Shanterest: Cupcake Wrapper Storage

Day 9: Cupcake Wrapper Storage

How genius is this?!

Source: toriejayne.blogspot.com via Shannon on Pinterest

I have a bunch of random cupcake wrappers. Some were garage sale steals and others are random left-overs from parties and holidays. Either way, they were taking up space that could be used for other things.

"Where did Mommy go?"

People, people... Let me tell you, this momma is one busy woman!  Remember how I said that it was our goal to have our house up for sale by April 1st?  Well, apparently that is the magic date for home sellers.  Everyone wants to put their house on the market by April 1st.  Our realtor has convinced us that it would be best to put it up now because of the low inventory of houses for sale.  Now.  As in, "Hey, our house is for sale!"  Sure, we tackled the major problem in the family room, but we are nowhere near ready to show!  We compromised and told our realtor that we would need a month to make it show-ready.  One month.  The same time as the Home & Garden Show.  So, if I'm going to have a large enough inventory of goodies to sell at H&G and have my house ready to put on the market, all in a month, I'm gonna have to do some serious steppin' in tall cotton! 

The family room is done.  It has been decluttered and repainted.  Now I'm tackling the kitchen.  I'm pulling crap out of the cabinets and putting it in big boxes labeled, "GARAGE SALE."  I'm leaving only the essentials.  I'm boxing most of the decor with the exception of a few things.  I'm going to have to touch up/repaint the trim (and then make the girls wear gloves all day, everyday).  Some major organizing is going down, people!  My only problem is that our storage room is FULL.  I'm talking Hoarders full.  It's somewhat pathetic.  I have boxes to the ceiling. 

After the kitchen/dining room is finished, I'm moving on to our bedroom.  It's tiny.  I need to find a way to maximize every inch of that room.  I've "researched" via Pinterest and other awesome sites for organizing and home decorating ideas (I'm not naming them for fear they will become so popular, I'll be forbidden to look at them).  I think I've found a solution.  Now, I just need to repaint three of the four walls, do a little rearranging, and get some curtains hung.  It's such a challenge working with a small space.  Any advice on how to make it seem bigger?

The living room is pretty good to go.  I need to do some touching up on the trim.  Other than that, I think we're set.

The girls' rooms are packed.  I tried to pull out old toys over Christmas break, but they are still full.  I need to get stuffed animals into the space bags and out of the pet nets.  Don't get me wrong, I love the pet nets and those girls LOVE their "friends," but when you walk into their rooms and are immediately face-to-face with a 3-foot tall stuffed snowman, it's sort of unbecoming.  I also need to put J's blinds and old curtains up to lighten up the space.

Bathroom needs repainted.

The basement.  Ugh.  I don't even know where to start!  Like I said, the storage room is full.  I have things stored under the steps and behind the bar.  I want potential buyers to see all of the available storage space our home has.  I don't want them to see how we are taking advantage of every square inch of it and are busting at the seams.  What to do, what to do.  The plan is to have the cold weather stop for a while so it's not a pain to park outside.  That way I can move all of our packed boxes to the garage in order to free up the storage space!  Then, it just looks like we are ready to move! 

But I have only a month to do this all.  Crap.

Organized Hoarding?

I'm a card person.  I send card and love to receive cards.  I save cards.  I am slowly working on organizing our storage room and I came across boxes of greeting cards!  I had to find a way to organize them because I simply can NOT throw them away!  It's just something about having the handwriting...

I started with Jaden's birthday cards!

First, I punched holes toward the bottom.  I lined all of the cards up at the bottom left corner.

Then, using my book binding machine, I bound the cards together!  Since the theme of her 4th birthday was Tangled, I put the Rapunzel card on the front.

We can easily look at these anytime we want and they always stay organized!!

You can still read the messages on the inside, too!

It worked perfectly!  I'm linking this to my favorite linky parties :o)

Organizing Projects and Artwork

I swore I would never throw away any of my kids' artwork.  When I was little, I drew a picture in art class and had it ripped up in front of the whole class.  I was devastated and since then, have kept all of my own artwork as well as each piece of paper either of the girls has ever scribbled on.  Well, if you follow me on Facebook, you already know my obsession with the show, Hoarders.  I do not want to become a hoarder of scribble pictures so I found the perfect solution!  All you need is a plastic file box for each kid and some hanging file folders!  Oh, and the stack of random crap that MUST be saved. 

That is not my whole stack.  That is what was easy for me to grab without sorting through stuff first!

I gave each girl their own box full of hanging folders.

I labeled each folder by age and then school year from "age 1 and under" to "grade 12."

Woops... need some more folders!

Then, on the front of each folder, I wrote what years were in that folder.  You could also write important dates to remember on the front of the folder, if you want!

Finally, go through the mountains of papers you saved and sort them into the correct folders!

Now, I can only save enough stuff to fill the folder.  If it is full and there is something that I absolutely HAVE to save, I need to throw something else out.  Pretty perfect, right?  The only exception is larger things that don't fit into the folder.  What I plan to do for these are, take a picture of the artist holding her project and put that into the folder.

Just looking at these makes me smile :o)

Linking this idea to my favorite linky parties.

Household Organizational Binder

Number 47 on my Life List is "Organize my Life."  I always thought I was organized until I opened the "pantry" one day and a screwdriver fell out.  Now I'm just anxious! I found a new site that I LOVE. Organizedhome.com is going to help me organize my home and my life, and I couldn't be MORE excited! Cynthia, the editor of this site, is my idol and I am her stalker. I want to will be her.

My first step to organized perfection is the Household Notebook.  I started one of these a couple of years ago but never really finished it.  I put a few things in it but then forgot that I did so and just ended up "losing" them.

I started with a generic binder and Mod Podged paper to it.  Then, I stamped the front and added a ribbon.  This was all done at a class at Archivers a looooonnnng time ago.

My Binder

I also made larger dividers for each section.  The little stack of note paper in the front is great for quick reminders!  I made this by stamping individual sheets of 8½ x 5½ inch paper.

Inside of my binder

I divided my binder into six sections: Planning, Family, Home Management, Meals & Menus, Activities, and Contacts.

"Whatcha keepin' tabs on"

Each main section has subsections.  In Planning, I have: Weekly Planner, Weekly To-Do, Weekend To-Do, and Master To-Do.

Planning Section

Cynthia offers printable pages for each section.  I designed my own using her concept.

Weekly Planner

The Weekly To-Do List makes keeping up with housework so much easier!  Instead of wasting a Saturday afternoon cleaning the entire house, Mike and I spend 30 minutes a night cleaning a room designated to that day.

Weekly To-Do

Have a busy weekend?  Use this section to map out your plans!

Weekend To-Do List

The Master To-Do List will have things on it like... FIX THE FAMILY ROOM CEILING.  You know, things you want to get done eventually!

Master To-Do List

In the Family section, I have a divider for each person.  I have the girls' shot records in their section.  This is also a great place to keep track of sizes and wish list items!

Subsections under Family

 In the Family section I also keep a master birthday and anniversary list.

Birthdays and Anniversaries

I'm also going to create a tab for daycare.

In the Home Management section, I will have sections to keep a home inventory list, movie and book lists, home decorating ideas, party planning ideas, and tips & tricks.

Under the Meals & Menus section, I can plan our weekly menus! I can plan as far ahead as I want or just stick to the week-by-week schedule.

Weekly Dinner Menu Plan

I also included Favorite Recipes and Recipes To Try pages.  On these pages, I can list the recipe, where it is, and include comments such as, "Shannon loved it, Mike didn't, Jaden... forget about it!"

Favorite Recipes

Recipes to Try

In the Activities section, I have 3-hole-punched some flyers for upcoming craft shows I'm attending.  I keep these in order by date so when the show passes, I can just tear it out!

Activities

The Contacts section is where I keep addresses and phone numbers.  I have the Important Phone Numbers page first so it is easily accessible to anyone looking for it... like babysitters!

Important Phone Numbers

After that, I created Contact List pages.  Here is where any and everybody's addresses and phone numbers are kept!  I'm going to put little Christmas tree stickers next to people we send holiday cards to so I make sure to include the same people each year.

Contact List

In the very back is a page I made that holds business cards.

Business Card Holder

I think this will work out GREAT for my family!  This binder will serve as sort of a central command station in our house so we all know what is going on! 

I'm linking this idea to all of my linky parties listed here!

UPDATE: Printable pages are available in my Etsy store!!