize her stuff and she weeds through papers and things on a regular basis. Actually her room is neater than mine was when I was a kid.

Little Hugger definitely is more of a hoarder. She'll keep little scraps of paper for a craft she has in mind, but often never gets to. Whenever I ask her to organize her stuff and throw some away she often ends in tears. We finally came up with a compromise. She has binders with sheet protectors in them that she can store her assorted crafts and drawings in. Anything too big (or something that is slightly less important but she still wants to remember, I take a picture of it and we put it in a photo album she has.

Twice a year I have them go through their stuff (toys, clothes, books) to find things we can sell at Kid's Sale. If they outgrow things at other times we put it in a bin in the basement until the next sale. It's become such a habit now, even Little Man came up to me with a baseball hat yesterday that no longer fits and asked me to put it in the bin for Kids Sale.

I'm not going to lie and say my house is devoid of clutter, but it's in pretty good shape, and unlike a lot of my friends homes, things have a place and even my junk drawers are pretty well organized.

Chalk Markers

I have been on a quest to find these markers since I discovered chalkboard labels on Pinterest about two months ago. I tried office supply stores, Michaels (as suggested by a blogger), Target (as suggested by another blogger), Archivers, and finally found them at Hobby Lobby (as suggested by a salesperson at Archivers).

It was getting ridiculous and yes, I could have ordered them on line but didn't want to spend $5 to ship something that cost $7 (I had a 40% coupon, so didn't pay the $11.99 price). I probably spent more in gas than that, but like I said, it had become a quest, and when I'm on a quest, I'm not always rational.

I was starting to worry that once I found them, they wouldn't live up to my expectations, but I'm happy to say, they were worth the effort.

So far I have used them to rewrite my chalkboard labels in my fridge (before I just used chalk and it wiped off too easily, and it's hard to write neatly with chalk), and to label the little whiteboard labels on my hanging organizer in the coat closet (previously done with dry erase markers - same problem with rubbing off easily).

The one thing I have noticed with the markers is that they do take a while to dry, but once the ink is dry they are pretty well set. The first ones I made smudged cause I touched them too soon, but once I let them dry they were fine. My daughter accidentally spilled milk in the fridge and got a couple wet, so those rubbed off, so I know they can be wet and rewritten.

Now I'm trying to think of other things I can do use them for, as I really like the way they look.