Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep It Together Girl!

Organized Toys

Few things bug me as much as my kids asking me to play a game, opening the box and finding pieces missing. This is a true pet peeve of mine. The thing is, often times it isn’t that my children don’t put games away properly, but that the boxes are made so cheaply that they often break down quickly.

Read More...

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep It Together Girl!

Helping Children to Organize Books

It can often be daunting to a mom to teach children how to keep their books stored on a bookshelf. It may seem as though they should be able to do this task easily, but the fact is it can often be overwhelming; not just for mom, but for children as well.

READ MORE...

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep It Together Girl!

Storing Scrapbooking Scraps

I love binders for storing and organizing items, especially magazine articles! I can organize my recipes, family life, budget, e-books, etc by using binders. People sometimes laugh and sometimes are amazed at how many binders I actually have in my home. EVERYTHING has a place in a well labeled binder. This holds true for scrapbooking scraps.

Read More...

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep It Together Girl!

Paper Police

Paper is an issue that every family deals with. Some more than others, but we all have paper we need to store such as bills, receipts, documents, statements, school papers, art work (dare we ever throw one piece away), notes, newspapers, magazines, books, circulars, etc. The list can go on and on. Sometimes we don’t even get to those in a timely manner, missing out on a great sale on something that we actually have on our need list! That always burns me! There are lots of neat ways to keep paper under control and still have access to it, when needed.

Read More...

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep It Together Girl!

Staging A Room

I have two types of female friends; those who like to rearrange their rooms frequently and those who put a room together a room and that’s that. Whether you like new ideas constantly or you like to keep one setting, there are some things to consider that can really help with keeping your home organized, useful, AND welcoming.

READ MORE...

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep It Together Girl!

Optimal Organization

Organization is such a tricky feat for most of us. Finding the right container with the right niche for items is always a challenge. There is something you can do that will help you immensely; look to others.

We all have friends who are organized, if not all around, organized in some specific area. Talk with them. I have a special friend, who is can take a small area and PACK it with items and yet you never feel cramped in the space. April has a gift.

READ MORE...

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep It Together Girl!

Everyday School Organization

One thing that everyone tries to do at the beginning of each school year is to make a system that will work for keeping things organized. We all dream of mornings that are non-chaotic with never a spinny, spin, spin for that one needed item that seems to be hiding somewhere. I know I put that pencil somewhere, but where? Here is a system that can put those mornings behind you forever!

READ MORE...

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Thanks to all who have been hanging in there with me this week. It sure has been crazy. Some of you are aware of what has been going on, and for those who don’t, the newsletter is on the way! I am working my way through re-scheduling the posts and Monday posting should be back to normal. Also, ALL of this week’s posts will be up today. Enjoy your weekend!

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep It Together Girl!

Teaching Kids Responsibility PART II

Last week was the beginning of a three part series on teaching kids responsibility in the home which builds their life skills, character, and helps mom. Today we are going to talk about an idea that has likely been expounded upon for years; assigning chores.

I agree that assigning chores helps kids understand exactly what their responsibilities are, as well as giving mom and dad a clear understanding of each family member’s responsibilities. However, I really struggled with this. I tried a variety of methods of instituting chores check points. I have had TONS of chores charts, programs to help me keep track of it all and they always fall by the wayside after a few months.

 READ MORE...

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep it Together Girl!

Teach Your Kids Responsibility

One thing I have noticed that moms regularly do across the board is to take on responsibilities that do nto belong to them. We have so many reasons for doing so. For me, it is just plain easier for me to do certain tasks than to take the time to explain it, demonstrate it, supervise it, and then have to do it all over again until they master the task. The time factor is the biggest one for me. So instead of persevering for the greater good of my children, I take their responsibilities on my own shoulders and then wonder why I become frustrated with my work load.

I thought long and hard about how I could create some simple ways for my children to own their responsibilities, without incurring the time and training factor. What emerged was a system that has worked for our children and may work for your family as well.

READ MORE...

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep It Together Girl!

Mug Storage

There isn’t a one of us who doesn’t wish we had just a bit more cupboard space in our kitchen. It’s a fact that will remain throughout time. No matter how many cupboards, there just never seems to be quite enough. One way to combat this issue, is to store your mugs outside your cupboard. Years ago it was a popular practice to hang mugs from underneath a cupboard from mug hooks. However, they often took space away from the countertop and under the cupboard small appliances. So, what’s a girl to do?

Most kitchens are designed with at least one cupboard that has an outer side exposed. Attach mug hooks to the side of that cupboard and hang mugs. You can arrange the hooks in a whimsical design or in clean cut even pattern. This will add a cute dimension to that boring unused space while freeing up valuable cupboard space!

These are my thoughts.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep It Together Girl!

Closet Storage: Use it ALL!

Every time my kids are involved in an activity or we go yard saling, it seems we end up with a bag or ball cap. I would come up with baskets etc to store these items in. What I found was that my kids don’t grab fro these items on a regular basis. After a lot of brain power, I couldn’t come up with a solution that I thought was feasible, so the stuff stayed in baskets.

Then one day I was cleaning their closet and I was inspired! The back wall of the closet, behind where the clothes hang would be a perfect place to hang these items out of the way without interfering with the clothing. You can mount pegs on the back wall or use one of those old fashioned accordion coat hangers that looks like a series of diamonds when you open it. Simply hang the bags and caps there and place the hanging clothes on the rod in front.

One warning, if the hats are too large (like a cowboy hat), they will get knocked off the peg repeatedly. However ball caps, and bags hang nicely!

These are my thoughts.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep it Together Girl!

Ponytail Band and Scruncii Storage

If you have girls and you are a girl you likely have many hair bands and scrunciis. Ever wonder why you can’t find one when you need it? Ever gotten so frustrated you have used a binder clip to hold your hair back? YES, I have done that…more than once. A great and frugal storage idea for all those bands is cardboard toilet paper tubes or a paper towel holder.

Simply put bands around cardboard toilet paper tubes and store in a box or on an upright paper towel holder.

Another simple idea is to use a paper towel holder on its own. With a counter top holder you can simply slip them on and off, right at the sink. If you have little vanity space, try a wall or cabinet mounted paper towel holder. A great reason to use this type is that it can be mounted inside a cupboard door or under a closet shelf for optimal space efficiency.

These are my thoughts.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep It Together Girl!

Hang It!

Do you have lots of smaller items that need a place? Have so many little plastic storage containers that hold smaller groups of items, that you have no place to put them all and no way to keep them organized? Ever try to find one of those small plastic containers only to find every one you DON’T need and never the one you do? Here’s an idea that can help you locate those items quickly and store them efficiently.

A hanging shoe organizer is a GREAT storage item. You can store all types of items in those little clear plastic pockets. Jewelry, buttons, flash cards, counting bears, calendar blocks, small stationary supplies, cotton balls, foam pieces, glue sticks, sewing notions, spools of thread, scissors, office supplies, art supplies, extra rolls of tape, belts, scarves, and SO much MORE! What makes these ideal is their space efficiency. You can hang on of these on the inside of a closet door, on a clothing rack, or attach it to a wall!  These are SO inexpensive that you can purchase 2-3 for under $10! That is a LOT of storage for a frugal price.

These are my thoughts.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep it Together, Girl!

Cord Organization

One thing everyone has in their homes is cords. We don’t think about them much, but they can be a pain to keep track of and store. It is amazing to me how all those cords for my puter and printer can be such a tangled mess!!! It can make it very difficult to clean around. But there is a simple and FREE solution!

Save the cardboard tubes from TP and paper towels. Use the TP tubes to store miscellaneous cords such as extension cords, small appliance cords, cords for small devices (mp3 players, walkmen, cameras, etc), and other gadgets. Use the paper towel tubes for containing several cords plugged in to one area. Turn everything off that is plugged in to one power strip. Unplug everything and slip into one or two tubes (I use 2 consecutive paper towel tubes for my computer cords). Then replug and power up. When it comes time to clean, simply pick up the tube and vacuum underneath!

These are my thoughts.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Get it Together Girl!

Curriculum Now

I know many of you have just visited Homeschool conferences, conventions, and workshops recently. Some are preparing to buy next year’s curriculum online. Others are searching ebay and like websites for used curriculum. But what about the curriculum you already have?

First things first; get 3 boxes. You know the drill, one box is for items you will keep, one for those to be sold, one for those to be discarded. Go through your curriculum, shelf by shelf and sort through it. Remove the boxes that need to be sold and discarded from the room immediately.

Now you should be left with the curriculum you are still using and your new curriculum. A good way to contain and organize curriculum is to use paper organizers for scrapbooking. The plastic containers are the perfect size to contain curriculum in manageable sections. This will also help you to keep your shelves tidy even when you need to pull something off the shelf. Additionally those paper organizers can be used to place curriculum on for each day of the week. This will eliminate the need for you to have another area to keep the current week’s assignments.

Keep your eyes open for sales. Joann’s Fabrics regularly puts them on sale for around $3-4 per unit. Even if you school year round, you likely have some down time over the next few months which will allow you to get your curriculum in order and reduce clutter at the same time.

These are my thoughts.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Get it Together Girl!

Easy Kid Clothes Organization

Getting kids ready in the morning for school, outings, or co-ops, or just for getting your homeschool day started can sometimes be hindered and cause a day to begin harried when children need to pick clothes out for the day. Having your son come to the table ready to start a day of painting in good out of the house clothes is not something mom wants to deal with when trying to get her day started.

Laying clothes out the night before is a nice option and a good habit to get in to. Let your kids know what the activities are planned for the following day so they can pick out appropriate clothing. This is the most common method used for organizing kids’ clothes to keep chaos under control.

There are other methods that are very adaptable and help kids get better organized. One of these methods is to have a weeklong schedule of activities and a closet hanging sweater storage unit in their closet. Each section of the stacker is designated for a day of the week. Children can pick an entire outfit, including underwear and socks, and place in the appropriate cubby in regards to the activities planned for that day. This allows children to have easy mornings and they only need to spend about 20 minutes one evening a week organizing their clothes for the week.

To help keep things even more simple and easy, try keeping all bottoms in solid colors. Limiting those bottoms to neutral colors doubles the ease of children learning to organize themselves. Now designate each day a specific color. The child will know that Monday is red day and pick a red shirt and a pair of bottoms (if you keep things simple with bottoms, every shirt will match every bottom!). For even more organization, use this method with the above weeklong organization method!

As with anything I recommend, use an organization method that best meshes with your family’s personality and schedule. If your family changes their schedule regularly and at a moment’s notice, planning a week in advance may actual create more chaos than keeping it at bay. If you have children that enjoy picking their clothes out for each day as it comes; laying them out the night before or having color coded days of the week will be a better method. Find the method that works best for YOUR family and stick with it!

These are my thoughts.

• Comments (1) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep it Together, Girl!

Area Specific Folding can Save Space

When I was a girl, I spent a tremendous amount of time with my Nana. It was very convenient for me, because she lived in the apartment upstairs. Her kind heart offered me tons of advice and know-how that I never realized I would use when I was a woman.

Being from the Depression Era and living in a 3 bedroom apartment with her father and her 11 brothers and sisters, she knew a LOT about space efficiency. One of the best concepts she ever taught me was the beauty of area specific folding. This is nothing more than folding items in a specific, and sometimes non-traditional way, to optimize the use of space.

If you do not have a lot of drawer space, consider hanging more items in your closet. When that is not an option, area specific folding can save the day! You can fit twice as many T-shirts in a drawer by following this simple method: fold them in half long ways; fold the arms in; fold in half again (this is where many people stop folding); now on a flat surface, roll from the center fold. Place all t-shirts in the drawer rolled in these cylinders. You will not only almost double your space, BUT you will also be able to see every shirt at a glance, instead of having to dig through an overstuffed stack. Want another great reason to try this? Your t-shirts will stay wrinkle free!

Another area specific folding trick is with towels of all shapes and sizes. Generally speaking, linen closet shelves are narrow. This means that folding a towel in half, then in half again (producing a large square) would not fit well. However, by altering the way you fold your towels, you can achieve a well folded towel in a shape and size that will fit YOUR shelving, allowing for maximum storage efficiency. Try folding a towel in half, from top to bottom. Repeat. Now fold in 1/3 from the side to slightly over the middle. Bring in the other side to match. Now you have a nicely presented smaller rectangle that will fit on near every linen closet shelf.

Consider using the internet to look for different folding formats. Consider the space you have to store the item and the best and most efficient way to fold the items that will be stored on those shelves and/or drawers. This will allow for maximum storage and a neat and tidy space, without much effort. Once you get the hang of a new folding pattern, it will become second nature before you know it. So don’t be afraid of change.

These are my thoughts.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Planning is an essential part of life for me. Not being organized by nature, I have found that planners really have helped me become more organized over the years, without feeling overwhelmed.

SO, I want to tell you about something new getting ready to hit the scene.

There is a new planner getting ready to be released, that is THE planner, as far as I am concerned. This planner is not your ordinary everyday planner. Firstly, it covers forms for all aspects of life for public school families, homeschool families, AND unschool families. It contains specifics for each of those family styles! Not only that but this is a 4 year planner containing not only year at a glance calendars but monthly calendars as well. But that isn't all!

I don't want to get over wordy here until I get the go ahead about it's release, BUT this planner is type-it-in interactive. This means that you have the option of printing blank forms OR typing in the information you want BEFORE you print! HOW COOL IS THAT? The interactivity doesn't stop there. The author, Julie Forsythe, has made the planner interactive within itself. This means that when you go to the table of contents you can simply click on the page you want to go to and POOF!, there you are!

It is almost ready to be released, so GET ready for it! This IS The Master Plan!

These are my thoughts.

• Comments (2) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

I Can't Live Simply Until...

Getting Control of Your Magazine Commitments

Magazines; you know I love them! I had to learn to organize them (as I discussed last week in this post), but then there was another thing that kept coming to my mind. Each time I would go through my stack of magazines to organize them, I realized I regularly get backed up on the actual reading of them.

This lead me to some more thinking. I easily acquire magazines for pennies on the dollar at yard sales, libraries, and thrift stores. I asked myself, "If I am not reading the magazine subscriptions that I pay for in a timely manner, why do I continue to keep my subscriptions active?" With that thought in mind I began a plan to non-renewal plan. You really don't get any better deal on the subscriptions for renewing than if you discontinued and re-subscribed as a new reader. So, I began letting subscriptions expire.

I was floored at how many of those subscriptions I didn't miss! Now, I only have a select few subscriptions. Mainly I keep up with publications that are timely and news oriented, and two that are research oriented. The rest of the magazines I collect are old one picked which I pick up used. Now, I don't feel guilty when I dig in to reading a stack at a time to organize them. I also am pleased that I am helping my family to save money. But what I have noticed the most is the simplicity of not having so many publications coming into the house every month/week. It is almost a peaceful feeling that has come over me in regards to reading.

So take time to evaluate your subscriptions. Would you really miss them if you weren't receiving them monthly/weekly? Consider allowing the subscription to expire and wait 2-3 months. If you are truly missing the publication, then by all means subscribe, but if you find, as I did in many cases, that you really aren't missing it, then save yourself the money! You will find that a certain amount of guilt is alleviated without the stack of unread, but purchased at full subscription price magazines are gathering up awaiting organization.

These are my thoughts. 

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Posted in Organization

Simple Journey Ministries Presents

Keep it Together, Girl

Making the Most of Your Shelf Space

We all have shelves in our homes. You may not have a lot of shelf space, but you have it somewhere; the bathroom, a hall closet, a pantry, an added single cupboard, etc. Think about your shelves. Are they filled from top to bottom? Whatever you have stored on those shelves, do they take up all the space? If not, the space above your stored items to the bottom of the next shelf is unused spaced.

You can make use of this space fairly easily. If the shelves are shallow, consider using a basket that slides onto the shelf above. These generally have large "holes" so they would not be good for small individual items that may fall through those holes. But they are perfect for storing small containers for smaller like items. Consider one of these baskets placed above where you store your bath towels to store washcloths. Perhaps you have a shelf in your kitchen that has a basket for dishcloths which you could place one of these baskets to store your re-usable shopping bags, boxes for plastic bags, or dusting supplies.

Additionally, there is a product that can be installed on deep shelves. These long metal baskets have a track system that need be installed in only a few minutes. Once installed the basket will slide in and out of the area with ease, providing you with maximum space usage. These baskets may have smaller openings/holes, so be sure to determine the best way to organize the items you want to store here.

Using every available inch of storage space with shelving can really increase your storage space. Items that have a storage space behind closed doors are ones that are not out and about causing clutter elsewhere. This also cuts down on time when you are searching for an item. Make certain truly evaluate your storage spaces for maximum usage.

These are my thoughts. 

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link