It was just brought to my attention that I've been missing out on a lot in life. Namely,
Pinterest.
It's only been a few days and I've already started a couple of DIY projects. Since today was Christmas and my extended family is far away we were pretty much done with the "celebrations" by lunchtime. So, this has given me the chance to dive right into some of these projects I've been thinking about for days!
Problem one: my 6 year old daughter's wide array of hair "things." I don't think over the span of my entire life I've had as many hair "things" as my daughter does right now. Hair pins/barrettes, hair bows, pony tail holders, headbands. You name it - she has it. I've "tried" to keep it organized but I find her organization skills aren't exactly like mine. So, today we resolved this problem (at least partially).
Here is the "bow frame" we made:
If I had to do it all over again (and I'm sure I will in the future when this one tears apart) then I would put a solid-color background. The polka-dots make it look too busy. I think the hair pins alone take care of that!
Once I had her pins all in one place we worked on the ribbons. Earlier in the day I had found a solution for all scarfs on earth (and apparently it works well with tights). Well, guess what - it works for ribbons, too! So, along with all the scarfs in our house, hair ribbons are currently being organized like this:
It will really be helpful for me and my own scarf collection since I can never seem to find the one I want when I want it!
The headbands are still an issue for me. So, for now, they are all in a box on the top shelf in my bathroom. You can see the box on the top left-hand side of the "after" shot below.
Problem 2: My bathroom shelf...not the most impressive place in the house. I try to keep people on the main floor of my house because it seems everywhere else is total ciaos! So, in the coming year I plan to do a lot of organizing and re-purposing items to create something new. There is really no need to go buy a bunch of expensive new stuff when I can create my own version of new!
Problem 3: The makeup bags were everywhere: two in the top basket filled with makeup, the blue bag on the middle shelf and the ziplock bag above the brown bag in the middle shelf. Now our makeup is nicely organized inside the baskets and I was able to move all the nail polish out of my medicine cabinet and into the brown basket on the second shelf. I'm not a big makeup wearer so there isn't a lot we have to worry about in that regard but here is what the baskets look like on the inside now:
Problem 4: The hallway closet. It is such a tiny, tiny closet and we have three people with big, big feet who have a lot of shoes! Of course, my 6 year old probably has more shoes than any of us but I make her keep some of her summer shoes in her room. In all fairness, I have a whole shoe rack in my bedroom, too.
Anyway, suffice it to say we have a lot of shoes and a lot of coats and they all have to fit in the tiniest closet around! I ended up putting aside about 5 pair of my own shoes today to give to Goodwill. I also took a few light-weight jackets and 3 pairs of shoes to my bedroom since I won't wear them until summer again. That freed up some space to put other shoes in the shoe boxes and off the floor.
On the floor now is a box full of winter gloves & hats (because I still haven't found a great way to store them). We have a little shelf built into the wall on the right-hand side of the closet where I had stuffed them before but, we have so many they would spill out onto the floor and get lost in the ever-growing pile of shoes! But, the shelves were just big enough I could put my daughter's shoes in there - works perfectly!
Still not the greatest organization but here it is:
That's all the organizing I did thanks to Pinterest. But, I also did some holiday cooking from a recipe I found there - Overnight French Toast. Total carb overload but boy was it good! It's probably the reason I did so much organizing today! :)
