The mess that is my night stand.

If your night stand is anything like my, what a disorganized mess.  There are things in my night stand that just should not be there.  It has become impossible to find things that I think I've placed in there. So today I am tackling the mess that is my night stand.

Top Drawer

Okay wait the entire night stand is not a mess.  See, these are pictures of the bottom two drawers, which I keep organized and neat most of the time.  The bottom drawer houses my PJs and a few other things. The middle drawers has my unmentionable, lol.  You know what they are.

To keep the middle drawer organized, I used small drawer organizer for my socks and medium plastic organizer for my bras and panties. I purchased the medium ones years ago from Bed, Bath and Beyond.  I purchased the small ones about two weeks ago from TJ Maxx.  There were 3 in a pack for $2.99.  I don't recall what I paid for the medium ones.  

Middle Drawer

 

http://www.comfortmarket.com/ntnx071.html

 

Bottom Drawer

 

I am a sockaholic. Yea, I said sock.  I loads of socks.  They are right now located in 3 places. I keep about 6 pair in my night stand, so if my feet get cold at night, they are close,  some are in my chest of drawers and some are ing a small basket in the closet.  With the exception of the few inmynight stand, my goal is to get them all in one place, in the chest of drawers. 

But today, I am working on my night stand. I've also have the shelf liner that I will be using in the bottom of the drawer. I purchased it from TJ Maxx for $5.99.  There are two rolls and it covers about 30 Sq feet.

I took everything out of the draw and wiped it out with a damp sponge.  Covered the bottom with the shelf liner and decided what I need beside my bed. 

And here is the finished product.  Drum roll please. 

After but before placing my ipad and laptop cooling pad in.

After placing ipad and laptop cooling pad in

 



After - Top of night stand

Need to find pics for the picture frames

Now if I can get out of the habit of throwing everything on the night stand at the end of the day.

Oh yea, by the way!  I've done so more organizing in the fridge.  Go to my refrigerator organizing blog for the update. 

Thanks for stopping by.  If you like my blog, website and organizing, please share and comment.

Enjoy and as always, have a wonderful day. 

1Love!

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Closet overhaul A Work In Progress.

I am in the process of overhauling my closet.  This is going to take some time.  I have already performed 2 rounds of purging.  I am by no means finish with this overhaul but so far this is what I am left with.

The first few pics are from the orginal state of my master closet before I did any purging. 

Phase 1:

 

 

Ok, Don't judge my mess.  LOL

 

 

 

The next few pics is a quick look at my closet a few months after the first purge.  

 

 Phase 2:

Shoe Racks

 

 

 



Scarves on Huggable Hangers Pant Bar

 



 

Phase 3:  I will purge some more.  I will separate the short and long sleeve tops and group by color.  I have already separated the long pant/jeans from the capris.  May add a few more shelves for shoes.  The tub with the green top above has most of my summer shoes in it.  I would love to get them all out.  

 

I actually made a video but for some reason, I can not get it to upload.  I will continue to try and solve the problem. 

 

Thanks for reading my blog and as always 1LOVE.  Have a wonderful day. 

 



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Organizing Manuals

Today's project is to organize all my manuals that I have around the house in varies places.  I want to contain them all in one location so that I am able to find them when I need them.  This is a good idea when you have forgotten how to operation something that you had not used in awhile or if you are like me, you have not took the time to learn how to use something to it's fullest potential.  I have many items like that latter. 

I know I have other manuals somewhere and as I locate them I will include in this binder.  Actually, I probably will start another binder as this one is already full.  I will continue to update you on this on going project.

I hope this is helpful and as always if you have any comments, suggestion or question to leave them. 

Before - This is how I stored my manuals before I organized them.

Here are the items I used:

1 1/2" White Binder          

Document Protectors

Plastic Dividers

Sharpie Marker
Wilson Jones Spine label

Determine how you want your binder to be organized.  I put each manual in a document protector with the exception of the small ones.  I separated them into two categories:  small appliances and electronics (i.e. camcorder, digital camera). And grouped them together in one document protector.

 

I also placed the product registration card and the receipt in the document protector along with the corresponding appliance manual.  Note:  I registered my appliance online but I am keeping the registration card because it has the model and serial number on it.  The numbers sometimes rub off the appliance, so it is important that you maintain this card). 

 

Place a tab divider between each document protector.  Wrote on the tap with a black sharpie what was contained in the document protector behind each tab.

 

With my computer and printer, I made a label for the spine and a front cover for the manual.

 

 

And here is the finish product:   

 

 

As always, I hope you enjoyed.  Please leave a comment, suggestion or question.

1LOVE!

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Budget Shopping!

 

 

Shopping trip to Target.  I am looking for storage items to organize my night stand. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Target: 

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The Kitchen!

Yesterday, I started working on organizing my kitchen.  This too will be done in stages.  I will be an on going process.  Because I don't have everything, I think I need on hand to organize my entire house, I have to organize in stages.  I  need to plan what I am going to do, how to do it, have some idea what products I need and then shop around and purchase them.  Because I am trying to organize on a budget, well I guess I should since that is the name of the website, LOL, I have to take my time and find the best product at the most budget friendly price. 

So this is the first cabinet in my kitchen, that I tackled.  The first picture is not the cabinet at it's worst.  I had already cleaned it up a little before, before I decided to make this a full organizational over haul.

 

 

 

The next picture is the final organizational product.  If I must say so myself, it came out very well.

 

 

 

storage jars



 

 

Where I got the products: 
Top Shelf:  Container on the left came my TJ Maxx.  Set of 5 seal tight containers for $14.99
White basket on left came from Big Lots many years ago.  I don't remember the price. I saw them at Target this week.

Middle Shelf: Assortment of jar.  The 3 larger jars on the back row came from Carolina Pottery in Smithfield, NC.  First one on the front row, I already had.  2 smaller ones on the back row and the smaller one on the front row came from TJ Maxx.  $2.00 each and the mid size one on the front row came also came from TJ Maxx and was $3.00  Guys, I had never thought about looking in TJ Maxx for such items.  I will not sleep on TJ Maxx anymore.

I made a video on the products that I purchased from TJ Maxx.  I will try to upload it soon. 

Bottom Shelf:  The 2 wicker baskets came in 2 different sets of 3 baskets, that I purchased many many years ago from Lowes Home Improvement.

You can also find nice food storage jars at Hobby Lobby, Michaels and Walmart.  Of the 3 I found Hobby Lobby to be the least expensive.

One cabinet down 10 to go. 

Comments, suggestions or questions are always welcomed.

As always have a wonderful day.  1LOVE!

http://www.getorganizedonabudget.com

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T-Shirt organization

If you are like me you have loads of T-shirts.  I had two dressers that had three drawers each full of T-Shirts and boxes in my walk-in closet full of T-Shirts.  I purged and got rid of some of them.  But I don't know about you but I find it had to get rid of my t-shirts.  They are so comfortable and I love wearing them.  I will wear a t-shirts every day if I could. I do try my best.  They are my go to top. 

So, with so many t-shirts, I needed to find a way to organize them and contain them in one location. I can't say this is my original ideal.  I did a lot of research on the internet and this is the best organizational ideal for t-shirts, I came across.   Although I am still in the process of organizing them.  But I wanted to show you how I am organizing my t-shirts.

Below are instruction for organizing your t-shirts.  You need to start by folding your t-shirt.

 

1) Lay flat

 2) Fold each side about a third of the way to the center

3) Fold the sleeves back towards the outside

 

4)  Fold the t-shirts in half, bring the bottom up to the top



5) Fold the t-shirt in half again

 

 6) Shirts will stacked standing with the collar down



 

7)  Group colors together and stack in drawer

 

8)  only space for two stacks w/opening in the middle

9) made a third stack in the middle of the two.

 

 

I can get twice as many t-shirts in one drawer and they are easy to see, instead of picking up each shirt to find the one I am looking for. 

 

I think I need to purge my t-shirts a little more.  I have so many I had to focus them in the draw.  They look to stuffed in the drawer. 

 

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial.  I will  start making videos soon.  What would you like to see organized?  Do you need suggestion/tips on something?  Leave me a comment.  Please let me know what you think of my organizing.  Do you have an organizing tip, you would like to share? I will be more than happy to hear them.

 

 



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Spring Cleaning - The Fridge

Update:   So to make my fridge a little more organize, I decided to add some storage containers.  Not only are they organized, they are functional and I am able to get more in the fridge.  Yea right, like I need to get more in there.  Well at least, it's more fruits and veggies.  LOL

The black basket at the top are from Dollar Tree, 2/$1

The white basket purchased years ago from Big Lots

Green containers purchased from TJ Maxx, set of 5 w/tops for $14.99

In my spring cleaning post, one of the examples I provided was to line the refrigerator shelves with place mates.  I have started my spring cleaning and have cleaned out my refrigerator, purchased new place mates and lined the shelves. 

I purchased these place mates from target.  They were on clearance for $.98.  You maybe able to get less expensive place mates at the dollar store, walmart, dollar general, etc. but I liked these, so I purchased 5 of them to line my refrigerator shelves.

I had to cut them down to size.  I measured glass part of the shelf and cut the place mates to fit with a pair of regular household scissors.

All I have to do now is wipe off the place mates.  Even if I need to remove the place mates to wash them,  it is so much easier and quicker than removing the entire shelf and try to put it in the sink.  I also lined the trays at the bottom and the door for quick clean up. 

I hope that this is helpful to you.  If you like this and are enjoying my post please leave me a comment.  If there is something you would like to see or need a solution for a problem, please leave me a detail comment of your problem and I will try to help you.  Blessings!

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Spring Cleaning

As we approach the end of February, March is just around the corner, bringing spring with it.  So it is time to start your spring cleaning.  My first suggestion to you is not to get overwhelmed with the thought of spring cleaning.  Here are a few tips and suggestions for spring cleaning.  Preparing for Spring Cleaning:

Prepare a spring cleaning checklist:

• Determine your priority
• Break down the list into small manageable sections
• Lump like items together (i.e. while you have the vacuum out to vacuum the carpets, change the attachment to clean the ceiling fan)

 The Kitchen

• Empty everything out the refrigerator and the freezer.
• Vacuum under the fridge, around the coils and behind the grill.
• Wash all the shelves and trays (TIP:  line the shelves with vinyl placemats, to catch spills in the future:
• Wipe down all of the seals around the doors (TIP:  inspect seal to make sure door is sealed tight, place a dollar bill in door when closing and if it stays, you have a tight seal, if it does not, time to replace the seal).
• Clean the inside of the microwave.  TIP: ~  To make the cleaning easier…Heat up a cup of water and a half of lemon for a couple of minutes to build up some steam first.
• Clean out the all catching junk draw(s).  If you are like me you have several junk draws in your kitchen.  Time to take that space back.
• Wash windows and window seals.
• Wipe down base boards and walls.

The Bedroom

• Clean out the closets.  Be realistic…if you have not worn it in a few years, you probably will not. Take everything out of the closet and thoroughly vacuum the far corners.
• Flip over and turn your mattress. Vacuum the mattress and spray with febreeze.  Move the bed frame out of the way and vacuum or dust under it.  
• Take the comforter or bedspread to the cleaners or wash if your machine is big enough.
• Throw out all those old or broken toys your kids have not played with in years.
• Get cedar blocks keep the moths away and things smelling fresh.
• Clean out the chest of draws.  Following the purging you did for the closets.
• Wash windows and window seals, clean ceiling fan and wipe down the walls and base boards.

The Bathroom

• Remove all items from draws and cabinets.  Discard any products that you will not use or just do not fit your need anymore.
• Discard old worn towels, wash cloths and hand/face towels (TIP:  These items can be used to clean your car).
• Deep scrub tub, sink and toilet. Making sure your wash the outside and around the bottom of the toilet.
• Wash window and mirror.
• Replace shower curtain and floor mates to update the bathroom a little.

The Rest

• Dust and wipe down all of the rest of the ceiling fans in house.
• Remove the screens down, hose them off outside and wipe them down with warm soap and water.
• Wash storm doors inside and out.
• Dust lampshades.
• Remove all of the cushions and pillows from your couch and chairs and vacuum this out.  You might even find some money!
• Clean your windows inside and out.
• Wipe down the tops of all door frames.
• Test all of your fire alarms and change the batteries if needed.
• Change the filters on your air conditioner.
• Get new entry mats at every entrance.
• Use a magic eraser to get scuff marks off of walls.

Reminders:

• Start at the top and work your way down.  Vacuum the dust that has settled from your marathon dusting session.
• Donate anything you do not want or cannot use.  (TIP:  If you are saving items for a yard sale, make sure you have your yard sale within 2 weeks of your cleaning). 
• If you come across items you have not seen in years or forgot you had…chances are you do not need it.

Clean home is a healthy house.  Once your house is clean, you can breathe easier, literally.

 

 

 

 

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Organizing with over door shoe bag

Here a few examples of what you can do with the over the door shoe organizer.  I have found these organizers at Walmart, Roses, Dollar General and Family Dollar.  They are more expensivie at Walmart then at the other stores.  The other 3 run about the same price.  I started using these about 5 years ago for organizing other items than shoes.  They have become very popular and are hard to find now. 

Office/Travel Info

The above organizer is in my office and house mainly my travel supplies

Master bedroom

The above organizer is in the second closet in the master bedroom and it houses, panty hose, gloves, hats, etc.

Laundry Room

The above shoe organizer is in the laundry room and houses all my cleaning supplies.

The above shoe organizer is in the master bathroom and house all the odds and ends that don't really have a place.

Office

small electronics (i.e. flip cam, small camcorder, etc.)  and cords

Office supply drawer, small containers from the dollar store and bed, bath and beyond

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