Organizing Ideas for the Weekend #6

Happy Friday everyone!  Since tomorrow is December 1st, I thought the perfect idea for this week would be setting up an advent calendar or some way for your family to count down to Christmas.  I guess I'm not the only one who thought that, because I've seen a lot of posts this week and this morning on the same subject :)

I'm going to take an organizing approach to this though.  So hopefully this post will be different enough from all the others you've probably read :)

How to Feel Less Overwhelmed This Christmas {and a Giveaway}

A few weeks ago I told you that I'm starting my Christmas preparations earlier than usual this year so that I can enjoy this season more than I have in the past.  So far it's working!

Most of my Christmas shopping is finished, mainly because we bought things on sale throughout the year.  I just need a few more things for stockings and a couple gifts for people I only recently decided to give a gift to this year.

I've been purging all over the house so the house feels less cluttered with all the Christmas decorations and to make space for the new things we'll be receiving in a few weeks.

We completed a deep cleaning of the house last weekend (it's so much easier after purging and before decorating!).  It will still need maintaining between now and Christmas but we won't need to do as thorough a job.

Organizing Ideas For The Weekend #5

Happy Friday everyone!  Some of you are probably Black Friday shopping (it's even become a big deal in Canada now!).  If you are out there, I hope you're finding some great deals on things you need or plan to give.  It's really tempting to buy things just because they are on sale though and they can end up becoming clutter.  We end up getting things we think we want but that we don't really need.  I know I've done that in the past (which is why my hubby does a lot of our shopping!).  But after de-cluttering so much this year I really don't want to bring anything into our house that we don't need, use, or love.

That's great for things that I can control (like shopping).  But what about gifts that are given to us?  Over the years we've reduced the number of people we buy gifts for (and thus receive gifts from) but we still end up with a lot of gifts at Christmas.

Baskets, baskets, and more baskets!

I haven't done a post in the "I Love Freecycle!" series in quite awhile so it's time to update you on some of my latest finds.   You can see my first post in this series here for more on how Freecycle works and why I love it so much.

Last time I showed you all the mason jars that I received through Freecycle.  Shortly after that post I saw that I received several large mason jars too.  I didn't take a picture of them but you'll see them in action at some point I'm sure.

Organizing Ideas For The Weekend #4

Happy Friday everyone!  This weekend's task is to organize your kids' puzzles.

Blog Awards - I Feel So Special!

Wow! I've had 3 amazing ladies nominate me for a Liebster Blog award in the last while.

• Raquel from Organized Island

• Angela from A Typical English Home

• Susan from Achieving Creative Order

I've also received this award previously (see my post here).

A Simpler Season & My First Giveaway!

Have you started preparing for the holidays yet?  I usually don't officially start until late November or early December.  But I always feel rushed.  So this year I want to start earlier.  I may not do a lot of decorating yet, but I'm definitely planning and preparing.

I love Christmas!  I always picture what I think Christmas will be like.  I look forward to enjoying special times and building memories with family and friends.  But every year I end up overwhelmed at some point by all the tasks on my Christmas to do list.

I want this year to be different.  I want to anticipate and enjoy the preparations.  There's more to this season than just a massive list of things to be done!

One thing I'm doing is starting everything earlier.

Organizing Ideas for the Weekend #3

Time for another quick organizing tip!  This one comes courtesy of Lifehack.org.  In this post called "How to Get Rid of Things After You Declutter", Lori Thayer commends people for decluttering, but recognizes that sometimes we don't actually get the items we've purged out of our homes.  Boxes and bags can sit in garages or entryways or corners of a room, waiting until we do something with them.  But, today's tip is to just get rid of them!

October Review & A Look Ahead to November

What a month October was!  It flew by and I can't believe it's November already.  We celebrated Thanksgiving in October here in Canada as well as Halloween, so November is kind of an "in-between" month without holidays.  Gives me time to get organized for Christmas!

I won't do a picture collage for October because it would just be more of the 31 Days of Organizing Tips button and you've probably seen enough of that this month :)

Here's a quick recap of the month on the blog.

Reflecting Back on 31 Days and a Big Thank You :)

I can't believe the 31 Days of Organizing Tips series is over.  What a month!  When I decided to do this series, I knew I was taking on a real challenge to write 31 posts in 31 days.  I mean I had only written just over that many posts in my first 4 months combined!

Subconsciously, I think part of why I did this series was to see if I really was committed to blogging or not.  Now I know.  I love blogging about organizing!  And more than that, I have a passion for sharing tips and ideas with you to make it easier for you to organize too.

It was a great month!  Beyond my expectations.  In addition to what I discovered about myself, I also really enjoyed hearing how you're using the tips to organize your homes.  Many of you also shared your own organizing tips which was fantastic.