January Link Party: Organizing Papers

Hello, Hello! 

Today is the day that you get to show off how you've organized those papers during our January Organization Challenge.  If you want to join the challenge, feel free to do so at any time.

*PLEASE NOTE* this is NOT the Delightful Inspiring Thursday Party.  Wait until Thursday to link up any other posts that do not pertain to organizing papers.

During the month of January, I shared how I organize a lot of different paper areas in my home.  Below you will find links to each challenge that I've given you (simply click on the photo to the directed to the post.)

Organizing Mail & Bills	Organizing Manuals & Warranties	Organizing My Inspiration	Organizing Coupons & Receipts
Organizing Children's Papers	Organizing Paint Swatches

Now it's your turn to share your paper organization! You have one week to link up.

Here are the rules: 

• Link ONLY posts pertaining to organizing PAPERS.
• Link directly to the post and not just to your blog.
• DO NOT LINK Etsy shops, selling sites or free printables.
• Grab the button and post it on your blog or within the post you are linking up.

{If you do not follow the rules, your entry will be deleted!}

Post the button on your blog:

<a href="http://delightfulorder.blogspot.com"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi1SS05snzWmd8uXKVpYOWJojlpo-uIogQ0y_Vst3wZkv6Mvtjvsq7jUENHh14wqEPcIDblTmvBrkUI2t9pWR5u77silu0I89VZwf-RdHDohsdEFA3pICAONUtHVtVCaWo7j2he2P55rM/s489/Challenge%2520Button.jpg"width="150" height="150" /></a> 

Spring into Organization Link Party

Welcome to the Spring into Organization Link Party!

This week sure has been a fun filled, inspirational week for all of us.  It was great to be part of the tour with such fabulous ladies!

Today is the day that YOU all get to show off your organized rooms or spaces.  The link will be open for the next 30 days, so you can come back and link up anytime from now until then.  This is a simultaneous link party, so you can link from any of the blogs below and it will show up on all of them.

If you missed any of the homes from this past week's tour, you can find them here:

Home #1 - Becky from Organizing Made Fun with her master bedroom, bathroom, and closet

Home #2 - Jen from Iheart Organizing with her laundry and playroom

Home #3 - Anna from Ask Anna with her kitchen

Home #4 - DaNita from Delightful Order with her laundry and other great spaces

Home #5 - Leslie from Goodbye House, Hello Home with her home office

Home #6 - Becky from Clean Mama with her craft room

Home #7 - Toni from A Bowl Full of Lemons with her mail and kitchen

Home #8 - Leanne from Organize and Decorate Everything with her kids' rooms

Home #9 - Laura from Organizing Junkie with her kitchen

A quick reminder to come back next week to see my:

Sewing Cabinet Organizing and ...

My complete LAUNDRY ROOM reveal!  I'll share both with you next week.


NOW it's your turn:

Christmas Card Display

The Christmas cards have slowly been trickling in.  I can’t wait for the next couple of weeks, when I have oodles to open each day.

I LOVE getting my mail this time of year!  It’s like a fun surprise everyday!  I love to see photo’s of family and friends from near and far, to catch up on their lives from the past year through their letters and to see some of the amazingness that so many of my talented family and friends create.

It’s craziness!  I get some beautiful hand crafted cards. This year I decided that I would come up with a different way to display the beautiful art!  In the past I’ve kept them all in a little sleigh.  I’ll still use the sleigh for letters and such.

By using a clear vase, branches, clothespins, ribbon, glass beads and a couple branches from my Christmas tree, I created a super duper, easy peasy, thrown together Christmas card display.

and it works and I LOVE it!

and I love that it only took me a wee little bit to create…

and I love that I can display gorgeous Christmas cards

and look at them all.day.long! :)

See what I mean about some amazingly beautiful hand crafted cards?  Some of these ones are from years back. (I'm just using them right now to show what the display will look like once it's filled up.) I mean for real, these ladies are super talented and I LOVE to see what they come up with every year.

I added glass beads to the vase to weigh it down, as it may get a little top heavy once more cards are added to the branches.

Simple clothespins hold the cards to the branches.

If you don’t have any branches to use from your backyard, The Dollar Tree has branches for $1.00 a bunch.

This is one way that I’ll display my Christmas cards this year.  I’m also using a photo board that I created quite a few years ago:

I haven’t showed you this board yet, because I actually plan on re-doing it.  It’s usually filled with recent photo’s of family and friends, invitations, that kind of thing.

Want to learn how I update, track and organize Christmas card addresses?  Go here to view my post from last year.

How about you?  How do you display your Christmas cards? Do share, I’d love to know.  If you've posted on it, link up your post and inspire us all.

May you be a little inspired. Until next time,
DaNita
Linking to some of my favorite parties.

ADD YOUR CHRISTMAS CARD DISPLAYS RIGHT HERE:

Thanksgiving Table Setting Ideas – Add Yours

I’ve been looking for inspiration for Thanksgiving Table Centerpieces and delightful table settings.

This was my table setting for Thanksgiving last year.

Here are some ideas that I found while browsing the web:

via Country Living

I just love the idea of adding photo’s to your centerpiece and I love the pear place card.

via Southern Living

Add a black placemat and napkin for a big impact.  I actually love the idea of using purple.  Not your typical fall colors, but I love it.

via Good Housekeeping

Add nuts around candles displayed in pretty glass containers, how adorable of an idea is this?

via  Love of Family & Home

This one was done up for a fall wedding (which was adorable!)  I like the idea of creating one of these pumpkin arrangements for a thanksgiving table centerpiece.

via Country Living

I love the ‘giving thanks’ around the candles AND look at the large letters used for the place-card name tags. Way too cute!!

I can never, ever remember how to properly set a table, so I’ve included a layout.

via The I.Design Box

Okay, now it's your turn! I’d love to see more inspiring  

Thanksgiving Table Setting Ideas.  Link them up right here:

Time Saving Tips for School Mornings

There's a reason why I LOVE to blog.  Want to know why?  It's YOU!  Yes, YOU all inspire me!  

It wasn't too long ago that I posted on preparing school lunches ahead of time.  You may remembering reading that post.  If you missed it, you can view it HERE. 

At the end of that post I had asked you all to share your tips and tricks on organizing lunches. My very first comment came from Rachel. She said that she makes sandwiches ahead of time and freezes them.   Her great suggestion was to put the peanut butter on both slices of bread (one side lightly, just to seal it from the jelly) and when preparing meat and cheese sandwiches to put the condiment between the meat and cheese. Brilliant, genius - you are so smart Rachel!! Thanks for the advice.

I was SO EXCITED about that awesome tip, so you know what I did right?!  I made a bunch of sandwiches for the freezer.  I've been doing this now for about a month and it is the BEST thing e.v.e.r.  Our school mornings are such a breeze.

This is how I store the sandwiches in the freezer:

I found these containers at the Dollar Tree.  They are good for the freezer too.  Not all of the ones at the Dollar Tree are for the freezer, but these ones are. 

I designed and printed the labels. Laminated them and slid them through my sticker maker.  I've talked about my sticker makers in my Coupon and Receipt Organizing Post  and in my Craft Room Closet Organizing Post.

I go through one to two loafs of bread when I make up the sandwiches. Sometimes I make the sandwiches on rolls, sometimes on bread, sometimes with a tortilla wrap.  I've got 3 guys in school.  If you do the math, 3 (chicklets) x 5 (days a week) = 15 (sandwiches per week) so I make a bunch at a time.  Once I have all the sandwiches made, I stack them all on top of each other and slice right down the middle.  Kinda like the leaning tower of PB&J ;)

I put them in freezer ziploc sandwich bags,

place them into the container...

and store them in my garage freezer.  I've got two containers, one for meat and cheese sandwiches and one for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Each morning, I (or one of my boys) go into the garage, grab a sandwich bin from the freezer, and a tray from the refrigerator, bring them into the house and pack them into the lunch boxes, which takes a couple of minutes.  It's so sweet!

That's it, I just wanted to share some time saving tips for those busy school mornings.  Yes, making the lunches ahead of time takes a little prep time in the beginning of the week (or on the weekend, which is what I've been doing.) BUT it is so worth it come Monday through Friday.

Do you have an awesome time saving tip for school mornings?  Have you blogged about it? Please share, so we can ALL benefit from them. 

FIND THE LABELS IN MY SHOP HERE

Linking to some of My Favorite Parties

How to Link to a Linky Party

Linky parties are a great way to connect with other bloggers, make new friends, inspire and BE inspired!  They are a  great way to get your blog noticed too.  Each week there are some amazing parties.  The parties that I join can be found on my parties page at the top of my blog.

When I began blogging (October marks one year for me) I hadn't the slightest clue how this all works, so trust me, you're not alone if you haven't figured out how to join a party. 

I've recently received a couple of emails asking how to link to a party, so I decided that I'd do a tutorial for those of you that don't know how to link up. I don't want anyone NOT joining the fun, because they don't know how to. So if you have a blog, read on...

It's actually easy, peasy.  This is how you do it:

Let's pretend that I'm going to link my Everyday Message Center Dry Erase Print post. Begin at your own blog.  Right click on the POST title (on your own blog) that you want to link up and click "Copy Link Location."

Next find a party that you want to link to. (My party is every Thursday, right here on the blog homepage.)  Scroll to the bottom of the post and click on the "click here to enter."

The next page will look like this:

#1 - Paste your POST URL into this area (the one that you copied from your blog.)

#2 - Enter a short description of your post (this will show up underneath the little photo)
#3 - Enter your email address.  Your name area is usually optional.
#4 - Choose auto crop or let me crop my own image (I always choose let me crop my own image)
#5 - Click on the From Web button

You will then be directed to a page with lots of photo's from your post.  Choose the one that you want to show up at the party.

Then, with your mouse, move that little box to where you want the photo cropped.

And lastly, click on the "Click here to crop your image..."  AND that's it.  You are done.  

If you want to double check to see if your link appeared, scroll back down to the bottom of the party post & it should be there.  Sometimes it takes a few minutes for the image to show up, but if you followed all the steps properly, it will show.

Now that you all know how to link to a linky party, I'd LOVE to have you join my Delightfully Inspiring Thursday Party each week.  Hope to see you there!

:)

Father's Day Gift Idea with Free Printables

Today I put together a father's day gift basket for my husband.   I'm excited to share the finished product with you AND I appreciate ALL of my readers so much that I'm giving you some FREE  father's day printables!!

My man really doesn't have a sweet tooth, so staying on the same lines as the candy bouquets that I've made, I created a basket more suitable for him.

This is the kind of thing that he likes. 

 Beef Jerky, Peanuts, Pistachios, Word Searches, Money, Gum and Mints

 Below is a quick tutorial, showing you how I did the money folds.

:)

This is how I folded the bills:

Attach the accordian folded bill to a floral pick

and  simply fan out both sides.

Another fun idea would be to get a coffee mug and make an arrangement just with money.  In the past, I've also used sticks and made a money tree, attaching the bills with ribbon . Little clothes pins, paper clips or binder clips would work well too.

NOW here are your FREE printables:

I saw this word search card as a feature over at Tatertots and Jello and thought it was so cute - so I copied was inspired by the idea and created my own.  I'm really hoping there aren't any bad words in mine.  You know how it sometimes goes, when your adding letters, you just never know if you're going to spell out a word by accident. All the words ARE suppose to be what a dad is... super, incredible, smart, respected, loved, etc.

AND:

The party circles can be used for anything!  From cupcake toppers, to tags, to party decorations and more.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE DOWNLOAD!

AND again, here's one last look at the Father's Day Gift Basket:

 How about you, have you got your Father's Day gifts yet?  

Any fun and unique ideas?  Link them up right here and share with all of us:

Linking to some of My Favorite Parties