Simple Paper & Mail Organizing Tip

The spring-cleaning bug has kicked into high gear at our house and I am trying to take advantage of the motivation while it lasts. With that being said, our paper clutter is out of control! We currently receive mail at our house and at a PO Box that we set up while building our home.  At any given time, we have several piles of paper scattered throughout our house and it’s driving me crazy.  

Since March is DaNita’s Home Office Organization Challenge, what better time to tackle that paper clutter than now! I had a file organizer that we used in our previous home, but I needed to update it to make it relevant for our daily lives now. I went on a search for some cute file folders and came across these at Target. 

I knew I wanted three categories: bill, action, and file. Here is how I use each folder with incoming mail.

Bill: This one is pretty obvious, but I use this folder to keep all of our bills that still need to be paid.

Action: This folder is used to hold any item that needs some sort of action like a phone call or e-mail.

File: This folder is for items that need to be filed.

At the beginning of the week, I go through each folder and pay any bills that have an upcoming due date, take care of the items that need further action, and file papers from the previous week.

Three categories work perfectly for us, but your family may need more than that. For example, you may want a folder for each member of the family. I’m sure as our family grows and our children get older, that will probably be the case for us as well. Currently, this system keeps things from being over complicated and best of all, the piles of paper are no more! I hope this simple organizing tip is helpful for all of you. Until next time!

Hi! I'm Kristin from The Orderly Home.  I love all things organization and I'm a sucker for pretty storage solutions and anything that makes life easier for me and my family. A little about me: I'm 27, married to my best friend, and mama to a precious little boy. I'm a Texas girl who enjoys cooking and baking, spending time outdoors, and barre workouts. My idea of fun involves an iced coffee, some good music, and a label 

 

Ideas for Organizing your Craft Room & Home Office

Hey all!  Yesterday I gave you the list on getting your craft room/ home office organized.   This is part of the Delightful Order Monthly Organizing Challenge. Read all about the Challenge HERE.

Here's some organizing inspiration for you.  

Simply click the links below to be directed to each blog post:

May you be a little inspired!

Until next time,
DaNita 
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View more of my Most Recent Projects HERE.
 

March Challenge: Organizing the Craft Room & Home Office

Hello! How did you do with the February Organizing Challenge? Hopefully you got some control over your kitchens.

We're into March now and this month we're going to clean and organize our Craft Room/Home Offices ~ If you don't have an office or a craft room, you can clean and organize the area that you keep your paperwork & bills, craft supplies, etc.

This month, I'm challenging you to do the following:

Organize all your paperwork

Organize your manuals

Organize your mail & bills

Organize your tax information

Organize your coupons & receipts

Organize your paint samples

Create a filing system that works for you

Organize your filing cabinets

Organize your children's paperwork

Organize your books & magazines

Organize your office and craft supplies

Organize your photo's (digital and physical)

Clean and organize the top of your desk

Organize desk drawers

Categorize everything that you can. Use boxes, bins, baskets, binders, tray dividers, file boxes, photo boxes and more.

Tomorrow I will share a TON of inspiration with you that will cover most all of the items that we will be organizing during the month of March.

Today, I'm sharing a bit of my craft room/home office with you:

I've made some major changes to this room since I shared it on the blog back in 2011.  If you missed that post, you can find it here.

Here's a before and after side by side photo so that you can see the changes:

I painted the cabinets and the desk with Annie Sloan "old white" chalk paint. I love how bright the room feels now.

A few of the drawers in my room.

The cabinets on the other side of my room hold memories and photo albums:

The gray file boxes are for my boys memories, school papers, etc:

I have this system set up like I shared a while back.  You'll see more of this tomorrow.

The black boxes hold larger items that won't fit into the file boxes.

I've started creating my boys' keepsake photo memory books... each of them have one of the green albums.  I'm creating these books for them.. and my plan is that once they graduate high school, their album will be finished and it will be part of their graduation gift.

Here's a peek into how I am creating their memory keepsake books:

I'm doing the albums "Project Life" style.  I'm creating my project life pages in digital format.  If you haven't heard of Project Life, read all about it here. I'm so in love with this system. It's so super easy and so very cute!

Here are a couple of pages from one of my boys albums:

Photo Credit (Anneli Kirstine Photography)

I absolutely LOVE designing these pages!  I design my pages in photoshop myself and print them onto 12x12 photo paper. I use some journal cards that I have purchased and I also design my own too.  I actually sell some of my designs in my ETSY shop here.

I also have photo albums for family and friends, myself and my husband and our yearly family photos. Most of my albums in this section are a "work in progress."    I do have some of our yearly albums complete.  Again, if you come back tomorrow you will see more to how I organize my photos.

Here's you free printable checklist:

(simply click the photo above and  print)

Okay so now that you have the list of things to do this month, let's get started!  Remember to come back tomorrow for even more inspiration! 

* UPDATE - Here's the link to the Organizing Ideas for your Craft Room & Home Office

This post is part of the Monthly Organization Challenge. You can join the challenge at any time. Go HERE to see all the posts and bring Delightful Order to your home and life this year.

To stay connected, you can sign up to receive emails when new posts are published or follow along on Instagram or Facebook. (Please note that Facebook has made some changes, and you may or may not see all the posts there.)  I also have a Monthly Organization Challenge board set up on Pinterest, so you can follow along there as well. 

May you be a little inspired!

Until next time,
DaNita 
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View more of my Most Recent Projects HERE.
 

Pretty Kitchen Command Center

Back in February, I helped my sister and her family get quite a few spaces in their home organized.  I already shared the laundry room/craft room/office all in one makeover  and how we organized their children's paperwork, memories and more.

Today I'm sharing how we organized a pretty kitchen command center.  I LOVE how it turned out!  

I recently created a similar command center to this is in my home too. I'll share mine with you all soon.

For real, I LOVE pretty organization ~ and I LOVE creating pretty organization!

Here's my sisters kitchen command center to help her family stay organized:

 I designed most of these pieces and they are available in my Zazzle Shop.

The magnetic pieces can be found here.

The large dry erase calendar can be found here.  This is NOT magnetic. It has sticky backing.  It comes with a black dry erase marker and mounting equipment.  It's AWESOME!! I have this same calendar (but different color) and I absolutely LOVE it.  It's big enough for keeping track of any busy schedule.  I use a wet erase marker on mine, not the dry erase marker that it comes with.

The custom floral notepad on top can be found here.

The blue chevron grocery list can be found here.

We hot glued magnets to the back of these notepads.  They are not sent as magnetic pieces.

 The dry erase chore charts can be found here.

AND I do have clipboards in my shop too - these ones are not mine.

There you have it.... A pretty Kitchen Command Center

Source list:
Large Dry Erase Calendar
Dry Erase Bright Pink Chore Chart
Dry Erase Teal Chore Chart
Clipboards
Acrylic Frames
Everyday is a New Beginning Magnet
Round Magnets
Floral Notepad
Grocery List Notepad
Pencil Holder
Magnetic Key Hooks
Round magnetic jars

May you be a little inspired!

Until next time,
DaNita 
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View more of my Most Recent Projects HERE.
 

Organizing Children's Papers, Memories and More

Hello all!  Hope you are well.

A few weeks ago, I shared my sister's laundry room/craft room/office all in one makeover with you.  I told you that we did a TON of organizing, in just a few short days, at her home and that I would share some more of the organizing that we did there.

Another thing we tackled in her home was her children's paperwork.

If you have children, then you know how quickly those art pieces, school work, photo memories and such add up.  It's fast! They bring home papers every day from school.  They draw, color and create masterpieces often.  Some (not all) of those papers you want to keep for memories.

BUT... if you don't organize their papers right away, they can quickly become out of control (especially if you have more than one child.)

So today I am sharing an EXCELLENT way to keep track of your children's papers.  

I've already shared my way of keeping my boys' papers, memories and such organized.  You can view my post here.  We basically did the same thing at my sisters.

We got file boxes for each of her children.

 ... and lots of hanging files and manila file folders for inside.

This system works great and I would recommend it to everyone that wants to organize your children's paperwork and memories.

May you be a little inspired!

Until next time,
DaNita 
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View more of my Most Recent Projects HERE.
 

Organized All-In-One Planner & Free Printables

January is a BIG month for organizing.  

Seems that one of the hardest things to keep in order is paperwork and a mom schedule. Especially when you have many children in sports and other activities that keep you busy, busy, busy. 

Me, I'm starting my NEW YEAR out organized! How about you?  Do you want to join me?

First things first... create an organized all in one planner.

This is my All in One Planner and it holds everything I need to keep my papers organized:

 Inside my planner looks like this:

Behind the yearly planning section I have my yearly planner printables:

the yearly planner printable bundle can be found here in my shop.

and the bills & budget section:

 has my budget planning printables:

Which can be found HERE in my shop.

and I have sections for each category in my binder with different printable packs that I've created.

and that is my All in One Planner.  I Love it!  I use it all the time!

I offer many different planners in my Etsy Shop. They are sent to you as a digital download via email immediately, so there's no waiting on becoming a more organized you.

Here are some of the All-in-one Planners that I have available in the Shop: (Click the photo to be directed to the item(s) in my shop.)

Click HERE to see all of my All-In-One Planners

Save 10% off everything in the shop now through the end of January, 2015!  Simply enter OrganizedNewYearSale during checkout the receive the discount.

and here are your FREE printables to get you started on creating an organized planner of your own:

Click HERE to get your free printable planner cover pages.

and... 

Click HERE to get the Free Tab Printables

Want the 3-ring binder?  It can be found here.

That's how I keep my papers, mail, schedule, bills, budgeting and more all organized.  

I do keep my boys' paperwork separate.  I'm still using their awesome child message centers and I LOVE that system.  I've been using it for many years now and it's been great for our family and  many of my customers families too.  You may want to look at all the digital message centers that I have in my shop.  I'm continually adding new pieces.

Soon, I'll show you my New Kitchen Command Center, which I use daily to run an efficient and organized home and life.  The biggest organizing piece that I use in my kitchen command center is one of these Calendar Message Centers.  I use it Every. Single. Day.  I'll show you that new setup soon.

May you be a little inspired!

Until next time,
DaNita 
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View more of my Most Recent Projects HERE.
 

Child Keepsake Memory Boxes/Books

If you have children, then you understand that each child collects a lot of papers from school, awards, report cards, artwork, photo's etc.  

Some of these things I want to save for my boys' keepsake memory books that I will eventually finish as a graduation gift for each of them.

The keepsake memory books that I have started for each of my boys will take me years to finish.  They're part scrapbook, part project life, part baby books, etc. (I hope to share the albums with you all someday.  At the end of this post, I'll show you a little sneak peek of those albums.)

In the meantime, I have to have all of my boys' keepsake stuff organized.  This is how I keep it all together:

I've created a large file box for each of my boys. 
You can find these boxes in my Amazon Store Here.

 Inside each box, I have file folders organized by year/grade.

 As the boys come home with a piece of art work, a report card, etc. I simply slip it into the correct file.

 Setting this system up has made it so much easier to keep everything together.

 Sweet little hand prints from 1st grade is definitely worth keeping and adding to their keepsake albums.

 Diplomas, etc are worthy of keeping as well.

 I even slip photo's from the year into these files too.

 anything that I would like to add to their keepsake albums go into these files.

 I store the boxes in my office/craft room closet on a bookshelf.

You may remember a while back I shared this post with you all:

Organizing Children's School Papers

Well since then I have changed my mind and decided that it'd be much easier to have EVERYTHING all together and in one place, including school papers, photo's, art, etc.  So I no longer use this system.  I use the file box system instead and it's been so much easier having it all in one place.

The keepsake memory books that I'm creating for each of my boys look like this:

 Like I said earlier, it will take me years to finish these books.

Here is a little sneak peek at one of the inside pages.  

I am creating my own full page 12x12 scrapbook layouts and I sell them in my Etsy Shop Here. 

 You can find the Announcing You Page (shown above) in my shop HERE.

If you want to create a little simpler keepsake book/album for your child, I do have these digital sets in my shop too:

Aqua Baby Keepsake Memory Book

 ...and some extra pages for the set here:

and I also sell the School Days Memory Books (in digital format) too:

Simply click the photo's above to be directed to the items in my shop.

.. and that is how I organize my children's keepsake items.

May you be a little inspired!

Until next time,
DaNita 
 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

View more of my Most Recent Projects HERE.