"My Home" Journals

I am forever looking at decorating/organization magazines and not to mention my 53 boards on Pinterest. At least I'm organized on Pinterest because my magazines have taken over.

They are thrown in a basket, piled on a shelf, sitting on a table, and not to mention the stack I get in the mail I haven't even looked at yet. I'm sure I am not the only one that has magazines all over the place. I always keep them thinking I will need to comeback to the great idea I found. Now, that is funny because I wouldn't know where to begin to find that idea. 

I was thinking I really need to organize these magazines without keeping them. It took me a while to come up with an idea that would work for me and not create more clutter. I pulled out my craft tote and found some page protectors. This is a good start!

I have these really cute 7 x 9 binders. I just love them because they do not take up a lot of room, fit perfect on my shelves, and they are perfect for the photo journaling I do. (That will be another blog...hopefully soon)

I think I have everything. Let's get started!!

The first binder is for "My Home". It is filled with all kinds of neat ideas for the house. I not only cut out ideas in the magazines, I also cut out phrases and words. I use them through out many of my journals. This one I used "Your Home" from one of the magazines and cut out photos of different areas of the home and pasted them on a piece of scrap paper and made the cover of "My Home" journal. 

The different categories are: Living room, Kitchen, Bedroom, Office, Bath. And, in those categories I have some sub-categories such as Laundry, Bedroom 1, Bedroom 2, Foyer. 

In each category, I add any ideas that I find that I love about each room of the house. 

Some I slide down in page protectors.

And, some I glue on scrap paper and make notes about anything specific I like about each one. 

My second binder is full of decorating and organizing inspirations. 

My categories for this journal is: Color, Shelves, DIY, Organize, and Outdoors.

 

This is where I keep color combinations I like...

Shelf decor ideas, any good DIY projects...

Organizing ideas and dreamy outdoor projects. It's still a work in progress. But, at least I will have all my decorating and organizing "LIKES" in two places. Either on the shelf or on "Pinterest".

 I think I might be on my way to being organized. OK! not really but it's a start.

WHAT GREAT ORGANIZING PROJECT HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING ON???

Organized Kitchen

When I saw that Toni @ A Bowl Full of Lemons was doing "14 weeks to an organized home"I thought, 

"I can do this". 

Yep!! I'm laughing too but I'm sure as heck going to try. I figured it would be easy seeing how I just moved AGAIN the end of May. And, most of my things are in a storage unit!

For the most part my house is always pretty organized so I was hoping that this challenge would give me the incentive to organize the areas that are not. So, needless to say I was ecstatic to see that the Kitchen was the first place we are organizing. 

Why? Cause mine already is...woo hoo!!!

A real quick history before we get to the good stuff..."The Pics"!

In the last 3 yrs we down sized from a 2400 sq ft house to a 2600 sq ft town home to a 1200 sq ft condo to a 2800 sq ft town home to a 1400 sq ft house to our current home and it might be a 1,000 sq ft. Did this make you dizzy cause it does me to see that we moved that many times in the last 3 yrs. This last move is only for 1 yr and we are hoping to buy a house next year (this is another blog for another day)

With our current downsize I have a lot of my things in storage. So, if it didn't fit it went to storage or goodwill. One thing I can not stand is clutter. Especially on my counters and in my cabinets. Since I don't have a lot of counter space my racks from IKEA came in handy for some of my most used spices and my fancy (never use) coffee/tea cups.

I will not bore you by showing you every cabinet in my kitchen but you will get the idea of how I organize. It really is nothing fancy. I keep things I need at an arms reach and everything has it's own place. Including the cute dividers I use in the junk drawer.

***NOTE: I DID NOT LINE THESE SHELVES WITH THE HIDEOUS PLAID PAPER!!!

My IKEA cabinet came in handy for my dishes. With being in a small house I don't have a lot of space and I needed the space for food and my bigger appliances. 

Here are some pics of the house before we moved in, and some after pics of what it looks like now!!

This is the kitchen if you enter from my side door...

And, the kitchen standing on the other end...

So, see it's not much and a bit small for me but I make it work.

I hope you enjoyed my kitchen tour of my "Cabin in the woods" (as I call my home)

What are you organizing???