Staying Organized through the Chaos of Christmas

Hello my lovely friends! I hope you all have had a wonderful week so far! Our family went to honour our veterans at a beautiful Remembrance Day ceremony yesterday. The weather was gorgeous, the kids were on their best behaviour, and we got to spend the day together after the ceremony. All in all, a fantastic day! It’s always been a tradition in our house to hold off on decorating for Christmas until after Remembrance Day. So I can’t say that I was shocked when the girls asked if we were putting up our Christmas tree on the drive home from the Cenotaph!

I don’t think we will actually have time to start our Christmas decorating until at least this weekend, but I thought I would bring together some of my favorite tips and tricks to make the Christmas season more organized and less stressful! Since, as of today there are only 42 days until Christmas, I’m sure that many of us are getting ready to panic!! Crazy parking lots at the mall, a bazillion people fighting to find the perfect gift, Black Friday sales.... The chaos of Christmas is enough to make us all crazy!!! I thought it would be fun to share with you all how I (try to) stay organized through the chaos!!

Make a list, and check it twice! Christmas is expensive! I keep a spreadsheet each Christmas that lists everyone I have to buy for, how much I plan to spend, and a column to note whether or not I have actually purchased the gift. I keep pretty much the same list, from year to year, (adding on new nieces and nephews as needed!) just needing to change up the number of neighbours and teachers to buy for, as well as any gift exchange names as needed.

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Organize your wrapping supplies! Since our tree will be going up pretty soon, I’ll need to get started on wrapping all of the Christmas presents I have already bought and have hidden away! Taking 15 minutes to gather all of my gift wrapping necessities and organizing them will keep me sane when I feel like I’m drowning in gift boxes and glitter!!

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Think of a theme! Every year I try to pick a theme when planning the gifts for my husband and kids. Last year, since the girls were getting into horseback riding and taking lessons, we did a Cowboy Christmas – everyone got Taylor Swift tickets, cowboy boots and riding helmets for Christmas! I even made inexpensive horse-themed artwork for the girls’ rooms! This year, since we are heading to Disney at the end of February, we are working on a travel theme!

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Keep the traditions strong! Life is crazy, but I feel like it’s my job as a wife and mother to make my family’s Christmas experience amazing every year. A few years ago, we created this Advent Activity Calendar to give us a fun, inexpensive holiday activity each day in the month of December. Being totally honest, this year I have had to really plan out our activities, so they work in line with the girls’ dance and Sparks/Girl Guides schedules, but knowing that each day we get do so something fun is amazing… I just need to plan a “Fancy Hot Chocolate with Sprinkles” date on days were we double up on dance!

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Don’t forget to read!! Another fun, easy thing we do at this time of year is create a basket of books gift wrapped under the tree! Each book is numbered (1-24, obviously!) and each night at bedtime, we get a fun little Christmas/winter themed story. I love that these used to be books that I would read to the girls, and now they are reading to me!

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Make a Christmas Eve Box!! Since I was a child, I can always remember my mom giving us new jammies on Christmas Eve. I’ve always done the same with my girls, but last year I made Christmas Eve a little extra special by wrapping up a box with the new jammies, some candy canes, hot cocoa and marshmallows and some Christmas crafts!

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Save your sanity on Christmas morning! After spending the month of December getting organized, shopping til you drop and wrapping presents until the wee hours of the morning, there is nothing worse than having one of your gifts require a special tool, or batteries that aren’t included, and don’t even get me started on the wrapping paper!! Save yourself on Christmas morning by preparing a bin to recycle your gift wrap and a kit with tools to open gifts, batteries to get things started and extra batteries for your camera!

Well there you have it my friends, a super long version of how I keep myself from going crazy in the 42 days between now and Christmas morning! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and Merry Christmas!!

Master Closet Overhaul

Hello my friends! I’m back today to share something with you that has literally changed my life; like actually changed my life. I have been reading a lot about capsule wardrobes, and while I doubted I could ever pull it off, with my continued reading and research I came across a book that so many minimalists and organizers were raving about – The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (affiliate link).

After reading a bunch of Pinterest’d articles about this amazing book and seeing some pretty incredible closet transformations I purchased the book on Amazon and sat with my Kindle to learn the tips and tricks. The most important thing I learned early on in my reading was the need for this project to be all encompassing. While often times I tackle the closet (or any other project) a bit at a time (today the shirts, tomorrow the pants, etc) this time around I took a different approach altogether. By the way, you'll have to excuse the photos in this post. It was nearly impossible to get any well-lit photos in the space!

Although my husband was not impressed with my plan, I started early on a Saturday morning by pulling E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G out of the closet in our master bedroom. We made a plan to specifically touch every single item in the closet to see if it met the magic criteria – Does it spark joy? If the item wasn’t something that we had worn recently, or could see wearing again, it had to go. In the same vein, if it was something that we had worn recently, but we didn’t love it, it too had to go.

I swear, the things you learn about your husband when you work on a project of this size together? I swear, this man had over 40 plain white undershirts!! I understand, you need to have one for every day, maybe for two weeks worth if you are worried we won't get to the laundry one weekend.... but he had over a MONTH's worth of white shirts!! I convinced him to reduce this stack...a lot.... He still has a lot of plain white t's though!

I’m going to be honest, it was tough. I thought that I had already done a good job paring down my wardrobe. I also knew that it was would be painful for my husband to actually get rid of things. His theory was that if someone bought it for him, he couldn’t let it go. Together we made this criteria for his clothing choices: would he wear it to take me out to dinner tomorrow night? If not, it had to go. This, of course, did not apply to jerseys…. Most of those “made the cut” and had to be kept.

Now, we’ve all done big closet purges, so what, you ask changed my life? The KonMari clothes folding technique!! I used my collection of tank tops (which previously numbered in the 40-50 top range, and was pared down to about 20, which still seems like a lot, but I layer them with everything!!) and used this folding method to lineup and organize my tank tops. It was so amazing that I decided to go through both of the girls’ drawers of tops and used the same technique. You want to talk about sparking joy? That two hour process sparked some serious joy for this mama!! I realize now that I didn't take photos of this step... thankfully I had two little girls' dressers full of clothes to practice on, so there will be a post on that later!

At the end of a very long day of sorting and organizing, I managed a three laundry basket high pile of clothing donations. I added five purses to the pile and was pleased as punch with my progress! My husband managed to purge his side of the closet of two huge garbage bags of clothes for donation!

Another important trick when completing a big overhaul like this? Purge the hangers!! OMG we had a TON of hangers!! I had purchased some of the lovely velvety hangers a couple of years ago, and used only those on my side of the closet. My husband used a few of the old ones, but mostly the new type. We had so many hangers that needed to find their way out of our house! If we didn't have any extra (well we had a few extra velvet ones left over) we wouldn't be tempted to fill them up with more stuff.

I can’t wait to finish reading this book!! I want to see if I can finally move our household into our ultimate goal – becoming minimalish. Thanks for stopping by today! I really appreciate it!!


This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive compensation if you make a purchase using this link.

400 Item Purge Complete!!

Well, we did it!! Our family set out to purge 400 items from our home last weekend and we accomplished that feat!!

First, we made a plan! In order to make this an easy job for my kids (and husband, who is really like a third kid) we planned to purge areas where we could get the most bang for our buck. In our house, that meant clothes and books!

I knew that both girls had an overabundance of shirts and sweaters in their drawers, to the point where Miss A could barely close her drawer! My mom is a serial shopper and if she gets a great deal, my lucky girls get new outfits… sometimes three or four at a time!

Miss A got right into the project – we emptied her three (yes, three!) drawers containing shirts and sweaters and let her pick choose which to keep and which to purge. I can proudly say that she managed to let go of 45 tops!! And she still has a ton of clothes left!

Miss E was too busy playing outside with her little friends to help out at the beginning, so I meandered through her tops and found about 25 that she could let go.

Since Miss A was on such a tear, she went next to her (massive) stuffy collection that was living in the corner of her closet. After sorting through her beloved Beanie Boo’s and Webkinz and other items she couldn’t bear to part with, she managed to find over 30 stuffies to send on to loving homes. Miss E also pulled out 20 stuffies to add to the pile! Unfortunately for the neighbors she brought the pile downstairs and let the kids next door have first dibs!!

The girls also agreed to part with over 30 coloring books, and 60 books! We passed our favorite books down to my niece and nephews and donated the rest of the books.

Not to be outdone, the hubs finally managed to part with about 15 shirts (hardly 100 items from him, but it’s better than nothing!!). He also promised to filter through the kids dvd collection and pull out anything that they have grown out of… maybe… next weekend…

At this point, even though we had made great progress, our purge total was only at 225 items! My turn!! A quick purge of my drawers and closet found 74 items that found their way to better homes, 12 holiday themed towels that I didn’t even bring out this past Christmas, a box of wine glasses, almost all of my cookie cutters, some pillows, six coats and some more toys – 402!!

You would think after a purge this size I’d be super excited with our progress and have a ton of new space? Nope. Now I have stacks and bags of stuff to be donated, I have a pile of empty containers from clearing out closets and bins and I have a million ideas of ways to get back to my minimalish path!

We are off for a few days next week. Hopefully I’ll be able to put the plan into action!! Thanks for stopping by; I hope I have managed to inspire you today!

A little bit of garage organization

We all have that place in our homes that, no matter how hard you try, just can't get/stay organized. My house has lots of those places. The place that drives me the most crazy? The garage.

We are very blessed to live in a home with a two car garage. We also make sure to actually park two cars in said garage. That means all the other things we have that don't belong in the house end up in the garage. For us, that meant three bikes, two scooters, a pogo stick, a bazillion pairs of shoes and boots, recycling bins and a ton of other stuff.

This past summer Miss A finally graduated to a mountain bike. At the time, we had the bikes mounted on the wall beside my husband's car. With the old bikes, he was able to get out of the car easily. With Miss A's new bike, he had to duck and dodge and try not to hit his head on the bike when coming into the house.

After reconfiguring a set of shelves to another part of the garage, I set out to my local Canadian Tire store to find a better way to store these bikes. I found these awesome, low profile Mastercraft Bike Hooks for $9.99!!

The hubs and my dad mounted a couple of pieces of wood onto the blank space of wall so that we'd have something solid to mount the hooks onto.

All in, this project took less than an hour and made a HUGE impact on the storage and space in our garage. I had the hubs add a big hook above the bike storage to hold the bike rack that goes on my truck when we take the bikes away with us. It makes me happy every time I drive into the garage. Best of all? I can get the bikes up and down with no trouble at all!!

My Husband and my Dad!! I'm so lucky :)

Thanks for stopping by, I hope I've inspired you a little today!!

Our New Year's Resolution - Do For Yourself

Hello my friends! I hope you are all having a fantastic day! In the past few months, since I have gone back to work full time, I have been trying my best to keep our little world running and even though I just keep swimming, I have been feeling like we are just not keeping completely afloat. With the girls in a ton of extra-curricular activities, and grandparents shuttling the littles around to these activities, each week we need to have a whole lot of prep work to survive the chaos.

In order to control the chaos a little bit, our family has made a New Year’s resolution to make my life easier and the teach the girls a little more responsibility. I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve coddled my girls too much. I laid out their clothes the night before school, packed their lunches, prepped and packed their backpacks and dance/brownies/sparks/catechism bags… basically spent a ton of time pre-organizing.

Starting the first week back to school, I made a few little signs to help guide my girls into completing their tasks each morning. I can happily say that for the most part, the girls are being really helpful!! It still takes reminders each day to think about what activities are happening the next day, and what they need to think about packing.

After spending a little time reorganizing my snack and baking cupboard, putting the lunchtime and after school snacks at little people level I hung a “what to pack in your lunch” sign next to the hooks where we keep the lunch bags. This way, while the littles are eating breakfast, they can see their lunch bags, and can think about what they want to pack for their lunches.

I'm happy to say that the girls are doing a great job of packing healthy lunches, filled with food they will actually eat.  

This whole organization plan took me about a half an hour to pull together, but has already saved us a ton of time!

What little organizing techniques do you have to make your lives easier?

Thanks for stopping by, I hope I've inspired you a little today!

Christmas Morning Sanity Saver!

Hello once again my friends!! Can you believe it?? Two posts, two days in a row, and right before Christmas!! It’s a Christmas miracle! Truthfully, I have about ten posts that I could have done this month, but life is crazy, so I’m happy that I managed to get two done!!

One of my biggest pet peeves on Christmas morning…. Scratch that…. One of my biggest pet peeves when I scrapbook/post to Facebook our Christmas morning photos is the big black garbage bag sitting right in the middle of the room, to corral the gift wrap that has been quickly ripped from our Christmas morning presents.

My solution? One of my ugly blue recycling bins and a roll of wrapping paper! Rather than a big old ugly black garbage bag cluttering up my photos, I’ve wrapped a blue recycling bin with my holiday gift wrap, and then, when the girls (and the hubs and I) unwrap all of our treasures, the paper can go straight into the recycling bin! Bonus, the bin being covered in gift wrap makes it pretty. And that makes me happy.

Another few pet peeves? Presents that are impossible to get into, and gifts that need a little something extra.

To keep my sanity (and mild OCD) in check, I found a basket and put some Christmas morning necessities in there!

• Scissors for opening crazy-wrapped gifts
• Pliers to open the toys out of the boxes with the insane amount of zap straps manufacturers use to make sure dolls don’t slouch in their boxes
• My favorite pic-quic screwdriver – you never know what needs to be put together, or to take off battery pack covers
• Batteries for those gifts that require them, but that are not included in the box
• My spare camera battery (because knowing my luck, the Christmas eve photos would drain the battery and I’d be using an Iphone to capture my girls’ joy)
• Scotch tape (in case we accidentally unwrap a gift that we need to re-wrap!!
  

All of these Christmas morning necessities fit nicely into this little white container from the dollar store, and can be tucked away until we need what's inside.

I hope this post has inspired you to help keep your Christmas morning organized! This season is total chaos, so a few bits of calm and preparedness are like gold!

Kitchen Contained!

Hello my friends! Sorry I have been MIA this week. The kids and I were sick, then we had a couple of spring break all-day-long-play dates and now it’s Thursday Friday and I’m finally posting for the first time! I’m working my way cupboard by cupboard, and stretch of countertop at a time. So far I have handled my glassware, pots, pans, platters, bowls, Tupperware and my command centre. Being a part of OrgJunkie’s 31 Day Organizational Challenge has definitely spurred me on!

Finally!!! My kitchen chaos has been contained!!

This week I am working on the most challenging part of my kitchen – my baking supplies. I bake. A LOT. Last year I spent time on the Quest for the Perfect Cupcake. Needless to say, I have an extremely large amount of baking accoutrement. I store most of my shaped and larger cake pans in the garage, and my seldom used cupcake display pieces in an upstairs part of my linen closet. My supplies however, they live in the kitchen.

SO.  MUCH.  Crystal Light.  Yes, this entire container is filled with Crystal Light singles and pitcher packets.  I know, I have a problem...

For those of you just coming by here for the first time, let me tell you flat out – I am a hoarder. Well, I’m a recovering hoarder now. I have been following a minimalish path for a few years now and have slowly worked the minimalish rules on most areas of our home. I do however, still hoard food and ingredients. I have baking supplies and ingredients in no less than four different cupboards in the kitchen. 

Before I even started this project, I called in reinforcements!  My rock star neighbour Krista came over to help me start the PROCESS. I extended my kitchen table to its fullest capacity and then hunted through all of the cupboards for all of the baking stuff in the kitchen. Oh mercy, there was even more in there than I thought possible.  

Since I didn’t have a ton of stuff to purge, I started sorting like with like: all the chocolate chips together, all of the sprinkles together, all of the paper cupcake liners together (note to self: DO NOT buy any more cupcake liners!!). I went even further and put all of the puddings and jellos together, since I usually use those for baking instead of just for their intended purpose.

 

My total organizational container investment for this huge project was $8!! I bought 6-$1 lidded Sterilite containers from Walmart and two $1 packages of hot pink stickers to use on the labels. I had cardstock on hand that I used to line the front of the bins to hide the supplies within. After moving our breakfast foods into the cupboard that previously stored half of my baking supplies, I was able to consolidate all of my pretty new containers into the pantry we have in the kitchen! WooHoo! Extra bonus – all of my ingredients are now right next to my beloved kitchenaid mixer! I think this calls for a celebration – cupcakes all around!!

While organizing all of the baking supplies, Krista and her organizing OCD also got me fired up to organize the kids homework and craft supplies into one of the newly emptied cupboards - YIPPEE!!

The last thing I needed to do in my 31 Day Organizational Challenge was a thorough deep cleaning of the kitchen. I got out my mop, bucket and cleaning cloths and got all of the kitchen surfaces sparkly clean! Ah, I love a clean, organized kitchen! Thanks again to OrgJunkie for hosting this challenge and to my friend Krista for helping me finish it!  Here are some quick before-and-afters of the Kitchen Chaos project:

Week One: The Glassware Cupboard

Week Two - Pots and Pans, Dishcloths, Platters and Tupperware:

   

and after

   

 

 Week Three - The Command Centre

Week Four - Baking Supplies:

Baking supplies AFTER!

Laura asked all of the Organizing Challenge participants to answer a couple of questions about the work we have done this past month.

1. What space did you decide to organize and why?
I decided to organize my kitchen.  The kitchen is the heart of the home, and we live in our kitchen!  There is always something happening - homework, cooking, baking, chatting, party planning.  Our kitchen takes a beating and needed some definite organizing love.

2. What steps did you take to ensure you completed the space within the 31 day timeline?
In order to finish in the month long timeline (which was HARD!!) I made a list of all of the cupboards and their uses and then broke them out into the weeks I had to finish the work.  It was tough, because we were away two of the weekends and the kids were on spring break for 2 weeks, but I managed to get it done!

3. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and how did you overcome it?
TIME.  Because I spend so much time actually using my kitchen, finding the time to empty cupboards and purge and organize was tough!!  But I soldiered on and stayed up after the kids went to bed. 

4. What did you do with the “stuff” you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?
I was able to bring some of the extra glassware down to my cabin to be repurposed, and donated a bunch of other dishes and kitchenware.

5. Tell me one of your proudest moments during this challenge?
That I was able to finally contain my baking supplies.  I bake a lot and having my supplies spread out over four different spaces in my kitchen meant that I was constantly making an even bigger mess digging out supplies and ingredients than I should have.  Hopefully this new, pretty-labelled system will work for me!

6. Explain any organizing “tools” you used to help you create additional space and to establish some limits and boundaries?
The best organizing tool for me is the dollar store!  I can find everything I need there to better organize the spaces in my home very inexpensively.  I love the simple baskets and bins and the craft section for labels and making the space a little prettier!

7. What is ONE piece of organizing advice you’ve learned on this journey that you could encourage someone else with? 
Just take it one small step at a time.  Even though this month I tackled a big (for me) project, breaking it up into smaller steps that I could do one at a time made it way easier to handle.  I also like knowing that I only need to commit a small amount of time when doing a small part of the project, instead of taking an entire day to go start to finish on a massive job.

I want to thank Laura from Org Junkie for hosting this challenge and for inspiring me to finally get this space in order!!