Today we’re going to organize our desk drawers in our office.

These drawers in my home end up being my catch all, as living in a tiny apartment presents a true organizational challenge daily.

1. Empty. Open your drawer, and put everything into a pile in the middle of the floor (near to your desk drawer).

2. Clean.  Wipe out the drawers so that we can have a nice clean slate.

3. Sort. Create the following piles; Keep, Toss, Giveaway, Move.

• Keep – you want items that you intend to keep in the space to go into this pile. For me, I’ve tried to keep items that I need on a ‘daily’ basis or even just use very often. Certain items like extra ink etc. though not a daily item, I have left in this drawer anyway.
• Toss – anything that is no longer useful as it is broken, or just junk (old receipts, bills, candy, all the randoms!) I had quite a bit of this, old ticket stubs, bits and pieces of paper and receipts.
• Giveaway – Good usable condition items that no longer fit your lifestyle and need a new home. This could be a tape measure you no longer use, stationery, pencils, duplicate items. For me I had extra pens in there that were in usable condition and just contributing to clutter so I sent them to school with my daughter for use in her classroom.
• Move – these are items, which don’t belong in this drawer. Set them aside to be placed into the right area in your house. My printer paper, control journal all fell into this category, I removed these items. The printer paper went into longer term storage in my linen closet and my control journal became part of my ‘in’ basket on my desk.

4. Packaway. Once you have sorted all items, pack everything into your ‘junk drawer’. I got these great drawer organizers in my local $1 store. They came in very handy to compartmentalize everything.

Enjoy your newly organized area!

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At the beginning of the year as I was trying to find homes for all of the new toys received on Christmas I realized I have got to get my 4 year old son’s room organized.  The two large bins for toy boxes are just not cutting it.  Especially now that he has cars, army men, legos, and all sorts of other little toys that accumulate at the bottom of the bins.

So it started there and then I realized I had an even larger problem in my big girls room.  My almost 13 year old and almost 10 year old share the smallest room in the house and they have a lot of big furniture.  The organization in there is just awful.  I took an entire day with them shortly after the start of the year to clear out a lot of junk and see what we could do in there.  None of us really knew where to start so I started looking around Pinterest and started showing them a few things.

We didn’t go much further than that at that point because of lack of funds.  However, I knew that it was something we needed to get done no matter what and then my husband sprung a new idea on me this week.  He wants to move our rooms around.  As in we are all moving out of our rooms and into another.

My husband and I will take our son’s room, he will go into his big sister’s room, and the big girls will take our room and on top of that the baby will now be in with her brother.  Phew, did you catch all of that?  We are moving 6 people out of their current bedrooms and into new bedrooms and we’re doing it now as soon as my husband starts his 2 week vacation from work.  So onto Pinterest I jumped again to find the perfect solution for all of our bedroom clutter needs.

Starting with the girl’s room!

So with the girls moving from the smallest bedroom in the house to the largest bedroom in the house this should be easy.  We are mostly sticking with our original plan for their room, but this is just giving us more leeway in which to pull it off in.

My oldest daughter gets a new desk

Two great options if we didn’t have bunk beds and if we owned our own home.

My middle daughter’s picks

My almost 10 year old got a new desk for Christmas so she’s not getting any big new furniture.  Just some storage bins for her loads and loads of craft supplies.  If she got to pick something she would want her room to look something like this…

I think it’s mostly because of the green that she likes this room.  It actually would be the perfect combination for my girls.  My oldest loves pink and my middle daughter loves green.

Our new bedroom!

Since my husband and I will now be moving from the largest bedroom in the house to the 2nd largest bedroom we might be feeling a little cramped.  We are also getting the bedroom that opens up to the porch and has no closets at all.  Now where will I hang all of those dresses and skirts that I never wear and my pants?  And oh no my shoes!  Where ever will my shoes go?  Pinterest to the rescue.

Here’s what I’m thinking of for a closet in our bedroom…

This will be totally doable in our bedroom.  Now the question will be can I keep things hung that neatly.  And as far as my shoes go one of those hanging on the door shoe racks should solve that problem.  Now we just have to hope we can fit all of our furniture into that room.

The little ones bedroom

Now the biggest challenge of all and the most work is going to be the bedroom for my 4 year old son and 1 year old baby girl.  We are moving our son into a pink bedroom so to get him excited about the new room and roommate we are repainting that room.  He’s going into a smaller room and adding another person in there, but at least this room has a closet.  So a few upgrades he is getting is we will give him one of the big girls old twin bed frames and get rid of his toddler bed.  A new dresser for him and his sister to share is in order now too.  But the big issue with my son has always been the toy clutter.

Organizing the toys

I have a friend who has been using old kitty litter containers to store her kids legos and cars and Barbie accessories.  I thought that’s not a bad idea, but it looks like she has tons of kitty litter stacked in her kids rooms.  Plus, until recently I didn’t have a cat so it wasn’t exactly a feasible idea for me to store my kids toys.  Plus I felt it was a little tacky.  But I found this on Pinterest…

Genius!  Why didn’t I think of this?  Of course this here is very girly, but get some red and blue paper and it’s perfect for a boy.  And it’s cheap to boot.  I don’t have any plastic kitty litter boxes so I’m going to see what I can find by enlisting the help of Freecycle to make this one happen.  Don’t you think that looks so much nicer than a bunch of plain kitty litter bins all over the place?  I will be able to have one each for my son’s tools, blocks, legos, matchbox cars, army men, and his Little People/Apple Grove Pals.

 What about the bigger toys?

Now my son has some big trucks and cars that are not going to fit in those kitty litter bins.  So what can we do with all of those?  Well how about this for car storage?

It uses one of those metal knife holders. So it might not work so well for all of those plastic toys, but still I am sure my son would love driving his cars up on the wall every night before bed to park them each night!

Stuffed animals galore!

All of my kids have been accumulating more than their fair share of stuffed animals over time.  And truth be told I am still hanging onto a few from my childhood.  Some my children have claimed as their own.  They are everywhere and we need to find a good home for them.  You could try something like this…

I have my son’s in a large wicker laundry basket right now and they are overflowing and it’s taking up popular floor real estate. So if you are looking for a way to free up floor space you can always try a pet net.

This is a neat DIY tutorial, but if you are like me and sewed the sleeve together on the shirt you made in your 7th grade sewing class, then this might be frighting for you. Plus, I always find pet nets hard to place so they are accessible for small children and they don’t hold a lot of stuffed animals. So a little more looking around and Pinterest supplied me with the perfect solution.

Hanging planters are perfect. We can put them at just the right height so the kids can easily access them. It will be off the floor and will look really cute. And how fun will it be to see how many baskets we can make in the numerous different hanging planters when it’s time to clean up for the day?

I think I have found all of the solutions to all of our major problems with organization in the bedrooms.  If more come up as we are moving I’m sure I’ll be checking out Pinterest for some more help.  What great organization tips have you found on Pinterest recently?

I just ordered the Shoes Under – yes, as seen on TV (I’m a little addicted to infomercials…). I love this for organizing shoes. I took advantage of the double offer and I’m getting 2 – one for me and one for hubby.

Right now, my shoes are stored in my closet in their original boxes. I have them stacked up on the floor. Hubby has a big mess – just kicks his shoes off onto the floor of his closet.

I’m excited to free-up floor space so I can add some shelves for my sweaters. And I’m so happy to be able to clean up hubby’s mess!

The website had a cool idea for using Shoes Under – store shoes and socks. This is an idea I might use someday for Little Dude. I also plan to use a second one for him to store his action figures in – it looks big enough to hold some of his larger ones that are 10-inches tall.

The thought of storing things under the bed, yet having them easily accessible is pretty cool! You can check out the Shoes Under website by clicking here.

Getting a toddler to pick-up after themselves is a chore in itself! There are so many times a day a mom can sing the clean-up song or nag to “pick up your toys” before she loses her sanity.

What I’ve done is made it easy for my Little Dude to pick-up after himself. We have bright colored bins on a shelf that holds his toys in the living room. We have a toy box and more shelves in his bedroom. By giving him the tools, he keeps his “stuff” relatively organized and tidy.

But there is one thing that drives me nuts: Each day Little Dude comes home from school, he immediately takes off his backpack and jacket and drops them on the floor. Grrr! He just wont take the time to walk to the coat closet to put them away.

Until now! The lovely people at 3M sent me a basket of their Command Hooks.

The newest products from 3M Command provide a fun way for kids to get organized without adding more storage bins around the house. They offer Disney-themed hooks such as Disney Princess, Hannah Montana and Cars. Like all Command Adhesive products, they do not damage the walls and can easily be repositioned as needed.

Little Dude was so excited to use his Cars hooks (after all, everything revolves around Lightening McQueen). Ever since I hung the 3M Command Hooks near our kitchen door, he actually likes to hang his jacket and backpack.

I am so excited to NOT trip over his stuff lying on the kitchen floor. And the added bonus is that we always know where his jacket is!

The new kid-friendly hooks retail for $8.97 – $10.49 at your local store. Believe me – they are well worth it! Actually, I’m wondering if they have big-boy designs to get Hubby to pick-up after himself…

Oh, did I mention that 3M sent me a basket of these? Well, included in that basket are two Disney Princess Command Hooks. Being that this house is run on testosterone, I have no use for them. So I’m giving them away!

3m  Disney Princess Contoured 3-D Command Hooks Giveaway

This giveaway is simple! To enter:

• Leave a comment telling me what you’d do with the hooks
• Twitter about the giveaway and come on back and leave a comment with your Tweet
• Share on your blog and again come back and leave your link
• Join my email list (top left on sidebar) and once again come back and leave a comment

Giveaway ends Tuesday, May 20th at Midnight. A random winner will be chosen using http://www.random.org/ and announced Wednesday, May 21st.

Good Luck!

This is a Works-For-Me-Wednesday post. For more super cool tips for Moms visit WeAreThatFamily.com and browse the participants of the Works-For-Me-Wednesday Blog Carnival.

The 2nd Tuesday of March has been declared as National Organize Your Home Office Day. I find the biggest challenge in keeping a home office clean and tidy is paperwork. We all have it – the mail, bills, receipts, manuals, etc.

Paper clutter can be a major problem.  Get rid of it and get organized. Throw junk mail away immediately.  Don’t even take it to your office or desk.  Keep a trash can or a recycling box, near the door, especially for junk mail. Whatever does make it to your home office should be handled as soon as possible.

At the very least, set-up a system to hold the paperwork such as stackable bins. Label them to pay (the bills), to act (permission slips to sign, correspondence to respond to), and to file. Then once a week, act on these bins and clear them out.

Don’t let paper clutter your desk.  If you don’t have room on the floor for a filing cabinet purchase a hanging file system.  These types of filing systems are designed to hang from a hook on the back of a door.  It can easily be hidden in a closet this way.  Labeling each pocket based on your needs, such as bills, copies of receipts, and tax deductions will keep your desk clutter free and keep you better organized.

Decide on a filing system and stick to it. Maybe you use a filing cabinet with tabbed-dividers to store paperwork. Or perhaps floor space is not available for a filing cabinet so you can use binders. Even the accordion type of filing folders work for some families or businesses that do not have a lot of paperwork. Whatever you decide on, use it. Don’t do a little of this and a little of that – this will only cause confusion when you need to get your hands on something.

Make it usable. One big tip of having an organized home office is maintenance. Be sure to make your systems workable. A filing system is only as good as the person using it, so be sure to implement a system that works for you.

Even with limited workspace, with a little creativity and the right equipment, it is possible to have your home office paperwork organized.

For more tips, pop on over to BlogMammas and enjoy Tuesday’s Tip Jar.

Sally asked “Recipes…I need a good way to organize all the recipes I clip out of magazines and newspapers. What do you do?”

Funny you should ask me that Sally! I have a confession to make – I’m addicted to recipes! I clip, print and copy more recipes than I’ll every need. I always have the intention of making the recipe, in the end I stick with tried and true family favorites – because my boys don’t like change. Oh well, someday that yummy veggie recipe I ripped out of Good Housekeeping back in 1999 will get made.

So how do I keep them organized? Simple – a binder. Are you surprised? I am quite fond of binders! (Image: CR Gibson Kitsch ‘n Mixer Recipe Memory Book)

Recipes are always printed or written on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper. If it’s clipped from a magazine or newspaper, I tape it to a sheet. I switched from a card file to a binder because I needed room! Having recipes on a full sheet of paper gives me room to make notes about the recipe: ingredient substitutions, adjustments in cooking time, etc.

Using tabs, my recipes are sorted by their category: Appetizer, Soup, Meat, Poultry, Fish, Veggies, Cakes, Pies, etc. (I have a binder just for cookies – they are my thang.) I then have each category separated by a sheet of colored paper: tried and true recipes are in front of it, never-been-made are behind it.

When I first put my recipe binder together, it was a fun trip down memory lane. I would love it to resemble a scrap book. But alas, I’m not that crafty. Maybe when little dude goes to school full time in a couple years.

Anyway, having my handy-dandy makes meal planning a snap. When I sit down to put my grocery list together, I just grab my binder. Using the sale circular, I find what’s on sale, then find a recipe.

Have fun putting your binder together!

Check out more Works For Me Wednesday tips over at Rocks In My Dryer!

Psst! Looking for recipes? Then check out the cookbooks I have available in my e-book shop!