Let's Craft Something!

As you guys may have noticed, I don't like to spend more money than I have to.  Generally, that means that those fancy drawer organizers are out the window.  (I do have them in the kitchen, though.)  I haven't been on this DIY organization for very long, but my family isn't so great about throwing things away that we could find use for later.


When I saw these cute little confetti painted tumbler glasses, I kept thinking of how familiar they were and realized that we had glass candle holders stowed away that had the same shape.  I pulled them out and cleaned them really well before heading to my bathroom with them.


As you can see, I haven't bothered with painting them...yet. (But who knows now that I know it works well.)  The top shelf and the top of my shelves were horrid before this.  I took the basket from our "junk room" because it wasn't being used.  I have some lesser used hair products in there, as well as a container of makeup brushes, a make up bag, and some Vaseline in the basket.  I also have my brush and an air freshener up top.  On the top shelf, I have one glass candle holder for bobby pins and hair clips, the next is for my hair elastics, then a candle my neighbor gave me for my birthday, a candle holder for my Qtips, and a mason jar styled candle holder for cotton balls.  The baskets are from Dollar Tree, I think.

This is just one example of ways that you can organize from things you probably have lying around the house.  There are tons of things that you can find online using household items to organize with.  For example:

Do you eat soup?  Yes?  Clean the cans, cover with some pretty paper and BAM! Organization cubbies.


What about cereal?  Do you eat cereal?  Cut them down, cover them with some pretty paper and BAM!  Drawer organization.


Shoes! You have to wear shoes.  Guess what?  Cover those shoe boxes with some pretty paper and BAM!  Storage.


These were just a few of the suggestions that I found through the I Heart Organizing blog.  If you need some organizing tips or inspiration, I would definitely recommend checking them out.


And if that's still not enough for you, here's "Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects".  Many of them I've seen before, but  they're still pretty good ideas.


What's your favorite DIY organization method?  Do you have any suggestions that need to be added?

Conquer that clutter!

My room is a horrible mess still from my upcoming WIP Wednesday in which I tell you about redoing my closet.  I have things I still need to sort, find a place for, etc.  Yes, that means I found something to delay my bag's progress even more, but I swear I will finish it eventually.  Also, while cleaning out my closet I found a cute little cross stitch of a mouse with a thimble, needle, and thread which I had to start playing with as soon as I found it.  Sigh.  But it's tiny and shouldn't take long at all.

Though it may not look like it by my room, I'm on an organizing kick right now.  I even started a new Pinterest board called "Get Organized!" but I haven't pinned much.  Stupid closet, what have you done?  Through cleaning my closet, I found some things I would rather fold than hang, but most of my drawers are full.  I plan on cleaning one out that has mostly just nail polish and Bath and Body perfume in it.

Therein lies the problem, though:  What do I do with all that junk?  I started looking through nail polish organization through Google and Pinterest, but none of them were really something I could just make at home on a whim.  (If you haven't noticed, I don't like spending more money than I have to.)  Then it hit me.  There was a small, rectangular box that some of the hardware for my closet came in.  I grabbed it and ran to the bathroom and it was the perfect size to fit on the side of my cabinet above the toilet.  I spent pretty much an hour working on cutting it, making little shelves, and taping it all down.  So, there's another project I have going...

Then what do I do with the perfume?!  I guess the best thing I could do would be to pick and choose which I like the most and have them more readily available.  Then I can store the rest elsewhere.  (I also don't like getting rid of things... Can you tell?)  I like the idea of having them handy, but I also like the idea of having them in the closet. Hm...



One of the last major storage issues in my closet is my shoes.  I have a shoe rack-dresser-thing in my room like the one above that I got from Walmart, but that has more of flats, flip flops, and tennis shoes in it.  I don't see how heels could fit in there.  I have a container that rolls under my bed that I had stored shoes in previously (which I don't think I've gone through in at least five years).  I finally went through them and weeded out the ones I wouldn't miss.  I went through my heels to see which I liked the most and which got worn the most, then put the others in the storage under the bed.  Hopefully I won't forget about them now.  I bagged the old ones up and plan on taking them to Zach's little sister who wears the same shoe size as me; otherwise, I guess I'll take them to Goodwill.  This narrows it down to about ten pairs that I want to keep in my closet.

 With it being so small in there -- about 4 square feet -- I don't want to put too much on the walls so I don't feel cramped like I did before.  I did see a neat little organizer on Pinterest that I think would work well and be very cost efficient to put along the back wall.  It's made out of foam board -- which you can get at Dollar Tree for, you guessed it, $1.  (Mine probably wouldn't be as cute as hers, though...)  I could make a small shoe rack for the bottom with slightly larger holes, the organizer, then depending on how sturdy it was, put maybe my jewelery on top.


I also want to make some of the cute little storage boxes to go on the top shelf.  I say make because have you seen the price of those things?  It's usually like $5 for one of them!  I'm sorry, can I not buy packing boxes for cheaper than that, then cover it with something cute and be much more cost efficient?  I want them so that my sweaters won't be all out in the open; I feel like that makes it look messier in there and I would much rather pull down a basket, find the sweater, and put the basket back up.  If I have them organized by color like my closet is, it would be easy to find the sweater I wanted, too.



I also looked through a lot of blog planners online.  I know...Why do I keep doing this to myself?  I really like this blog and I think I've done a decent job of staying on top of it so far -- it's only been a month, but that takes dedication!  I guess I'm just old fashioned in the fact that I still like to hand write things, especially when I'm organizing or planning something.  I took most of the ideas from My May Sunshine's blog, but I played with it to fit my tastes a little more.  (The one pictured above is the one My May Sunshine made.  I haven't put mine together yet.)  I also didn't include all of the pages she used, and I plan on looking around the web a little more to see if there are any others I would like to add.  Once I get it all pretty and to my liking, I'll be nice and include it as a free download.

I also hit 600 page views on Saturday.  Yay.  I don't know why you guys are still in this for the long haul, but thanks!  Let me know what you would like to see more of and I'll do my best to provide!

That's what I've been doing and what will probably keep me busy for a while... Even though my Nana just sent me home with about five skeins of yarn that I want to play with.  As always, if you have any tips for me, please leave a comment with them as well as anything else you would like to share.

Be sure to check out my social media stuff to stay up-to-date!  I finally got my Twitter and BlogLovin' accounts set up, so if that's more your style than Facebook, give me a follow.

What do you guys have planned for June?