Gifts In A Jar

Do you ever struggle to find the perfect gift for someone?  Ever have a "hard-to-buy-for" person you need to give a gift to?  Or that person who has everything?  It can be overwhelming coming up with new and creative gift ideas.


These gifts in a jar are the perfect solution! 

Organizing Our Hall Closet

These are "after" pictures of our hall closet, taken this week.  I wish I had taken some "before" pictures but I actually organized it before I started blogging.  I'm happy to say that it is still pretty organized 2 months later!  All I did before taking these pictures was tidy up the shoes a bit.

Organizing Our Summer

This week officially marks the start of summer on the calendar, although my kids are in school for another week and a half.   As summer approches, our family is looking forward to some down time after the school year!  We love summer :)


This is the first time I've been home with my kids in the summer (other than when I was on maternity leave with each of them) so I'm especially looking forward to making lots of great memories.  Financially, we're hoping my hubby gets plenty of calls from Canada Post to go in for work, but we're also hoping for a lot of family time all together (he's a new relief letter carrier without a lot of seniority).

I've struggled writing this post and leading up to this summer because my inclination would be to plan and organize our summer in great detail, but I don't want to be like Danny Tanner in this old clip from Full House:

Organizing Gifts (Free Printable!)

We buy a lot of gifts.  A lot.  Parents, grandparents, siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins, our kids, our friends' kids, our kids' friends, and on and on.  It can be overwhelming to stay on top of buying all those gifts.  Not to mention the cost. 

Tips For Organizing Seasonal Items

A reader asked me for advice on storing seasonal dishes so I thought I'd write a post with some tips, while showing you how I recently reorganized my seasonal decorations and other special occasion items to keep them from becoming overwhelming.

My Daughter's Closet is finally HER closet

My daughter's closet is mostly used for storage because most of her clothes are kept in her dressers (yes, that's plural...if you haven't read my last post you can go do that now to find out why!).  The only clothing items in her closet are her dresses and skirts on the lower rod (including some for her to grow into).

Her closet is not very big.  When we first moved in, it was a basic layout with a rod and a shelf above it.  When my son was born (this used to be his room) my dad put in a closet organizer for us that is much more practical.

My Daughter Has Too Much Clothing!

My daughter is 5 years old and has 2 dressers...yes, count 'em...1, 2!  Plus a closet that has her dressy clothes hanging up.  Seems like a lot for a child! 

She only started out with one dresser (the taller one) and I stored all the off season clothes and items that were too big for her in bins in the basement.  But when my husband and I bought new bedroom furniture for our master bedroom a few years ago, we decided to move our old dresser into her room.  It was part of a bedroom set that I had when I was growing up and I wanted my daughter to be able to use it too (she also has the bed and night table).  We talked about selling the other dresser but then decided her room was large enough to have both dressers and we liked the idea of getting the bins out of the basement and storing those clothes in the extra dresser.  So, she has 2 dressers. 

Purging and Storing Leftover Paint

Do you have a pile of paint cans in your basement or garage that are left over after painting rooms in your house?   You know, those cans of leftover paint that you keep for touch-ups or to use in other rooms or for other projects?  Even if you aren't sure you'll use it, it seems like such a waste to get rid of it.  After all, paint isn't cheap. 

Well, I have been keeping our cans of leftover paint for years and when we started purging and organizing our basement I realized they were starting to build up.  I knew I had to do something about it when I counted how many cans we had...

Organizing My Greeting Cards

As promised in the gift wrap post, this post will show how I recently reorganized my greeting cards.  Some people do not need a system for organizing greeting cards because they just buy a card whenever they need one.  And there are so many digital options for greetings now that greeting cards are probably sent less often than in the past.   I don't send as many greeting cards as I used to, but we always give a card with a gift, and I like to mail or deliver encouragement cards from time to time, so I still need to keep a supply of those.   So, I need an organized system for my cards so they do not get overwhelming.