WWW: Treat Bins!

What do you do with kids' candy? Just have them eat it immediately? Toss it? Stash it in a drawer? For us, we have treat drawer for each kid. When they get candy at church, a birthday party, holiday, whatever, we toss it in their treat bin. Then, occasionally, we let them open the drawer and choose a piece or two after dinner.

 Here they are picking out a few pieces as we get ready to go see a movie. Apparently my youngest was quite shocked about something!

This system works great for us. The kids can keep "their" candy without worrying about it getting lost or put in some communal drawer, but I make sure they're eating it in amounts and times that work for us. How do other parents handle the candy issue? Any other awesome ideas?

Kids' Art Area

Our Kids' Art Area was borne from desperation, not inspiration. When we moved into our new home, we had a really oddly-shaped, narrow living room, and we didn't really think we had room for our coffee table. But we wanted to keep it nearby for those instances when we needed it, or in case life turned out to be impossible without one. I decided to push it into the corner and use it for an art area for the kids. We'd keep the art supplies right next to it, and they could just go over there and create. I think it's so important that kids, when they've proved to be responsible, have easy access to art supplies, and the time and opportunity to be creative.

Many years ago, I bought this drawer storage thing for my classroom. Once I started having babies and staying at home, we used it for baby clothes. Loved being able to separate all those tiny little baby things. But we don't have babies anymore, and I realized it would be perfect for storing arts and crafts stuff! FIFTEEN different drawers! The sorting and organization options made me swoon with joy!

For anyone who is super curious about what fills all those bins, here are some close-ups of the labels on the drawers (still loving my Amazon label-maker from Christmas this year! Woot!).

And here's a little sampler picture of some of the drawers.

Since we're in a rental, we put down those interlocking foam mats under the table and chairs. Really helps especially with the play-doh. Also, I have been dreaming ever since we moved in about getting some vinyl for the walls that says "create" and/or "imagine," and this "wall art" is courtesy of photoshop. LOL Just wanted to try it out and see how it would look!

Hopefully this gets your mind going on how you could create an area like this in your home for your kids to get in there and create! In our house, the kids are welcome to use any of that whenever they would like, but they do need to ask permission to paint, and they have to clean up after themselves. Anything else, they have free reign. Believe me, I know it's hard to think about the mess, but it's so important. And really, what better mess is there to be made than art?

What Works Wednesday: Stair Bins

When we moved into our new home, I immediately knew I needed something for the stairs. People who are not lazy simply go upstairs or downstairs to put things away. Unfortunately, I'm very lazy and often don't feel like running something all the way up or down the stairs. Hence, more bins, creatively named the "Go Upstairs Bin" and the "Go Downstairs Bin."

Meet Mr. Go Upstairs, sitting right under our handy-dandy can crusher (?!?).

And Mr. Go Downstairs

In a perfect world, I would have the kids empty these bins every night. Sadly, life's not perfect and we're still working on getting homework happening every night. But they do get emptied occasionally, and in the meantime, hey - at least all this clutter isn't all over my living room.

What Works Wednesday: Straightener Storage (feat. The Corner of Truth!)

Some (read: many) of our organization ideas are born out of my husband's frustration with me. This is one of them. Every time I would straighten my hair, I would leave my straightener out, because I didn't want to put it away hot. But then I would leave for the day, leaving out my bright pink straightener with the ultra-long cord. Sooooo.... one day I came home to this. LOVE! That's an elastic attached to my straightener (probably a now-stretched-out hair tie, to be honest), and I just hang it on a hook. I hang the cord on a hook right next to it (along with one of my necklaces, apparently. Mysterious). I can get it out of the way as soon as I'm done, without nightmares that I'll burn the house down. Makes him happy, makes me happy.

Aaaaaannd... Corner of Truth.... because I like to share something that is NOT working each week as well....

That's the very messy floor of my bathroom/closet. With a giant trash bag of stuffed animals I confiscated from my youngest in a fit of frustration at being overwhelmed by them. I'm very much enjoying how my striped sweater and striped sweater dress are blending in together like one stripey masterpiece.

What Works Wednesday: Shoe Storage (feat. Corner of Truth!)

A few months ago my husband and I found this bench at Target, and bought it so we could have somewhere for the kids to put their shoes. We have a front hall closet, but it's super tiny. I was doubtful that it would work out, but it's GREAT! They can sit on the bench to get their shoes on and off, and they don't have to run all over the house looking for shoes when it's time to leave!

 Aaaaaand..... Corner of Truth.... right next to the shoe bench is our computer station. MESSY! We just stash stuff we've printed all over the place, and I also have a tendency to put books there as well, since the couch on the right of the picture is where I sit to read. And why is there a Post-It on the wall? And why am I just now noticing?

What Works Wednesday: Winter Gear Storage (feat. The Corner of Truth!)

So here's a confession for you. While I feel like I have good organizational ideas to share, sometimes it makes me feel like a fraud to have a cleaning/organization blog because, just like most people, my house is often messy and DISorganized! I seriously live in fear that my real-life friends will find out I have a blog like this and just stare at me in disbelief. But I really loved the recent Confessions of Christmas post at House of Hepworths, and had the urge to incorporate something similar. So stay tuned at the end of the post.

But first.... what works. We live in Alaska, which means a constant influx of winter gear. Like, duplicates and triplicates (at least) of everything, for all 5 family members. Because of that, we store winter gear in a few different places. One of them is this bucket by the front door. While I'd love to have it all up and put away, this works for us because it's easy to scoop off the floor and toss in there, and easy to bend down and grab a hat for someone on our way out the door. It works because it's easy. It's very accessible for the kids - they can easily grab stuff and put stuff away.

So the second half of my "What Works Wednesdays" post is going to be a picture of something that isn't working for me, very near in proximity to the first picture. It's going to be called The Corner of Truth. Dun dun dun! I'm always entertained when I try to take pictures for this blog and strategically try to crop out messiness, since cleaning and organization is a focus of my posts. But my purpose in posting The Corner of Truth is twofold. One, I really would love to get some ideas from others about things that are not working for me. And two, I think honesty on a blog is refreshing. So, for the first Corner of Truth feature, here is the bookcase, seen on the far right side of the picture above.

NOT working. We have a few fabric bins - one holds computer paper, one holds stuff for the Wii, and one I think has more winter gear. It doesn't normally look THIS bad - I had a bunch of Christmas stuff on it, and when we put away the Christmas stuff, I just kind of threw the stuff back in that goes there. Pretty, right? With backpacks and my husband's hockey gear all around! So this is what I was trying to keep out of my lovely first picture! Ha ha. Should I just get rid of the bookcase? I'm kind of tempted to. Having it right by the front door makes it kind of a natural dumping ground for stuff. I'm challenging myself to get it put back together by next week's post, and see if I like it any better.

What Works Wednesday: Bathroom Organizers

Just wanted to introduce a quick feature called "What's Working Wednesdays," where I briefly show pics of some organization things that are working for me right now. I'd also like to include things that are NOT working, and hopefully get some ideas from readers!

So, to start, I've been having huge issues with my girls' hair stuff. I love the various cute bow holders and things that I see on Pinterest, but I always end up just going back to tossing stuff in a basket. Don't hold your breath, but soon I'm going to write an entire post on how my organizational strategy essentially consists of finding ways just to dump things in a basket.

But anyway, that wasn't working for me. Their stuff was getting all mixed up, and I was always rummaging around, semi-swearing under my breath, trying to find a hair tie while I tightly grasped a ponytail and someone cried. So recently I found these awesome containers at Target, and thought they might be good for our hair stuff. I have elastic headbands in one, hair ties in another, brushes and combs in one, and soft hair ties in the fourth small compartment. Bows and clips go in the bigger, middle section. Hugely giant flower clip was just clipped to the side, ha ha. So far it's working great!

I just don't know what to do with the headbands, though. Right now I have them just hung on a towel rod, but I'm not really enjoying that a lot. Has anyone done the oatmeal can idea on Pinterest? Any other good ways to organize headbands?

I also bought another one for my makeup and hair stuff. Please try not to be jealous of my copious amounts of expensive makeup. It's hard, I know, what with the Burt's Bees lip gloss and classic Cover Girl mascara. I put my bobby pins and barrettes on the left, but it was too hard to see them against the dark bottom, so I just laid down some fabric squares first.

And you can see it better in this picture, but the sides of these compartments are flexible, so you could push any or all of them back up against the sides of the bin, leaving you with several configuration options.

 Looks pretty, right?

If you're interested in buying these, they were in a pretty random spot in my Target, back by where they usually keep the holiday candy, seasonal stuff, and bulk items. Like, exactly where you'd find red and green peanut butter M&Ms clearanced out from Christmas. Not that I was looking.