I’m a professional organizer, and a quilter. Need I say more? Both of these are my passions. Today I have an organizing tip for my quilting readers.

When you purchase fabric, label each piece with paper or masking tape. On the label, write the amount, date, where you bought it and what project it is for if it was purchased for a specific reason. (Other than to increase your stash and that it was on sale).

Now you won’t have to measure every time you want to use the piece and you’ll know the location if you wish to buy more. If your local store is out of the very fabric you can probably find it on line.

Do you have a favorite organizing quilt tip?

Now here’s a little cupboard put to good use and because of its size it is easy to reduce clutter.

I doubled the space by adding a removable shelf. I have my measuring cups in the basket so they stay contained and are easy to reach and take out of the cupboard.

The bottom cupboard has serving and storing bowls. The plastic bowls are both on the top and bottom in this half of the cupboard. This is a corner cupboard so the plastic storing bowls go back as far as I can reach. Again I have a shelf that goes all the way to the back corner.

To reduce clutter I have gotten rid of all bowls without lids and all lids without bowls. I also recycle any bowls we don’t use and those that are grungy looking.

How do you reduce clutter in your cupboards?

Clearing Clutter in the pantry or in the cupboards where you keep your canned foods is so important when you have limited space. I am still doing Show and Share week. This is my tiny pantry.

What is important to clearing clutter in these cupboards is to only keep things that you use. If you have bought a can of something and you never use it, donate it to a food bank or make a menu right now using that ingredient and get it out of your cupboard.

Keep spices together to save time and make finding a spice a snap. Use a turn table, a “stair step” spice rack, a rack that fits on a wall or a spice drawer to keep all spices together and within easy reach.

How do you store your spices?

I have a little cupboard in my half bath that is almost 10 inches wide. I keep a couple of vases, cat food and rags there. I thought it would be nice to have pull out drawers I saw in the store for this space.

Here are my organizing tips for the day.
1. Before buying containers, measure the space—the depth, width and height to make sure what you are buying will fit the space.
2. Save your receipt in case you decide you can’t use the container or want to return it for whatever reason.
3. Make sure to check the item to see if all the parts are with it before purchasing it.

Here is my experience—not using my very timely organizing tips:

I didn’t measure because I just knew it would fit. (Do as I do, not as I sometimes do). I got it home and started putting it together and realized the connectors weren’t there. (grrr, I had to go back to the store). But I did save my receipt.

Before I took it back I thought, “Measure to make sure it will fit. Oh no I tell myself with great confidence, it will fit”. But just to be sure I put one of the drawers in the cupboard and it did fit, (without the frame the drawers slide on).

I get the new one home with the extenders and put it together and slipped it in the cupboard. Guess what—It didn’t fit!! It was about one inch too long with it all assembled. (H-e-l-l-o, there is a reason I say to measure). My daughter returned it for me but by then I had tossed the receipt because I knew now that I had the extenders I would be needing it.

I won’t be making this mistake again! (At least I hadn’t better). Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

Story from Pantha:
I am ashamed to share this with you but let it be a warning to others! A little story so please bear with me!
Some years ago my husband took delivery of a number of Rugby Footballs for the local club. They each came in a clever plastic drawstring bag. I thought these bags might come in useful so I put them away(!!!)
Yesterday my husband bought himself a new cycle helmet as his other one had got quite damaged on the garage floor. AHA I thought, those clever plastic drawstring bags could hold our cycle helmets hung from hooks in the garage..... and can I find them? can I heck!
I can just hear you saying “it’s no use saving or having stuff if you can't find it when you need it".

Yes Pantha, that is exactly what I say, but it happens to the best of us from time to time that we can’t find things we have saved. I had to chuckle when I read your story because I could relate.

Two organizing tips to be able to find what we put away for future use are:

1. Think ahead and think where will I think to look for this when I need it? Then put it in that spot. It has to make sense to you to find it again.
2. In your planner or notebook write down where you store things that you won’t be using for a long time and may forget where you put them.

Have you ever put something away that you haven’t been able to find and what has been your solution to this “problem”?

I was watching Good Morning America and a woman was reviewing some products as seen on info-commercials. I was shocked that she was negative on one of my favorite organizing tools. They tried to move a car with the product and it wouldn’t move, well h-e-l-l-o how many times do we need to spin our car around?

I am talking about “furniture movers”. What a wonderful organizing idea. They come in different sizes but the size here can move anything in my home—the biggest thing I have is a heavy armoire and I have moved it from one room to another using these.

They work so well at sliding things and getting them to move that with just two underneath smaller items they start moving. The first pair I bought I paid about $11.00 and I thought if they don’t work I’m not out much, they worked so well I gave those away and got me another set. You can purchase them in paint stores and variety stores. In my opinion every home should have these if they ever move furniture.

Have you ever used them? If so, what do you think of them? Share your organizing ideas with us all.

Happy Friday the Thirteenth!!

Every year for the past ten years it has been my tradition to organize our storage room behind our garage. That seems like a big waste of time dontchatthink? (Yes is the answer).

I have finally eliminated the need to do this twice a year. Here are my “Organizing tips for clutter control” to an organized storage room that is working for me.

1. I bought shelves and put on one wall. Now I have shelves on three walls. This has given me tons more storage space. Now when I get out the holiday decorations I don’t have to move everything around, creating yet another mess.
2. I made a home for everything. As things are used they are put back in their homes. I labeled the containers and shelves.
3. The items we only use seasonally go to the back of the room.
4. Instead of chucking things in the room we put them back where they belong (as there are assigned places for them) and I rearrange monthly when it is needed instead of letting the problem get out of control.

By organizing the storage room with shelves, labeling and “staying on top” of where things go it has freed up my time, it makes me happy and the twice a year ordeal is a thing of the past.

What have you done to successfully organize your storage room? What are ? What organizing tips can you share?

Do you have your first aid supplies jumbled with your medicines? Here are a few organizing tips to make reaching for your medicines or first aid supplies easier.
1. Separate your first aid supplies from your medicines. If you have medicines you don’t use often (cold remedies for instance) keep them separate from the ones you do use often. Use zip locks to corral things like cough drops after they have been opened.

2. For the first aid supplies put like items together in zip lock bags and place them in a container that is large enough to hold them. Label each bag with what goes in each bag. This will make it easier to put the item away after using it.

Do you have any organizing tips you can share on how to store medicines or first aid supplies?

One of my blog readers from the UK said she didn’t know where to start because she needed to start everywhere. (Sorry, earlier I said she was from Australia). I suggested to her to start in one room, in one place in that room. She did it! She sent some great organizing tips that she used to get organized. I got permission to share them with you. This is what she did:

“I went into my bedroom and opened the drawer where I keep all my cosmetic type stuff. Well it really was Stuffed. I emptied the drawer and as it is quite wide managed to fit in four empty shoe boxes for sorting. You see I knew they would come in useful!!!!”

My comment: If you have a place you can store empty boxes to use later this is a great organizing idea. But when you keep more than you will possibly ever use and you don’t have space for those containers; that is when they turn into clutter. Keep what you will use and get rid of the rest—we will get more.

“I have seen expensive drawer organizers but this works a treat. I found six tubes of hand cream. One went by each sink (3), one by my bedside, one in my travel wash bag and one in the guest room. I get very dry hand skin so perhaps this will help!”

My Comment: Excellent way to use what you have and to make space in drawers—put the useful items where they will be used rather than just hording them.

“I then decided to get a nice basket to put in the guest room with the soap, some body lotion (I seem to have a lot of this as well!) And some of those freebees you get in hotel rooms like shampoo and shower gel sachets - I have quite a collection.”—“Well it’s a start”.

My Comment: That is how we get organized—we start! Good Job and happy organizing. You have a great start—now keep on by going from one drawer to another, from one shelf to another and one room to another room. Before you know it your entire home will be organized just the way you want it. Thank you for those timely organizing tips.

Before
Julie and I set about organizing her bags of papers and stuff. Here are a few organizing ideas we used to get her files in order and to get her organized. We began dividing everything up by categories. Some of the piles were for: magazines, things that needed fixing, note cards, bills and piles for other items. It was actually fun for her to see all the things she had.
Before

It is not easy to get rid of things, but she did it. We worked about 11 hours to go from bags of stuff to this:
After

She used the Freedom Filer system to file all of her papers. She has since purchased a file cabinet so all her files fit in drawers. Now she can find any papers in under 10 seconds as she filed by categories and color.
After

By the time we were finished there were three 30 gallon bags of trash, one shred, five recycle and a small bag to donate. That really lightened her space.

Way to go Julie! This is just one success story, do you have a story to share?