Organizing and Managing Your Digital Photos

(Photo via www.online-tech-tips.com)

Since you brushed up on your photography skills yesterday, I thought today you would like some ideas for organizing all those pictures you just took. I stumbled across the Living Yellow blog a while ago and bookmarked it because I loved her steps for managing digital photos. You can check out all the details here. Get a good system in place now for your photos, so when you take hundreds over the holidays, they won't get lost in the shuffle.

*Your organization assignment for today is to scan your photos and purge any blurry, eyes-closed, cut-the-head-off pictures you have taken. Spend 15 minutes and work from the most recent backwards. If you don't get it all done in 15 minutes, make a goal of spending 15 minutes a day until you get them cleaned up.

Home Organization for Small Spaces

Make the most of little nooks and forgotten spots as storage spaces. Home Made Simple walks you through each room and talks about storage spots you may not have thought of. There are ideas for the family room, kitchen, master bedroom, children's bedrooms and bathrooms. Go find some new storage solutions for your small spaces by visiting Home Made Simple.

Family Packing List

Are you traveling any time soon? I'm going to spill my secret about organized packing for a family. As an avid list-maker, I have a family packing list that I use each and every time we go on vacation. I created it years ago before we had kids. It's an Excel spreadsheet. I have one column and one color for each member of the family. Hubby is blue, I'm red, and the kids are blue, green and purple.

I have sub-sections on the list.
1- The first section is travel essentials. This includes items like pillows, blankets, sleeping bags, car seats, camping chairs, airline tickets, suitcases, strollers, etc. I modify or delete these items on my list prior to printing the packing list, but I always have everything on my master list and I never save the changes.
2- The second section is clothing. Next to socks, underwear, and shoes I have a #______ to fill in the quantity needed. Then I have spaces for outfit #1, outfit #2, outfit #3....etc. This is especially helpful to list the outfits prior to packing them if you're OCD like me and make your family coordinate on the off-chance that you will capture a great picture to scrapbook one day. (That's an entirely separate post!) I also include hats, belts, swimming suits, pajamas in this section.
3- The next section is entertainment. I list the kids gaming systems, books, toys, DVDs, etc. here. I also list my books, magazines, etc.
4- Next I list toiletries. Toothbrushes, paste, makeup, vitamins, shaving supplies, combs, hair styling aids, etc.
5- The last section is for snacks. I list a couple of different snacks along with water bottles or sippy cups for the kids so I have some food on hand for hungry travelers.
6- At the top right of my packing list, I have a list of pre-travel preparations. I include things like stopping the mail, stopping the newspaper, asking a neighbor to take our garbage cans in or out, getting money from the ATM, setting lights to a timer, watering plants, gas in the car, prepaying bills, and asking the neighbors to watch the house or gather any special UPS or FedEx shipments that might arrive while we're gone.

Amazingly, this entire list fits on one page. I include checkboxes next to each item so we can color them in as we check off our list. I will say that being an organized packer makes it so we rarely forget anything. It's easier to enjoy your vacation with peace of mind. Happy packing!

Kitchen Storage Ideas

Got a small kitchen? Need to find some additional storage space for those kitchen gadgets, overflowing spices, and packages of food? There are some great ideas here. I especially love the idea of using a gadget bin or adding a corner cabinet (see #15).

Everything Needs a Place

I have found it impossible to be organized if everything does not have a place. Think about your own home. What things get left out? What items pile up? Does your house feel cluttered?

• You can make things so much easier if you create a place or a home for each and every item. If your bills tend to stack up in a pile on your kitchen counter, try buying a basket to hang on the wall just for bills.
• If you have piles of clothes, laying around, is it because your closet or your dresser is too full? Maybe it's time to make some clothing donations so you can clear enough space in your closets and dressers to fit all of your clothes.
• Are the cleaning supplies a jumbled mess under your sink? Buy a plastic container to corral everything. Not only is it great to give those cleaning supplies a home, but it's handy when you have to clean a room in another part of your house. You just pick up the container and go.
• Do your kids have collections and tiny odds and ends that tend to pile up in random places? Give them a treasure box or a small container and let them decorate it and make it theirs.

I started this process a year ago. Since then I've consolidated and created spaces for every trouble spot in my house. It makes putting things away so much easier and it makes finding those items easier when you need them.

I issue this challenge to you today. Find one thing/group of things that needs a proper place. Identify the need and solve it. Buy a cute container or label a shelf for those items. Whatever it is, start with something small and continue until everything has it's own place.

Color-Coded & Labeled Containers

Happy October! Have you pulled out your Halloween decorations yet? I started this afternoon, but got stopped in my tracks when I realized that the totes all look the same. Some have labels and some don't. (For those of you who know me, you're shocked, I'm sure!) So today my post is organizational advice for myself and for any others who want to organize their holiday decorations.

1. Buy storage totes that are all the same size. It makes stacking and storing them easier.

2. If you can, buy the colored totes. They make orange and black ones for Halloween, red and green for Christmas, and pastel totes for Easter. If you keep your eyes open, you can probably find about any color to coordinate with your holiday.

3. Label, label, label! Make your labels detailed. For example, I have one container with pumpkin decorations. I use the Avery adhesive address labels and I put a pumpkin icon next to the title "Pumpkins". I make sure to stick the labels on the side of the container that faces outward.

4. Next I make a list of all the items that are stored in that box. I print the list on Avery adhesive paper, trim to size, and stick that beneath the title. This makes searching for just the right item easier and it makes putting the decorations away easier too. Hubby knows just which container items go in and they get packed back up so they all fit!

5. As you buy or receive new decorations, keep a list of them and update your content list when you pack your decorations back up at the end of the holiday season.

Hopefully these tips will help you organize your holiday cuteness. Happy decorating and even happier organizing!

Do-It-Yourself Charging Station

(Photo courtesy of http://www.momready.com/)

Are you drowning in chargers and cords? Between the iPods, the cameras, cell phones, and portable video games, we've got cords everywhere. That's why I fell in love with this simple do-it-yourself idea from MomReady. Go here for a step by step picture tutorial on how to make your very own charging station. Best of all, it looks easy and it will hide our jumbled mess of cords.

Organizing & Storing Your Small Jewelry

Looking for ways to organize your small jewelry? Here are a few ideas...

1. Buy an earring stand like the one above from this website.

2. Use a pill box and put pairs of earrings together in each different day's compartment.

3. Use a tackle box to hold your jewelry. (Remember Caboodles?)

4. Thread small earring pairs through a button to keep them together.

5. Use the containers made for storing small nails, screws, nuts, etc. You can pick one up at your local hardware store.

6. Cover a piece of foam with cute fabric and wrap ribbon horizontally across the board like a french memo board. Coordinate with your decor and you can hang the foam on the wall. Press your earrings into the foam.

How do you store your jewelry?

The Family Command Center

(Photo courtesy of www.organizemag.com)

I love the idea of having a family launch pad or a family command center. Check out these links for fantastic ideas for creating your own launch pad.

Article on how to create a family launch pad.

Hallway family command center

Wall-mounted command center

Small spaces around a door

A custom mud room/launch pad

Arranging Books By Color

(Photo courtesy of www.hgtv.com)

I love the idea of organizing your bookshelves by color. I need to buy more colorful books before this will work for me, but check out some of these amazing colorful bookshelves. It's another unique idea to add decor and order to what could otherwise be kind of boring.

1. Rainbow bookcase
2. 2 bright rainbow bookcases
3. Flickr rainbow bookshelf
4. An amazing rainbow bookcase with lots of books

Organizing School Papers

If you have kids in school, you probably have a mountain of informational papers from the school. Here's how I solved that problem.
1. I bought a 1" view binder for each of my school-aged kids.
2. I typed their name in a cute font with some doodle clip-art and placed that in the spine of the binder.
3. I 3-hole punched all the general information papers and placed them in the binder. You know the ones I'm talking about...lunch prices, school calendars, classroom wish lists, newsletters, etc.
4. I made a friends phone chart for the front of the binder. I have my child's friends' names, phone numbers, addresses, and the parents' names. When my kids make a new friend at school, we can easily add them to the chart. It's great because my older child can call friends to play and do it all by himself.
5. In the front inside pocket of the binder, I keep awards, photos, and any other special documents we want to keep.
6. In the back inside pocket of the binder, I keep artwork and papers from school that we want to keep. I'm very selective and we only keep the very best stuff.
**Here's a hint: If you have large artwork you want to remember, take a picture of it and place the picture in the binder.

Good luck and happy organizing!

Top Ten Uses for Pencil Boxes

You can find pencil boxes for cheap this time of year. Walgreen's had them 2/$1. You can't beat that! I use pencil boxes for more than just pencils. Here are the top 10 ideas for ways to organize with a pencil box.

1. Store batteries - I buy batteries in bulk from Costco, but the packaging is big and bulky. I come home and dump the batteries into the pencil cases and they're neatly organized by size.

2. Make a nail kit - Include fingernail polish, remover, cotton balls, files, nail clippers, and all the nail accessories that seem to get lost under the bathroom sink.

3. Individual art kits for the kids - Dump out a box of crayons, a small notepad, and a pencil. Label the boxes for each of your kids. You have something to grab in a pinch when you need to entertain the kids in the car, at church or in a waiting room.

4. Corral the cords - I keep all the camera, phone and iPod chargers in a box.

5. Stash small office supplies - I keep a mini stapler, ruler, pens, pencils, markers, etc. in a pencil box in the kitchen.

6. Medicine chest on the go - Put vitamins, medications and first aid items in a box and take it with you on the next family trip.

7. House miscellaneous tools and junk drawer items - I use a box to store the miscellaneous small household stuff that ends up in the junk drawer (grabbers, sawtooth hangers, zip ties, etc.)

8. On-the-go Shower Kit - Throw in a mini bottle of shampoo, conditioner, soap, razor and a washcloth and you'll have a shower kit to throw in your bag for a vacation.

9. Sewing Kit - Store all those extra buttons you get on clothes when you buy them. Store a couple of spools of thread and some needles, a stitch picker and some scissors and you'll be all set the next time you need to sew on a button.

10. Store collections - If your kids are like mine, they collect stuff. For my kids it's rocks. These boxes are great for storing small collections...seashells, rocks, cards, stickers, etc.

What other ways have you used pencil boxes?