Creative Ways to Organize

Do you know that saying  “A place for everything, and everything in its place”? Well around here that is what we aim for. Having to keep up with the belongings of 8 children, the task of keeping a clutter free home can be easier said than done.

Though not all the areas of our home are clutter free, we have figured out a few ways that work for us.  I’m going to share with you some of my favorite ways to organize various spaces of my home as well as projects I’m planning for the future!

 

THE KITCHEN

We have a cabinet in our kitchen where we keep seasoning packets, gravy mixes, Kool-Aid packs along with other little hard to keep neat items.  It was the one cabinet that stayed out of hand. Every time we opened it, something was always falling out. (Please tell me everyone has that cabinet in their home?!)  I found some little baskets at Dollar General one day for only $0.30 a piece. When I got home I immediately put those baskets to use!

BEFORE

AFTER

 

BEDROOM/PLAYROOM

I wanted to give my daughter’s bedroom a bit more storage to help keep it from being so cluttered.  I didn’t want to invest in a large piece of furniture, so we bought some plastic shelves at Walmart for $12 each along with a few 2-packs of the canvas totes from Bed Bath & Beyond for $7 each. The two new shelves in her room helped give her a place for everything, but really weren’t visually appealing in a little girl’s room.

My daughter decided to give the shelves some style and dressed them up with her favorite pink zebra print Duck Tape.  We’re pretty happy with the results!

 

CRAFTS

We have a large selection of craft items in our home.  It is one of the areas that needs some attention in the organization department. We’ve been using plastic storage drawers, but even those get a bit cluttered and hard to sort through to find what we need.

We have a room with an area especially for making crafts, but found various items migrating to different rooms of the house, usually the younger children show off their art or get help with some of it. I purchased a basket with divided slots at Goodwill for only $0.99. We now keep the basic craft supplies in the basket which makes it easy to tote where ever we are having family time. The smaller children really love the craft basket!  Clean up is more convenient as well.

 

OUR FUTURE PROJECTS

We plan to organize the craft room of our home.  To keep it simple and budget friendly, we’ll probably purchase plastic shoe boxes since we already have large shelving units in our craft room. We will then label and categorize the boxes so that the kids can easily find what they need to be crafting geniuses! Just look at these really neat beds they made out of scrapbook paper to decorate their doll house!

TOYS

The other project that I need to get started with is my daughter’s Barbie dolls and accessories! It’s been a struggle trying to organize all those little pieces and make it easy to find them when she is ready to play.  I think for the accessories I have decided on a large tackle box. I hope that I can find one big enough — my last count of Barbie purses was 35 and I know there are at least 70 pairs of shoes!

I hope you have enjoyed seeing some of the ways I organize my home. I would love to hear all about the creative ways you organize yours!