Small victories

I realized today how much of a small victory person I am.  You see I decided to take the days that my daughter was done to do some projects around the apartment.

The first one was reorganizing the bathroom cupboard.  Pretty easy, I ended up taking out my tool box (yes I know it is crazy to store a tool box in the bathroom but it ended up in there years ago and it worked.)  I was able to put in a few more things that were in my hallway closet that really belonged in the bathroom.

Then I tackled what is suppose to be our coat closet.  I had rearranged it a month or two ago in the hopes of turning it into storage for Etsy shop item that were spread out all over the apartment.  I never really liked it as I set it up so I decided I needed a different storage system for there rather than the mismatched items that I was using.

I was able to find a wire system on sale at my favorite store for $13.99.  I picked up two as I wanted it as large as I could make it without taking out the existing shelf and rod that was in there. 

I got most of the items that were around the apartment in closet in addition to the newly displaced tool box.  Now I had a plastic drawer system and some wood fruit crates that needed a new home.  The plastic drawers will eventually make it under my craft tables.  I had ideas to use the wood crated in my bedroom somewhere.

Now avert your eyes if you want pretty – this before is so not pretty.

Closet before:

I know, I know it is bad.  Very bad.

Here’s the after.

Not picture perfect pretty but it is a whole lot better than it was just days ago.

I still didn’t do much with the top shelf.  It has smaller frames in the hat box on the left.  Various wreaths hanging on the wall and some larger pieces and frames to the left with a purse in the middle. 

I thought the divider would help store some of my frames but it isn’t working quite like I imagined it would.  So the top shelf is still a work in progress.  Well, mainly it is a put it off for now project that may or may not ever get done.

The closet redo lead me to decide today was the day to finally tackle rearranging my bedroom.

I moved the bed, end table, dresser, chest but wasn’t sure yet on the wood crates.  What do I tackle?   Do I keep rearranging furniture?  Nope I tackle the small stuff.  Seriously I rearrange the top of the dresser to look like this…..

I thought I would finally display some of my vintage jewelry finds along with some of my newer jewelry.

Really a pretty dresser top when my bed still looks like this…..

Yep that is what I do.

What was I thinking?
Am I the only one who does things like this?

I guess I need to see some small victory.  I need to know that there is light at the end of tunnel, even if it doesn’t look like it. 

Ah well, I better get back to work working on clearing off my bed so I have a place to sleep tonight.

Well, even if I have to sleep on the couch or floor at least I will have a cleaner closet and a pretty dresser top.

 

June

 

I usually link to these fabulous parties:

Transformation Thursdays at The Shabby Chic Cottage

 Feature Yourself Friday at Fingerprints on the Fridge 

Frugalicous Fridays at Finding Fabulous 

Hodgepodge Friday at It's a Hodgepodge Life

Catch as Catch Can at My Repurposed Life 

Flaunt It Friday at Chic on a Shoestring 

Fabulous Finds at Frou Frou Decor 

Weekend Wrap Up at Tater Tots and Jello

 Saturday Nite Special at Funky Junk Interiors

 Saturday Soiree at A Little Lovely

 Tools are for Women Too

 Lucky Linky Tuesday at Lucky Star Lanes

 Anti-Procrastination Tuesdays at New Nostalgia 

I Made It Without My Hubby at Shanty 2 Chic

Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design

 Make it Yours Day at My Backyard Eden

Creative Share Wednesday at The Trendy Treehouse

Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts

Hookin up at HOH

I took the challenge and have an organized pantry

I’ve been known to take on a challenge or two.

There was the time my sister said she would pick up ‘free’ skates if I would re-do them for her.  I took that challenge.  Read about it here if you want to see what can be done with old skates and a few things I had around my apartment.

Oh, and there was the Christmas gift challenge.  On Thanksgiving another sister gave me a roll of Scotch tape and said it was for ‘her’ Christmas present.

I took that challenge and used the whole roll on her gift.

Seriously it takes a long time to use a whole roll of tape on one present.

I took a couple pics and a video of her opening it.

The video was over 7 minutes long. 

Yep, it took that long to open one gift.

 

I think my sister will be a bit more careful about what she says if she ever gives me a roll of tape again.  Right Betty??

My daughter had mentioned that she didn’t like the paper that I used to wrap this gift and some of hers because she couldn’t rip it. 

Hee Hee.

 

Now on to the real point of this post.

What challenge did I take on now?

I took on MaryAnn from Domestically Speaking and her challenge to clean out a closet.

Click below to join in on the organizing party where each week in January there is a new area to clean out and organize.

I couldn’t decide on what I needed to work on more, my pantry/storage area or my linen/storage area.  Both need to be done but for now I’ll just show you my before and after of my pantry/linen closet.

(If you are faint of heart or going to judge me harshly don’t look.  You may never think of me the same again after you see my pantry/storage area and I want to save my dignity and for you to come back.)

Before:

Yep, definitely needs to be organized.

Since I live in an apartment, my storage can be a bit creative to say the least.

Notice the big black thing on the top left? 

Suitcases. 

Yep, suitcases in my pantry.

Halloween decorations on the top shelf and on the floor.

 

Who else has their Halloween decorations and suitcases in their pantry?

I’m probably the only one you know who does this.

But then again, for an apartment I think I have a rather large pantry so it can hold my food, my suitcases, some decorations and quite a bit of other miscellaneous items.

Tons of open and sometimes empty boxes. 

Empty boxes you ask….I’m not sure why,

but my daughter likes to leave empty boxes in the pantry.

 

Canned goods three high?

Time to clear it out.

I pulled out every thing shelf by shelf.

I looked at all the foods expiration date.

I couldn’t believe how much stuff I had that was past its expiration date.

That alone filled up a garbage bag, well truth be told more than one bag.

See, I told you not to look and read if you were going to harshly judge me.

Then I decided that I really can’t make my picky daughter eat some of the things I have bought so out with a few things that we probably won’t eat.

I didn’t take a picture of the trash but image a full garbage can and three, yes three Target bags with expired or open foods we aren’t going to finish.

I happened to ask for and get a tiered shelf for Christmas so I put that to use to hold my canned soups. 

Perfect to hold the soup cans that I didn’t discard.

 

Maybe now that they are much easier to see and grab we will eat more of them.

Nothing like a cup of warm soup on a cold winter day.

Look at this organized goodness.

Cans and packaged food arranged by type and date.

Hopefully no more expired foods in my pantry.

Yes, I seriously have 15 boxes of unopened cereal.

I see lots of rice crispies in our future.

 

I could still use a little help in the baking section but it will look better once I can store all of the powdered and brown sugar in the Tupperware containers I have.

For some reason I had two opened bags of powdered sugar.

I have three bags of holiday marshmallows – maybe I should make some rice crispies today and use up a bag.

I was able to open a bag of flour and put it in the almost empty container I had.  I did it after I put the flour in a bowl while I cleaned out the flour container.

See, I’m not all that bad.

I even put the oldest flour on top of the new flour I put in the container.

Top shelf – see the lack of suitcases??

I decided they need a new home.

They didn’t go far, they are now on the floor of pantry.

They will be much easier to get out the few times I year we use them.

For now they are hidden by a mirror that is waiting to be cleaned up and painted.

I was able to temporarily store a couple mirrors that were not in the pantry before.

They are some of my recent finds just waiting to be cleaned up made over.

Ah, the wonders of a new coat of spray paint.

I did take out a hanging file holder that still needs to be gone through and organized.  I’m fairly certain that I can condense it down to fit in other hanging file folders that I have.

Besides the file folder I do still have to drop off a few things I pulled out of the pantry at a local charity that responded to my freecycle offer.  If you’ve never heard of freecycle it is a great place to pass on items that you no longer need.  It’s like Craigslist but everything is free.

There are more than 4,000 local groups so there is certain to be on in your area.

You can check them out here to find a group near you.

I listed a few Tupperware containers and some food on freecycle and they were quickly snatched up and picked up yesterday.

I’m very happy with my ‘after’ pantry.

Rows of organization sorted into categories and in date order.

 

Just to remind you what I started with.

Before                               After

Ah, one thing off of my to do list.

Thank you Maryann.

I usually link to these fabulous parties:

Transformation Thursdays at The Shabby Chic Cottage

 Feature Yourself Friday at Fingerprints on the Fridge 

Frugalicous Fridays at Finding Fabulous 

Hodgepodge Friday at It's a Hodgepodge Life

Catch as Catch Can at My Repurposed Life 

Flaunt It Friday at Chic on a Shoestring 

Fabulous Finds at Frou Frou Decor 

Weekend Wrap Up at Tater Tots and Jello

 Saturday Nite Special at Funky Junk Interiors

 Saturday Soiree at A Little Lovely

 Tools are for Women Too

 Lucky Linky Tuesday at Lucky Star Lanes

 Anti-Procrastination Tuesdays at New Nostalgia 

I Made It Without My Hubby at Shanty 2 Chic

Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design

 Make it Yours Day at My Backyard Eden

Creative Share Wednesday at The Trendy Treehouse

Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts

New year, new organization

It seems that every year I resolve to be better organized.

This year is no different.

Why do I resolve to be better organized each year?

Because of this…

(This is suppose to be my crafting area.  See the piles?)

and this…

(This is my main work space.  I don’t think there is 6 square inches bare right now.)

oh, and this…

(Not that a single roll or crumpled paper is a big deal but supplies do get lost and ruined when I’m not organized.)

I decided to tackle the box of wrapping paper and bags in a box under my bed.

Why the box of wrapping paper?

Mostly because it is a rather small project and it shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes to complete.  Quick and relatively simple is good.

Let’s start small I say.

Maybe it will give me the inspiration to stick with getting better organized.

Notice I didn’t say get organized.  I don’t think that I’ll ever be completely organized but ever little bit will help.

This was what I started with.

I did binder clip the boxes I put away this year but then I just stuffed the box back under the bed and was going to forget about it.

The box really was layered with lots of bags, tissue paper, tags and even a holiday frame.  Don’t ask…. I guess last year I got lazy and shoved a frame in with the wrapping paper.

 

Look at all the torn and crumpled paper.

Seriously this blue paper is foil paper and was not cheap.

What a shame I didn’t treat it better.

Oh, and both ends were pretty much in the same shape.

Double oops.

13 rolls…. why did I feel the need to buy a roll of paper this year?

Sure it was only a dollar from Target but still, I really did have enough.

I had read a tip somewhere to use toilet paper and paper towel tubes to keep wrapping paper from unrolling.  Sorry I don’t remember where to give proper credit.  I saved a few over the past week or so and used all that I had to keep a few of the rolls together.

It worked good after I trimmed the tattered edges on a few rolls.

After cleaning the box I put all the rolls of wrapping paper back in.

Only one was so long it needed to be diagonal in the box.

I decided to save space and put some rolls inside of larger rolls.

That should help keep the paper from getting tattered too.

    I added a few flat sheets of paper and the binder clipped boxes on top of the rolls of paper.

 

I organized all of the gift bags and put them all in one bag.

This alone was a space saver and really helped to organize the box.

Look… 30 some pull bows.  

I don’t think one of my presents had a bow on it this year.

I wonder why… oh yeah, because they were buried on the bottom of the wrapping paper box that I tried to avoid.

Next year I think all of my present will have a bow, or maybe two or three bows.

I decided to not put tissue paper and some cello bags back in the box.

I’m going to store them with my mailing supplies for my etsy orders.

They will look a lot more professional than random plastic bags I’m using now.

There were a few boxes, a bag and some cello that I decided to part with as well.

In the spring I get together with some of my sisters and we exchange our crap, no I mean our excess craft supplies, with one another.  These boxes will be perfect to pack up my crap, oh, my ‘supplies’ to share.

I started already by putting some tags in one box already.

I’m pretty happy with my results.

Looks much better than what I started with.

    

Look the cover even fits on making it easier to slide under my bed.

 

As a reminder of what I started with..

Before                                            After

 

This feels good.

One messy area taken care of.

Maybe this will be the year that I get organized after all….

 Maybe there is hope for my craft area.

Any tips to get me organized this year?

I usually link to these parties:

Transformation Thursdays at The Shabby Chic Cottage  Feature Yourself Friday at Fingerprints on the Fridge  Frugalicous Fridays at Finding Fabulous  Hodgepodge Friday at It's a Hodgepodge Life Catch as Catch Can at My Repurposed Life  Flaunt It Friday at Chic on a Shoestring  Fabulous Finds at Frou Frou Decor  Weekend Wrap Up at Tater Tots and Jello  Saturday Nite Special at Funky Junk Interiors Saturday Soiree at A Little Lovely  Tools are for Women Too The Boardwalk Bragfest at Bobbypin's Boardwalk  Lucky Linky Tuesday at Lucky Star Lanes  Anti-Procrastination Tuesdays at New Nostalgia  I Made It Without My Hubby at Shanty 2 Chic Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design Make it Yours Day at My Backyard Eden Creative Share Wednesday at The Trendy Treehouse Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts

Shabby Chic Aqua Organizer

Remember this organizer I found last month?

I loved it deep floral detail on the front and sides.

It had a wood look and tone but it was a plastic material.

It screamed 70's to me and not in a good way.

I finally finished cleaning, painting and glazing it.

I decided on aqua.

The aqua itself was a bit bright so I toned it down a bit with some glaze.

It really brought out the details.

I love the vine look on the side.

Six compartments should help anyone get a bit more organized.

For now I'm listing it in my shop, you can check it out here.  If it doesn't sell I won't be too sad.

I can use a bit more organization too!

Thanks for looking.

Linking to:
Weekend wrapup party at Tatertot and Jello
Funky Junks Saturday Nite Special
Metamorphis Mondat at Between Naps on the Porch
Power of Paint at Domestically Speaking