Laundry Room Again

Bet you thought I left the face of the earth. I've been so busy lately with the kids school, girls scouts and MOMS Club stuff that I haven't had time to do any flying. Today, I decided to stay home instead of running errands while the kids were in school. My 3 hours was spent purging, sorting and filing the two piles under my in boxes. These are the boxes I have been putting in ripped out pages from magazines, printed up recipes and professional photos that just have no home.

Here's the before photo:
Here is a photo of work in progress. I sat at the kitchen table and sorted all the papers into piles before filing them in my file box. I had tons of recipes I'd like to try one day, photographs that I now have in albums and craft ideas for the children are now filed away in the file box.

Photo after. I moved my husband's sock basket down. This left room on the top to put Justin's laundry basket that is waiting for cleaned clothes on top. I still need to do the pile under the blue basket. It has magazines that need to be read, coupons that need to be clipped and supermarket fliers that need to be used for planning. Any ideas on what to do with cd's that I no longer listen to? That's in the mini basket on the top. Probably need to upload them to itunes and toss them so I could use the basket for something else.

At least I got something accomplished today.

Craft Room Revisited

Anxiety is what I feel like when I open up my craft room door. Yes, this is what you see. It's a total room of clutter. Well, I start my sewing class today and the first step is to find your sewing machine. Do you see it in this mess? It's there straight ahead on the top next to my stamp pad turner. My goal today was to clean out the corner near the window and make that my sewing table. So for 2 hours I cleaned out that spot.

This is the before photo: I know I'm embarrassed to share these but you must see the difference an hour made.

This is the photo right when you step into my office. Papers are scattered all over the floor. Why do I need to keep all this scrap paper. First thing I tossed in the trash was that.

Unfortunately, my computer desk I wasn't able to get to. This is what it still looks like.

Okay, back to the corner of the room where I want my sewing machine. Oh, now you can see the sewing machine there next to my ink pad turn about. It's collecting dust for the past couple of years. Time to get the dust bunnies off you. To the left is the table I plan on using to sew. But before I could put my sewing machine there I need to clean not only on top of the table but underneath as well. I moved all that paper to the other side of the room. I moved all my stampin up stamp pads to my closet and put all my photos away. When the kids came home from school I attempted to get all my stickers sorted into draws by color. Only got that half done.
Tada.... I now have a clean corner for sewing. Sorry can't show you the other side of the room as it's now a total mess. This will take me another couple of hours to clean it all up. Baby Steps Baby Steps.

Girls - Summer/Winter Clean Out

It's starting to get cold here. My girls were putting on tank tops and I would make them go back to their room to change. So Friday when they were in school I spent my 3 hours of alone time cleaning out their draws wearing my cordless headset. I did both the girls room and my son's room. Unfortunately, I only remembered to take photos of the girls progress.

This is the before photo. This is what the draws looked like before I even started. Yes, this is the way I saw it when I walked into their room. Sometimes they forget to close their draws which really drives me crazy.

I took out all their clothes. I did a draw at a time. Take everything out and then put everything back in. Checking for sizes as I went. All 4's went into a bag to give to their cousin. All 5's I kept. If they were summer clothes I took them out and put them in a box. If they were winter they went back into their draw.

First draw on left: Dance/Gymnastics. I put in 2 baskets as that's all I had but will need to get another basket at dollar store to put the gymnastics stuff in. Naomi does Dance and has advanced to the purple class so to the left is her dance basket. In the middle is the tights the girls share. To the right is Victoria's Gymnastics outfits.

2nd Draw on left: All shirts with long sleeves. I tried to sort them by color. Pinks all together, blues, red and dark colors, purples and then whites. I know that my kids will probably distroy this but that's how I have it set up for now.

Bottom draw on left: All pants. I tried to put all legging type pants in one pile and jeans in another pile. Since my girls share their cloths I put everything together.

Back to the top draw on the right: Luckily I already had the baskets in this draw. Socks, undies and more tights.

Middle draw on right: All skirts. This draw is a bit broken so I put the skorts in here. The girls love to wear skirts which are really shorts so I put them in here so they can wear them but really wouldn't like them to wear them since it's getting cold. Again this draw was sorted by color. We had a lot of pink so pink is in the middle. The skirts to the left are purples and the ones to the right were brown and orange.

Last but not least here is the bottom draw on the right. PJ's. After I pulled out all the 4's we were left with just a few items and most of them is summer. So it looks like I need to get them some pjs. Does anyone know a sale somewhere? Nanny are you reading this?

Here are the summer cloths. The smaller box is size 5. These will be put away until next summer. The bigger box is size 6 clothes. Both summer and winter. These were given to us from our cousins or friends. These will be put away until they are wearing that size.

Hello cousin Amanda. Here's a bag for you the next time we see you.


As for my son. I took out all his clothes as well. I gave to his cousin 4 big bags of size 4. We are left with lots of 5's. Small amount of summer 5's and no 6's. If he grows we have nothing to wear. Anyone have donations size 6's? Will be looking at sales in the next couple of months in those sizes.

Cleanout is accomplished!
In summary we need the following:
Girls: Coats, tights and pjs size 5
Boys: Coat and anything size 6

Kitchen - Zone 2

Are we in the kitchen again. Told you I always wind up in the kitchen and hardly ever get to any other room. While the kids were in school I decided to do a mission. The mission was to look up. What do you see? Well, I looked above my refrigerator. This is what I saw.

What is up there? I found lots of tools (hammer, screw drivers, nails), light bulbs, bags of candy from a party, beads that the kids can't play with unless supervised, my cordless headset, bingo games, eye glasses, and garbage. I even found some money (coins) which I added to the kids allowance basket. Not to mention a lot of DUST!!!!!!! See photo below. Gross!

After about 1/2 hour I was able to get rid of everything except my cordless headset. So now this is what you see. Tools were moved to the garage. Light bulbs moved to bathroom closet and toys moved to the toy shelf. It's off for a much needed nap.

Coupon Shopping

Everything. You can save lots of money just by clipping and using coupons. I love to save money. I am an avid coupon clipper and shopper. I save from $25 to $110 a week just by using coupons and planning. I used to have the newspaper delivered each week and spending $12 on the paper only to clip out like 4 coupons per week and tossing the rest of the newspaper in the garbage. It was producing more recyclable garbage then it was saving money so I canceled my service.

So where do I get my coupons?

I now use my $12 to purchase coupons that I can actually use for the month. When I purchase coupons I normally purchase 4 or more depending on what the product is as most stores will allow 4 coupons at a time. I never pay full price for the following items: laundry detergent, toilet paper, paper towels, tooth paste, shampoo, maxi pads, and cereal to name just a few items.

There are 2 places that I frequent for my coupon shopping.

1. Coupon Clippers: There is a minimum purchase of $3 before shipping and handling so I order $4 worth at least once a month. Shipping is fast. They also have a facebook account so you can become a member and they will send out updates when there is new coupons available.

2. The Coupon Carry Out: There is no minimum purchase. They send you e-mails when they update their incoming coupons. Shipping is fast and great customer service.

Other sources I sometimes use to get coupons are EBAY, I search google for printable coupons, I swap with friends and I also go to the library for their coupon swaps. Check your local library to see if they have any service like this.

Coupon Swaps at libraries. How they work is you bring in all your unwanted coupons. As I clip out my coupons I clip out everything on Sunday. I make 2 piles. One to give away and one to save and file in my coupon box. I put the give away into a zip lock back and I carry it in my pocketbook until I get a chance to get to the library to give them away. I drop them off and then I sit and collect the coupons that I can use. In the summer it was quite difficult to do the coupon swaps at the library with the kids but now that they are in school I hope to get to the other libraries as well.

Sunday is the day I do my bill paying so I also include going through my mail and clipping out coupons. I also look at the flyers for the upcoming week. I look at the sales and I try to match my coupons with what is on sale for that week. When it is a good deal I will purchase 4 items of the same thing stockpiling my pantry items. I also take advantage of the buy $30 get $ back deals. Sometimes they can be really worthwhile especially if you can reduce that $30 by using coupons.

I also participate over at ebates. Every time I shop I go to that website and then click on the store I want to shop at. Each time I shop I earn money back just for shopping. Each store has a different percentage that you can earn back. It's amazing. So far this year I have earned $100. The money gets directly deposited into my paypal account quarterly which I then roll over and use to purchase my coupons. Join by going to the ebates link above and I will earn referral fee.

Your local supermarket may even have online specials. Shoprite has a family program where you earn points just for using your price plus card. I have earned $2 coupons back for this. I also buy coke and I participate in the coke reward program by entering the number from the cap. I have earned free magazine subscriptions this way plus free subway cards just for entering the numbers. When I was using diapers I earned tons of stuff from pampers.com as well.

Getting Ready for School

My children will be starting Kindergarten tomorrow. My mom got them all new backpacks for their birthday. Naomi has the pink one, Justin the red one and Victoria has the purple one. If you look very closely you will see name tags that I made hanging on them. I used my sizzex machine to cut chipboard, then I modge podged paper on top and then laminated them. They are hanging with ring clips on the outside. I also laminated their bus pass and hung it on the ring clip as well.

This was their entryway spot before. It was a total mess. I pulled everything out and started from scratch.

This is what it looks like now. Their shoes are under the shoe rack. There are only 3 jackets hanging on the hooks. 3 backpacks sitting on the shoe rack. In the black bag hanging I have all my Sesame Place stuff (season passes, popcorn bucket, drinks, shirts). Under that are their home depot aprons. Speaking of home depot the kids workshop is this Sat. Wonder what we will be making this month.

Command Central Round-Up

When you first enter my laundry room from the garage you would see this shoe shelf that my husband put together for us a while ago. At the bottom is 6 square cubbies which are filled with only my husband's and my shoes. We have 3 cubbies each. We put our every day shoes there. Ones in which we wear all the time. Okay, enough about my shoes. Let's get to all the baskets and file holders.

Top shelf (which I cut off in the photo as this isn't what you wanted to see) but let me tell you what's in them. Start from left. First long basket is filled with black socks. Since I don't match socks I put my husband's socks in this basket and when he's getting ready to leave he picks out his socks and pulls out his shoes and he's off. In the middle is cards that I made at a Stampin' Up camp that I just don't know what to do with. Next to that is another basket. This basket is filled with CD's filled with children's music. I really need to get them onto my ipod which I never seem to remember to charge. Anyway, that's another story.

Okay now we are in our command central part of the post. First black tray on the right is my incoming box. This is where I put the mail when I come into the house. Sometimes I will look through the mail and purge and get rid of stuff that's if I have time. Some days I just put it in that box and wait till Sunday when I do my bills to go through the mail for the week. On Sunday that box is emptied out to nothing!

The black box to the left. I put my uncut coupons, my unread magazines, and my flyers for grocery stores. Sunday's I cut my coupons and on Mondays I plan my grocery shopping as I make my menu plans. Magazines are taken with me to the gym, dance studio, doctors offices, gymnastics, etc. As I read my magazines I tear our papers of articles I'd like to read again, websites to go visit, recipes to try, craft ideas for the kids, etc. etc. Once I take out all the stuff I want to keep the magazine is then thrown away.

The 2 black bins below that. Okay, this is where it gets scary. You just read that I take my magazines and I tear our all the pages I want to keep. Well, guess where it goes when I come home. Into those 2 black bins which are now very very full. I need to find time to actually sort through those and file them into my filing box. Maybe I'll work on that next week when the kids are in school.

That big black mess to the right of the shelf is grocery bags that I have earned free from shopping. Now, if only I could remember to bring them to the store so I can get my 5 cents back for each one.
Now, we move into my kitchen. This is my desk to the right of my computer. Last week I did a post about the left of my computer. Hanging on the side of my fridge is the family calendar. The boxes are about 2 inches each. I write on there every appointment, play date, school, sport, dance, library, etc. At the back of my calendar is paper clips where I hang the schedules of school, soccer games, t-ball games, etc. To the right of my calendar is a white magnet board where I keep doctors phone numbers, consultants numbers, synagogue, etc. Below that is a little cup to store pens and below the calendar is cork board where I can tack things like doctor appointment cards and Vietnam Vets donation reminders.

Here's a close up of the 3 plastic draws I have on my desk in front of the calendar. This I got at target. It's great because it fits 8 x 11 paper size things. Top draw is bills to be paid. Middle draw is my husband's business bills. Bottom draw I keep things like school notices, bus pass, things that need to be read or acted upon but are not bills. Every Sunday I go through these draws to pay our bills.

Behind this I have files. I keep all my MOMS Club rosters, MOPS Addresses, Receipts from all the stores I shop at, Coupons (these are not grocery coupons) but coupons I receive from photography places, restaurants, ride tickets, and season passes. As I get new coupons for certain stores I purge the expired stuff and replace with the new coupons.

In the front of that file box I have my composition notebook. Yes, I have one just like the kids have them. I have a tendancy to use post its and they were finding themselves all over my desk. So I went and got myself this book. With the Stampin' Up tab punch I made tabs on the book so now when I have to write something down while sitting at my desk I just grab that book and put it in the appropriate category so I can find it later.

After reading the book "Getting Things Done" by David Allen I set up my composition notebook with his tab idea.
1. Journaling Ideas/Quotes (great for my scrapbooking and blogging)
2. Kickass (Organizing Paper Ideas, 10 minute tasks)
3. Goals (Budget, Scrapbooking Goals)
4. Projects (Donation places, Photo upload list)
5. Someday (Digital kits I'd like to purchase)
6. Lists (Kids books, Adult Books, Wii Games I want, Toy Wishlist)
7. Actions Now (nothing there now)
8. Waiting (nothing there now)
9. Home (house hunting information as we maybe moving)
10. Think About (nothing there now)
11. Laptop (Websites, Project 365, Digital check list of challenges completed, )
12. Phone Calls (This is where I jot down someones phone number from my answering machine)
13. e-mail (I jot down e-mail addresses here)
14. Things to do in the Car (websites for ideas)
15. Errands (empty at this time)
16. Recipes (empty at this time. I save them to my computer.)

Check out the Command Central Organizing RoundUp at @orgjunkie. Link up & share your own ideas & pictures. Details here http://tiny.cc/jpPql

Credits:
Summer End Add on by Twin Mom Scraps
Fonts: Showcard Gothic and Microsoft Sans Serif