Organizing Mission Monday Link Party – Week 18

Let’s Talk Decorating!

I have decided my style of decorating is Organizational Decorating! lol I like things to look nice, but I want functional in my decorating. I’m not a big knick knack person (duh).

Thanks all of you for the links you have put up over the last 3 week while I was doing my series on the kitchen.

I am going to be moving into decorating this week.  I am hoping to continue it into next week (hoping that my dining room will be complete by then.  (But soon after comes the making of my new mud room area in my garage!  I’m having fun

See my Featured Bloggers This Week!

Toni from A Bowl Full of Lemons – Created  Topiaries for her mantel

She wanted to have toparies for her mantel, but wanted to do it inexpensively.  She did a great job doing that. Look at how nice that looks on her mantel.

You can get her whole tutorial on her post for her Link Party Tuesday post called One Project at a Time.

Suzanne from Delightfully Organized – Tour My Pantry

Suzanne reorganized her pantry, even painted it! She even installed pull out units on her shelves. I really like these!  (But anytime I find them I decide they are out of my budget) But look how nice they work!  But she is also lucky enough to have wooden shelves instead of wire (which you would need for these)

She has also used wire racks on her walls to add more space, and on the floor.

And look!!  She also has found the joy of the Command hooks!

You will find several more ways that she has used the Command hooks and other wire organizers. So be sure to stop by for some more great ways to organize you pantry.  You will also get to see the actual “before” and “after” pictures of her pantry on her post “Tour My Pantry”.

Phaedra from Phaedra’s Adventure

Here is a great post on organizing meals.  Phaedra didn’t want to go to fast food restaurants anymore and realized she often went because she didn’t have food prepared.  So she took care of that problem.

Doesn’t that look like an awesome freezer?  She also has cookies bagged up, fruit ready to go and that afternoon snacking food ready!

She is able to grab quickly what she needs for her day and can avoid stopping at the fast food restaurants. Check out how she has it all organized on her post – Meal Organization.

Be sure to stop by all three of my featured bloggers today and give them some “comment love” and mention you saw them here!

For those of you who were featured this week, please pick up your button (code below the button) for your blog!

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If this code isn’t working, you can pick it up off my sidebar. (I’m having trouble with these codes on my actual posts.. sorry)

Link up to my Link Party

I would love to see your decorating posts, DIY posts this week. But as always you can link up any organizing or cleaning post to my ink party.

You will see just the beginning of my dining room decorating this week.  I’m getting a piece next Saturday from Ikea to be able to finish it off! So that will hopefully be next week for the finished project.

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(You can also pick up this button off my sidebar, if this one isn’t working right for you…)

Rules

1) Link to your specific post – not your blog

2) Please Link back to my blog with my button or link (link just above underneath my button)

3) I’d love if you’d follow me on google and/or FB. The google is new and I’m trying to build it

4) Blog post related to Organizing or Cleaning

5) No sales pitches or web sites.

6) If I feature you I will use one or more of your pictures with a link back to your blog.

8) Feel free to link up more than 1 post.

Be sure to check out my list of link parties

If you have a link party.. please link it up! Underneath the daily buttons there is a list of text links I have compiled too! (Many more there!)

If you aren’t sure how to link up… see my link party tutorial here. It is simple.

If You Are On A Reader and Want to View All the Great Link Up’s Please Click Here.

This will be open until Saturday night April 30, 2011

I love your Comments

3M Command Hooks

More Uses in Your Pantry

Once I got the Command Hooks from 3M out and used them for storing under the sink items, I started thinking of other areas I could use them.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not so good with a drill.  I will just hammer in a nail anywhere. I’ll look for a stud… but if it isn’t where I want the item to go…. so be it. (no stud)

These little hooks give me some freedom (and no…this is not a review, I didn’t get these from 3M and no one is asking me to write this….)  to hang away!

Here is another view of my pantry… and I have added a couple of things.  See the wire rack with the vegetable sprays and salad dressings?

That is new…. I didn’t have a drill….. but I did have 3M Command Hooks. (I feel like they are a super hero or something!… there is an idea for you 3M…. the Command Hook super hero….comes to the rescue! – I want credit for that one!)

The wire rack I got at Old Time Pottery. (Watch for a gift card give away coming from them soon too on my site!!  yippee!!)  It came as a set of 3 different little wire racks like this.
Here is how I hung it.

Then below I hung the grill tools on them too.

Previously I had the grill tools on thumbtacks and they would fall out frequently.

It has been working great! Love it.

I also used one of them to hang my fly swatters. We live not real far from an egg farm and certain times of the year the flies can get really bad.  (They haven’t been as bad the last couple years as when I first moved here 5 years ago..oh my was that bad!)

This hangs right behind my trash can. So people always know where it is.

I’d love for you to share any uses you can think of or have used some kind of hooks for. It doesn’t have to be the Command hooks… I just think hooks can be so useful!

I’d love for you to link it up to my Organizing Mission Monday Link Party
It will be open until April 9, 2011, but don’t worry, if you finish your kitchen, pantry or label projects after that… my link party is always open to any of your organizing projects!

I Love Your Comments!

Chalkboard Food Labels

Chalkboard Labels For Your Pantry Baskets

I got my labels completed for my pantry baskets…. I told you I was going to do them!

There are so many uses for this chalkboard contact paper.  I have several other things in mind!

But I want to show you how I made these simple labels for my baskets in my pantry.

I took some of my old business cards (they are such a good size for so many things) and used those for the basis of the chalkboard labels for the baskets.

I cut the chalkboard contact paper so that it would go over the sides just a bit and would fold back and cover the entire card.

When I fold it over I make sure to make a crisp edge and I smooth it out so there aren’t any air bubbles or creases in it.

Then I trim the short edge of the card. I do pinch the edge so that the contact paper adheres to itself to seal the edge.

I used the hole punch and punched a hole in the center top so I can hang it.

Simple enough

I used the same color chalkboard marker and basic design so that they matched the jar labels I made and showed you yesterday.

I looked for twine to tie the labels on, but evidently we didn’t have any. I found some fishing line and decided that would actually work really well.

It won’t show much and it will take care of the problem I worried about … getting through the thin basket weave.

And it looks like this:

I was pleased how they turned out… what do you think?

One of the other little things I did was to use these little buckets that I hung from my wire over the door can holder.

Remember I mentioned that I didn’t like the baggie that was holding the chip clips in my pantry? That I was sure there was something cuter?  I decided this was cuter!

I had a 2nd bucket that I used and wasn’t sure what to put in it….. but had an onion sitting on the pantry shelf and thought… ok.. done!

So of course I made labels for these pails too.  I used the business card as the stencil and cut out a piece of the chalkboard contact paper.  I wrote the name on it with the markers and stuck it on the side of the bucket.

I think they turned out cute too… don’t you?

Adding little touches like this, makes your pantry look a little cuter, but it also makes it functional by letting the family know where to put things away.

And of course that makes me happy!!
You can find the Chalkboard Contact Paper, 18″ x 6′ and the markers I used Liquid Chalk – Works like a Marker Dries like Chalk – Set of 8 Earthy Colors at the two links I have here. They are affiliate links, but that’s not why I’m giving them to you. I had a hard time finding both products and thought I’d make it a little easier for you all.

If you have already made some kind of labels for your baskets or pantry  I’d love to see them!
I’d love for you to link it up to my Organizing Mission Monday Link Party
It will be open until April 9, 2011, but don’t worry, if you finish your kitchen, pantry or label projects after that… my link party is always open to any of your organizing projects!

I Love All Your Sweet Comments

I linked this post up to these link parties

Organizing Mission Monday Link Party – Week 16

Organizing In The Kitchen This Week

That will still be my focus this week.  Last week I showed you pantry organizing and refrigerator and freezer organizing.  If you haven’t yet organized those, please try to get to those this week.  You will think about it every time you open your refrigerator or freezer this week I’m sure of it! Especially after that trip to the grocery! lol

I’m going to be showing you a few organizing products this week that are low cost and make good solutions for organizing some things in your cupboards.

See My Featured Bloggers For This Week!

Marcie from Timber and Lace used baskets with chalk board labels for her pantry.

I love the look of this!  Wouldn’t this be a wonderful pantry to have? omg… the shelves, the cubbies on the bottom, the counter top!
Marci, does not separate all her products out into separate containers either (like me). She sounds very much like me with the realistic part of having that awesome look. So the inside of her baskets look like this.

You can see the rest of her post on her pantry organization here.

Stephanie from Create Order organized her refrigerator.

She also used baskets in her refrigerator to organize. But she utilized baskets for those skinny shelf spaces and they work perfect for that.

Go look at the rest of her post called I knew It Was Only A Matter Of Time
Be sure to stop by both of my featured bloggers today and give them some “comment love” and mention you saw them here!

For those of you who were featured this week, please pick up your button (code below the button) for your blog!

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If this code isn’t working, you can pick it up off my sidebar. (I’m having trouble with these codes on my actual posts.. sorry)

Link up to my Link Party

Link up any organizing or cleaning post to my link party!!

But this week I encourage you to start working on your kitchens!  I’ll be working on some fun labeling and organization of kitchen cupboards this week.

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(You can also pick up this button off my sidebar, if this one isn’t working right for you…)

Rules

1) Link to your specific post – not your blog

2) Please Link back to my blog with my button or link (link just above underneath my button)

3) I’d love if you’d follow me on google and/or FB. The google is new and I’m trying to build it

4) Blog post related to Organizing or Cleaning

5) No sales pitches or web sites.

6) If I feature you I will use one or more of your pictures with a link back to your blog.

8) Feel free to link up more than 1 post.

Be sure to check out my list of link parties

If you have a link party.. please link it up! Underneath the daily buttons there is a list of text links I have compiled too! (Many more there!)

If you aren’t sure how to link up… see my link party tutorial here. It is simple.

This will be open until Saturday night April 9, 2011  This link party is continued from last week.

I LOVE your comments!!

Organize Your Pantry

Pantries Always Need Maintenance

Mine included!  I don’t have a problem organizing my pantry, but with 6 other people in the house, the problem is keeping it organized!

I have my own ideas of where things should be kept. The problem is, that the rest of my family have their own ideas too….. any open area of the pantry is open game IF they are going to put something back into it.

Here is what my pantry looked like:

Before:

Let’s look a little closer.  This is the upper level.  The medicine bins.  Notice off to the left? There is a loaf of bread! Wait…. we have a bread drawer. We don’t ever keep bread in the pantry (ugh)

If you look here you see a cereal box that is on the can rack, pancake syrup in a couple places, two bags of raisens..both opened! Drives me crazy. lol

As an organizer (for those of you who share my passion… or affliction will know how I feel) I have to realize that I can’t control everything in my house.  When I try and I can’t, it only brings frustration.

Here is the lower level down onto the floor.  What? You don’t keep your cereal on the floor?

Here is the plan of attack!  Clean Everything Out Of The Pantry

Go through and check expiration dates

I’ll bet you’ll find some expired items.  This one was expired Feb of 2010!

If you have baskets you want to group things together.  Like with like!

It is ok to take things out of boxes if you need to save room.  We had lose Kool-Aides all over. We get bottled water for the kids for lunch and have the powdered individual drink mixes they can take if they want. I think we had like 4 different flavored boxes opened. So I but the correct flavors together and rubber-banded them together. Same with the Kool-aide and hot cocoa mixes

I keep my some of my medicines in my pantry and I went through those too.  You can read my previous posts where I got rid of expired medications and labeled them and organized them.

Before you put anything back into the pantry, clean it!

Decide how you can make some extra room in your pantry

I don’t have much room in my pantry. So I stretched what I had without having to spend a lot of money.  I have previously purchased extra shelves that I put on the floor

Also up on top of the top rack to use some of that extra space on top. You can see my “fix” on how to put wire rack on top of wire rack.  Of course I am not recommending this method… it is very crude, but I had the lids I wasn’t using and they worked.  It would be best to use a board over the shelf, but I had these at the time I did this and not a board.

You Don’t Have To Have The Perfect Designer Magazine Cover Pantry!

I LOVE the separate labeled jars and plastic tubs for everything when I see pictures of pantries. But for me, this is not a practical solution for my pantry (I’ve done it before – remember I’m 51 years old and I’ve already raised my 4 boys, so I have tried many different organizing techniques over the years) .

Why I Don’t Use Separate Labeled Storage Containers In My Pantry

1) I frequently had extra of something that didn’t fit into the jar (then you have a box or bag)
2) You buy a different kind of chip & don’t want to mix them, but you already have 2 jars with chips…so you now have the bag of chips too.
3) Moving those beautiful jars out of the pantry all the time to get things for the kids eventually means broken jars (I know!)
4) The family doesn’t appreciate the effort you put into separating items, and they will just shove everything into the pantry if they put groceries away.
5) Trying to keep it up is time consuming and other than the oohs and ahhs of my friends, it didn’t really fill a practical need – other than the feel good appearance it gave me.

I wanted to let you know… it is ok to leave your cereal in a box or bag... it is ok to leave your chips in a bag with a chip clip. You can still be organized without all the fancy.  Heck, you can use boxes  to make baskets like my green ones if you like.

Jars on the Counter
I am going to do is to get a couple jars for my counter for some of our daily use items. My husband’s oatmeal that he eats daily and the brown sugar he puts in it.  Also one for coffee and a cookie jar.  Maybe not the traditional flour and sugar, but I don’t bake a ton and I would rather have out the items we use frequently on my counter.

Labels
I am also going to make cute labels for the baskets. Again, you don’t have to do this step, and your labels don’t have to be fancy, but in general labels do help. (although many times you will just decide that no one in your family actually can read!) I’ll show you the labels once I get them done. I’m going to do them with chalkboard contact paper and chalk board markers I got.

I also use the sides of the walls.  To hang grilling utensils on the left wall and I have a baggie that I hang on the right wall for chip clips. (Again, I’m sure there is a much cuter solutions for this)

I also have an over the door can holder that helps hold more cans.

Once you have cleaned the pantry and sorted the expired food out – Start reloading!

I purchased these baskets at Old Time Pottery. I spotted them and thought they’d be great. They are plastic so I can wash them. They have handles for easy pulling out and they are sturdy.  I paid $8.99 for the large ones down to $4.99 for small ones.  Plus I loved the colors!

As I was putting things back in, I tried several different arrangements with the baskets.  So don’t think there is one solution and one solution only!  I might even realize I don’t like having the baskets. It is all trial and error.

There will be times that you will realize after you have organized…. that the system you put in place just really isn’t working like you planned.  Don’t beat yourself up over it.  It happens to the best of us. Just redo it. No problem.

AFTER

I put the medications in a new basket along with the paper plates, plastic silverware and napkins. The things we don’t use or need to get to as often.

Here is our cereal basket.

I also made a snack basket.

I have used an extra shelf here, but this one hangs from the wire above.  It works great for cans to utilize that extra space.

I have one of the smaller baskets that just holds the peanut butter and one of my favorites and my step son’s favorites… Marshmallow cream.  We normally have a larger jar of peanut butter, so this size isn’t too big.

I also used a basket on the ground for the bottled water for the kids lunches. I had previously purchased the clear smaller baskets with handles from The Container Store. I did have the medicines in them. I am using them for lunch snacks (fruit cups etc) and envelop mixes, Ramon Noodles and powdered drink mixes.

Again…. just to refresh….  BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

Your turn to organize your pantry! I want to see what you have done.  And YES on those of you who do the ultimate organization for your pantry… I LOVE them and LOVE to look at them. I’m not saying the jars and containers are bad…. if they work for you and your family… more power to you (jealous) … but please share!!

I’d love for you to link it up to my Organizing Mission Monday Link Party
It will be open until April 9, 2011  to link to, so you have time to work on your pantries!

I LOVE your comments!

I’m linking up to these blogs:

A Bowl Full of Lemons

Reasons To Skip The Homework

Shopping Saturday – elfa pantry

Need I Say More?

This is the elfa pantry system from The Container Store.  First of all I would like to have that large of a pantry, second… love the colors.  Hmmm…. I might be able to do something with the colors!

Spring Cleaning – Kitchen Storage containers

Spring Cleaning – Organizing those pesky plastic storage containers

I have to admit that even at my house these plastic storage containers end up messy.  I am usually good about putting them in their place…..but I have 7 other people in the house and although for the most part they do great…..there are times when that dishwasher is being emptied that it is easier to just “throw it in” instead of taking the time to stack it.

Here is the video that I did last year on organizing your plastics.  But the same with any organizing…it’s all about the maintenance.

Organizing your pantry for less

Does your messy pantry need some Organizing?

Denise from Musings from Mommyland asked me if I could help her with ideas for organizing her pantry.
I do not have a fancy pantry (one that you could drool over that all of us would love to have…you know, the kind that most of us could make into a home office.) and thought I could benefit many of you best by showing some of the inexpensive ways that you can add “space” to your pantry without having to spend an arm and a leg to do it.

These wire shelf additions can also be used on non wire shelving. Some of the ones on the top shelf and floor can be turned upside down and used to hang from a shelf also. Be creative.
If you have an idea you would like to me help out with, please let me know.
Thanks

Organize Pantry

Organizing My Pantry

My pantry after I organized it. I forgot to take a “Before” picture until I was almost finished!! But believe me…this looks much better.
It shows the floor too.
I had a few extra wire shelves in my basement that I brought up to use to create some more usable space. What I had problems with is that wire doesn’t sit well on wire. The one shelf that I was able to sit the extra shelf on worked well….it kind of extended a little bit over the edge on the right, so that it stayed put. But I hung the other shelf that has the cans on it.
You want to utilize as much of your space as possible. That includes the floor, the door and the top shelf.
On the top shelf I put the items that we don’t use too often.