Finally, after who know HOW many 30 minutes sessions, I got my craft room clean!! It's so inspiring to not only have a clean space, but to have unearthed all my cool stuff that I forgot I had. I really want to craft all sorts of things, but I also just want to sit on my spinny chair and stare at the one uncluttered, organized, all MINE room in the house without messing it up.
Remember that craft table before? The one that held all the crap that I had NO idea what to do with?
Well, here she is now!
And I didn't just shove any of it into the cabinets either!
Now I have a nice place to organize all my batting, interfacing, scraps and random 'not pretty enough to display' fabrics! (Notice my brand spankin' new Silhouette that doesn't work :( I'm waiting for a reply from tech support.)
Fabric shelf pretty much looks the same
All my photography stuff tucked away waiting to utilize that blank wall at a moment's notice
I'm not used to having an organized closet, so I just couldn't bear to shut the curtains!
My little helper Georgia guarding the door from room trashing munchkins!
Are you sticking to your 30 minutes a day? I'm thinking of moving on to my laundry room since it will probably provide me with MONTHS of 30 minute sessions :P
{What I had}
What has 29 receipts, 2 packs of gum, 9 lip glosses, 2 granola bars, 3 suckers, a first aid kit, $140 that I didn't know I had, a pound of change, wet wipes, a tape dispenser, recipe cards, and an emergency peanut butter cup? My overstuffed purse of course!! The funny thing is you don't know HOW MANY of those things I've wanted but "didn't have" since my purse was so messy.
{What I needed}
Target won the award for oldest receipt from 11/16, and I had coupons for shampoo that expired on 10/30. I'm still missing a $30 Target gift card that I'm hoping will turn up, but it's so nice to want gum and to actually know where it is!
{All tucked away!}
I'm so lame today that I'm posting an OLD before and after... maybe it will inspire me to clean something. Doubt it, but it could happen! I was really inspired to clean today when it was sunny- I even made my bed today! Now the clouds have rolled in and my motivation has packed up its crap with the sun.
These photos are from the end of May right after this post. Sorry, no exciting photos of the garbage collection or phone calls!
Here's my entryway a few weeks ago before cleaning:
(It's like an I spy! I spy a clorox mop, backpack, 239843 shoes...)
And here's my entryway a few weeks ago after cleaning:
(Ahhh! The same amount of light is coming in, but it just looks lighter and brighter!)
The entryway currently is in between the two, but thankfully closer to the second than the first.
Wait... maybe I'm starting to feel a little inspired. Maybe? Yes!...uh...maybe?...nope. It's gone now- Whew! That was close!
Now I'm REALLY cranky, and tired, and wishing that I could afford a maid, but my kitchen is clean!
Here's the before and after:
And my dining room got a cleaning too!
I also bleached the bathtub and all the kids tub toys, vacuumed and steam mopped the bathroom, dining room, and kitchen, did 2 loads of dishes, cleaned off the counters, washed, folded and put away 4 loads of laundry and made dinner. Now my back freaking hurts and I'm going to need to medicate it with Easter Bunny Kit Kats... and York Peppermint Patties... and maybe some Resse's Pieces. What? I had a hard day!
Back in January I found this post from Give It A Go about an ingenious idea to make a drawstring bag for 'tomorrow's' clothes and was instantly inspired. I made a bag for each of my kids (a GREAT fabric stash-busting project!) and even hung hooks in the bathroom for the kids' bathrobes and tomorrow bags. If I could do it again I would use silky ribbon since it can be a chore to cinch up the flannel fabric on grosgrain ribbon, but I'm pleased that I didn't have buy anything for this project. 
If you notice in the photo I don't have the bags on the hook in the bathroom since the little munchkins have been getting up at the buttcrack of dawn and are banished to their room until 7:30. You can also get a first glimpse at the orphanage style bedroom setup! This is the darkest room in the house (useful for kids in Alaska in the summer!) and all they have in here is their beds, clothes and a tv. Don't mind that "curtain"... I bought a real one today but haven't gotten it up yet obviously. I'm still working on the (new) playroom, but I did get the master bathroom bleach-ified today.
Every night, when I pull out their jammies, I grab an outfit for the next day and shove gently place their stuff in the tomorrow bag. I throw it over their bedpost and my kids won't look AS homeless and mismatched the next day! That's why Tomorrow Bags work for me!
You know when you've never heard of something before, then all of a sudden you hear about it again and again within a few days? That's what happened with The Food Nanny and me. My friend Mrs. Awesome had mentioned this great show that she had seen on BYU tv and told me all about The Food Nanny. Then I saw this post from Jen @ Tatertots & Jello and got all excited again. My meal planning 'strategy' (plan when I feel like it and scrounge for the crap in the bottom of the freezer when I don't) needs some serious TLC, and this seemed SO easy. It gave me the permission I needed to make the same type of this every Monday. And it also got my brain thinking...
This system made meal planning seem like a no brainer. I already have recipes printed out and sorted by the main meat in my recipe binder, and it would be easy to move them to theme dividers instead. My OCD wants to sort them by theme and then by main meat, but my OCD also wants to alphabetize the cheeses in my deli drawer, so I don't listen to her very often... she's a little nuts. Anyway, I'm getting off track- if this system made dinner seem like a no-brainer why couldn't it work for other things? I'm not sure if you've caught on yet, but I have some trouble keeping my house clean. Would this magical Food Nanny brainstorm help me keep my house from looking like a bomb went off and then a tornado came through the wreckage? Stay tuned for the answer to that one.
I present my new housekeeping schedule:
*Monday*
Bathrooms
*Tuesday*
Master bedroom/ bathroom
*Wednesday*
Kids’ rooms
*Thursday*
Living Room
*Friday*
Kitchen
*Saturday*
Extra room
*Sunday*
Something crafty, fun or for yourself
I need a schedule that's pretty flexible, at least in the beginning so I can figure out what's going to work for me. Tomorrow I'm going to start on my bathrooms, and just commit to doing ANYTHING to make them better than they are now. I made sure that Tuesdays and Thursdays were the least important areas since I work those days and am less likely to do something super productive those days. Saturdays are for the laundry room, garage, entryway, etc that don't really need weekly upkeep but need time. I really hope it works out and actually have tried this years ago with fairly good results!
I'm linking this post to Messy Monday at Moms In Need of Mercy, since I know all about Messy Mondays... and Tuesdays... and, well, you get the point!
Another week gone- how did you do? I've completely stalled out on the 40 bags projects since I can barely find a place to put down my cereal (for dinner) bowl, much less sort and purge. I did find some bonus uncounted trash bags in the garage that were left behind from the game room projects, but I'm still going to have to bust my butt tomorrow to get my bags done although it is technically past the 40 days. I'm no theology major, but I'm pretty sure that God gave us more than 40 days between Lent and Easter because he knew I would need a few days off.
*That was a joke, please don't send me e-mails with big words in it!*
I have no pictures, again, because my camera card hasn't left my laptop in 2 weeks, much less taken a photo. I need a day off of life to catch up, but I'd probably just collapse and take a nap instead.
Here's my totals:
Week 1- 5 bags
Week 2- 11 bags
Week 3- 0 bags
Week 4- 19 bags
Week 5- 3 bags
Total on Day 42- 38 bags
How are you doing in the home stretch? Leave your progress in the comments so I don't feel so alone!
28 days in... how are you doing? I didn't get anything bagged up last week so I had a huge week with 2 week's worth of crap ready to get shipped out. Here's my progress:
Week 1- 5 bags
Week 2- 11 bags
Week 3- 0 bags
Week 4- 19 bags (10 bags of donations, 5 bags of garbage from the game room, 4 bags of kids clothes to the consignment store)
Day 28 total- 35 bags!!
I've decided to up my goal to 60 bags since I still have SO much stuff to go through. Plus it's a tiny bit more than 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter anyway. I am THRILLED with my newly cleaned and organized craft space and I can't believe that I robbed myself of that experience just to hold on to *crap* that I don't even miss. Yes, it was a lot of work to sort everything and get rid of it, but it's a lot of work to maintain a ton of crap too.
I'm looking forward to cleaning out my kitchen cabinets and washing them all out this week. Did that really just come out?? I can't wait to grab something out of a cupboard and not have to pull something off the top of it first. And I'm SUPER excited to be able to grab a utensil out of my huge mess of a utensil drawer without playing a minute-long version of Spot The Spatula. Depending on how much time I find for purging and organizing this week I'd also like to hit the bathroom cabinets and the scary pile of junk in my coat closet.
Are you participating in the 40 bags in 40 days challenge? How's it going? How are you feeling about your progress? Did you find anything cool that I may want!? JUST KIDDING... unless it's SUPER cool.
Ta-daaaaa!!
After weeks of cleaning, sorting, purging, organizing and stressing my game room is now spot.less. {See the before picture here} 10 more bags of donations were dropped off the other day, and 5 bags of garbage went to the dump this morning. I celebrating by slacking on cleaning anything else and SEWING instead. It's been months since I was able to sew on my sewing table- in fact, when I cleaned off the table I found HALLOWEEN projects on the bottom layer. Halloween, people. It's almost Easter.
Here's the laundry room already buried in 'to be folded' laundry. Notice my new ironing board "cover" that I hot glued on to match my folding table :P
Today I made this adorable ruffled camera strap but made it into a slipcover like I learned how to do here. I attempted my first slipcover way back when I didn't have a TON of fabric, so I used some Hello Kitty scraps just to try it. I ended up leaving it on for a really long time until I finally ditched it and had a naked strap again. And it's been naked. And cold. For a year. Until today.
Please don't look too closely as I don't really have my 'A-game' on...
I also wanted to share our little friend who is stalking us and preventing us from bringing the trash can in the ONE week I really want it. I've gone to get it THREE TIMES and had her there every time. Take note of the "Spring Break" weather we have going on... practically tropical.
I'm taking the weekend off and then starting bright and early Monday morning on kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Maybe.
I haven't made a whole lot of progress bag wise since last week, but I have made some headway in getting crap sorted into piles that will eventually get bagged up and shipped out. This week has more been focused on getting the laundry room finished so I can put away what I'm keeping, and have a clearer picture of what I realistically have room for. Check out this post for the messy before and the empty before. This is the framed stage:
and how it looked this morning:
As for the rest of the crap... there is SO much that it still looks really bad in there even though I've put tons of stuff away, and donated all that stuff from last week. Here is the 'before' from last week:
And how it looked this morning:
Hopefully I'll make more progress 'bag-wise' this week as I hope to have it all decluttered and finished by next Tuesday. Then I'll FINALLY be able to move on to the more everyday clutter in my kitchen, bathroom, etc. which is strangely more exciting. If you're participating in the 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge leave a comment with your progress!
Week 1- 5 bags
Week 2- 11 bags
Total- 16 bags
This week was much easier since I pulled out ALL the stuff that's been lurking underneath my stairs. Some of it was even already bagged up and labeled 'donate' and the old me just chucked it back to the depths. I went through a lot of old clothing that was under there 'just in case' and let go of tons of it. Some is going to be donated and some of the nicer kids' clothes are going to a consignment store. Mr. Wright has been very patient with the fact that I turned our game room into this Hoarders-like mess since I pulled everything out and then promptly got too sick to drop it all off at goodwill. Today seems like a good day to leave my house for the first time since Wednesday, so hopefully he'll see an improvement soon!
I'm excited to see all the 'stuff' go and even more excited to get my laundry room finished and painted this week! I'm going to keep working on my remaining 24 bags while working a little Spring cleaning into the mix. I am hopeful that by the time Easter rolls around I'll have a purged, clean and organized house! And Mr. Wright will be a lot happier too, I'm sure...
How are you doing with the 40 bags in 40 days challenge!? Leave a comment with your bag total and anything else you want to share!
We're all home sick today so my progress has slowed to a... uh, stop. Since I'm not getting anything done today I wanted to share some progress that I made on Tuesday. I have all the kids' clothes in one closet as it makes it easier for me to put clothes away and I pick Boo's outfits anyway so it doesn't really matter where I get them. This leaves an entire closet open for 'overflow' toys. The idea was that I'd lock this closet and put extra toys in there to rotate in and out. Unfortunately it ended up just being a pile of junk that I didn't want to sort through and that we obviously didn't really need. 
I picked a morning that Mr. Wright was home to distract Boo and Little Man and started sorting into baskets. I didn't get pictures of the 1 bag of garbage or the 3 bags of donations yet, but I did take the 'afters' of the closet!
I'm linking up this post to Org Junkie's Org Challenge!
1. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and were you able to overcome it?
The hardest part was getting rid of stuff that I've been hanging onto forever. I had to overcome the fact the "because I've had it this long" isn't a good reason for keeping something. Another challenge was letting go of a lot of baby toys that I've held on to despite my kids having NO interest in them.
2. Tell us what kind of changes/habits you have put into place in order for your area/room to maintain its new order?
I kept some open spaces for the future, and I have a new view of what I actually "need" to keep. Luckily this closet stays locked from little helpers, so it won't get disorganized unless I let it get that way.
3. What did you do with the “stuff” you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?
Some of it was donated, some was given to friends, and some was just plain garbage.
4. What creative storage solutions were you able to introduce in order to create additional space as well as establish some limits and boundaries?
I had some ancient Yaffa blocks that came out of my laundry room before that happened to be perfect to divide up some of the stuff that I needed to keep in the closet, and even created some free space for the future!
5. Why do you think you should win this challenge?
Because I'm straight awesome, first off, and secondly because I let go of things this time that have made it past multiple purgings. I now have an orderly space that has room to grow, and doesn't make me scared to open the closet doors!
How is everyone participating doing with their 40 bags in 40 days decluttering? Leave a comment with how many bags (and of what) you've gotten rid of and how you feel about the process!
I have to admit that I put it off until the weekend, so on Saturday morning I had 4 bags to do already. Luckily I had so much crap in my laundry room that I could throw away that I filled two bags just with garbage, and another with garbage in the playroom. 
I've already given a bag's worth of scrapbook stuff and a bag's worth of baby stuff to a friend. 
I've been swamping out my Hoarders-like laundry room so the sheet rock can go up today and I couldn't be more excited! Here's the before and after of the clearing out. Most of it is moved somewhere else, but I did get rid of a lot of stuff too!
I can't wait to organize my newly purged scrapbook stash on my planned built-in shelves in my new laundry room. Once I can shuffle some of my stuff back into the laundry room I'll be able to start on the elephant in the house- under my stairs. I'd love to take a before picture of that, but I can't even get in there to do it. Scary! I'm excited to get rid of all this STUFF that's been weighing me down for SO long!
I've been thinking for the past week or so about Lent, and what I should "give up". I'm not a super religious Catholic (and kinda a wannabe Mormon) but I've always liked the idea of Lent since I like testing my willpower. Plus I love a good challenge but I've never been into team sports, so Lent it is. I'm sure 'real' Catholics are thrilled with my stance on Lent, but I had to be honest.
Through another blog I stumbled upon the 40 bags in 40 days challenge. Basically you give up 'crap' for Lent! Mr. Wright will be THRILLED. No, seriously. I bet I hear once a week about how we have too much crap. It will be good for my sanity (after it's done of course!), good for my marriage, and good for me since I don't have to give up soda or fast food like I was originally going to. Whoo hoo for that!
Luckily Ash Wednesday isn't until tomorrow, so I get to spend one last day with all my crap. And then the bagging starts on Wednesday. Who wants to join me in the 40 bags in 40 days challenge!?
I've been so caught up in actually using my craft area that I had totally forgotten to share my awesome space! I'm back to reality now (only for a few minutes of course) and I'm so excited to show off my new favorite corner of the house.
Here's the before picture in case you missed it, and it was actually worse than that before I actually got around to organizing it:
And here's the after!
What a change! These are the awesome cabinets that my sis gave me FREE because she rocks and I've packed them full of fun sewing goodies.
Here's my felt in the left cabinet, and all my cottons and flannels and fleeces in the right. I didn't really realize what I had even though it was organized before just because I couldn't really get to where it was. It was like a shopping spree once I saw all my fun stuff that's been MIA for a few months.
Here's my giant drawer full of patterns I'll probably never use. I'm addicted to buying patterns at those $.99 sales that Joann's has and I've only hit one or two of those to collect this stash!
And my notions boxes for all my velcro, elastic and other sewing junk. I haven't gotten around to labeling them yet, but I stuck some cute scrap paper in there for right now just to spruce them up a bit. These were on sale at Joann's for $2 each, and the $12 I spent on them was the only money I put into this makeover!!
Thanks for stopping by my craft nook- I hope you like it! All I needed was one more thing to distract me from all those dishes!! :P
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