Kitchen Product

I have all kinds of little fix-up projects going on.  I have spent the last 17 weeks bonding hard with my house.  And I figured out there were a few things I could do, relatively inexpensively, to make things a little nicer.

I have these built in spice cabinets. They are nice.  They are convenient and I do own quite a few spices.  Here's a look at the cabinet in its before state

Here's the thing.....I shop on sale.  So sometimes the round jars are on sale.  Sometimes the rectangular tins are on sale.  The end result is all manners of different shapes and sizes of spice containers which makes pulling them in and out a bit like working a jigsaw puzzle.

So I ordered these from Amazon

Aozita Glass Jars

There are 24  jars with the accompanying labels.  I wanted to give them a spin first before I ordered multiple sets. I washed all the jars and lids and left them to dry for a day on the counter and then I went to work filling them.

Here's all the jars filled and ready

They come with a nice little black round label for the lids and a clear label for the side of the jar.

Here they are all tucked back into the cabinet.

Literally I have so much room now.  The uniform jars make all the difference.

Plus now that all the jars are clear, I can actually see how much of each I have left.

Apparently, I need more Thyme.....ha! ha! yes, I could always use more thyme. :)

If you have ever thought about redoing your spices.....go for it.  It felt so good to get all of this done.  I may order one more set because I do have a basket in the pantry with 'extra' spices.  I might actually be able to eliminate the need for that.

Happy organizing, friends!

Taking Inventory and a Winner

First things first....let's announce the winner of the

Sacred Holidays by Becky Kiser

Thank you all for entering.  It is always nice to know who's out there checking in with me here on the blog.  There are two winners and they are.....

D. Boaz and L. Townsend

Congratulations, ladies.  I will message you and get your book to you.  

Now if you didn't win, just click the link above if you'd like to pick up your own copy.

Now on to today's post........

Have you ever worked retail?  January in retail means inventory time.  If you ever had to work it, you are probably sighing and rolling your eyes with the memory of it.  My first retail job was at Parisian and  in those first years we literally counted every single item by hand and wrote the numbers on a sheet of paper.  I worked there long enough that they finally got handheld scanners and we could scan the tickets and electronically take inventory.  Before I left they had handed the whole inventory process over to a private company and they came in overnight and scanned the whole store.

But January is also a good time to take inventory in our own lives.  Here's a few categories that may be good to inventory

1) Your obligations.  Take a look at what all you have committed to doing and see if it is not enough, too much or just right.

2) Your time budget.  Maybe track one day and see how much time you spend on social media, looking for things, cleaning, watching tv, reading, emails.....etc.  Then decide if you are using your time in the best way. I am just going to say someone very close to me complained about how she spent so much time looking for things.  So she devised a better way of putting things away, always putting things in the same place and elimination of unneccessary clutter.  The result was a good portion of her day back to her....WIN!!!

3) People.  Come on you know it as well as I ...... some people are just not good for us.  Inventory the people you are investing your time in and see if is the right group.

4) Stuff.  Do you have about 20 more pairs of socks than you actually need in your sock drawer?  Oh wait, I started talking to myself for a second there.  But this is a good time to see if you need to purge your make-up products, clothing, shoes, jewelry, books....you know your vice go ahead and inventory it.

5) Pantry and Freezer.  If you can't even see what you have in there, you are probably over buying.  Take a good inventory and get rid of any questionable or expired items so you can make good use of the remaining food.

6) Pens and Pencils.....don't act like you don't have this drawer.  I am pretty sure if inkpens or pencils ever became currency I would be multi-trillionaire.    But at least I can record all these inventories I am taking.

I am pretty sure I just wrote a whole blog post to myself.  You guys are probably already in good shape.  Well in that case, thanks for being here and supporting me as I inventory my life.

I hope you have a great week and I will see you back here on Wednesday!

Set up for Success

I think we all are getting ourselves organized for the New Year, right?  I have spent the last couple of weeks working on the following to get myself on track

I am using a utensil caddy to organize my birthday cards. I have had mine for years but you can find one similar here.

I went through my calendar and made a list of all the birthday cards I need to send out this year.  I bought all my cards, addressed them and have them ready to go.  I have stamps in one section and some of my favorite pens in another slot.

I took some card stock and we (and by we I mean my talented daughter) wrote each month on them to make dividers. 

Now that those were ready I selected my devotional for the year and I updated my prayer list in this prayer journal.  I pretty much pray all day like many of you.  But I also carve out three times a day for some really focused prayer.  To keep myself on track I write all the people, circumstances and situations that I need to daily cover in prayer. 

Then, of course, I listed every person I need to buy a gift for ...birthdays, valentines, Easter, Christmas and have my handy notebook all set to start filling in with gifts as I go through the year.

Lastly, I updated my Christmas card address list with all the return addresses on the cards we received.  Some people moved and have new addresses.  Some people sent us a card for the first time this year and got added to the list.  In December I will not remember all of this, so I always update the addresses right after Christmas. My address labels will be ready to print when the time comes.

So basically if I fail at any of these things I have no one to blame but me because the foundation is there for a successful year.  Maybe one of these ideas will help you in some way.

And if you have any tricks or tips that help you march through the year successfully, please share with me.  I love the chance to do things smarter, easier and more organized.

See you back on Friday!

Closet update - continued

Finishing up my closet update for you today. If you missed the first part, click here to get caught up.

Today I am going to show you a few of the items I got to help keep things organized and tidy.

These are two of the large sweater drawers from The Container Store.  Focus on the two on the lower shelf.  I am going to cover them first

These drawers will slide right open and are the perfect size to hold all my scarfs.

I used one for all my fashion type scarfs.  I just rolled each of them and now I can see them all in one glance.

The other one is holding my cold weather scarfs

Now the two drawers on the upper shelf are holding my leggings and exercise/lounging tops.

Two small shoe drawers stack nicely on one sweater box for extra storage

I used two shirt drawers to hold my belts (right) and my travel packing cubes (left).  Again I stacked two small shoe drawers on top of the one on the right to hold miscellaneous watches and gloves.

I bought these shelf dividers to keep all my purses standing nice and tall and organized.

And, of course,  my closet is full of my favorite  hangers

Honestly, these are so slim and don't get all tangled.  They really are life changing hangers.

Now here is a round up of all the organizing items

Small shoe drawer

Remember you can use these for things other than shoes like I am using them above.
It is a great size for sports bras, hats and gloves.

I have two of these stacked on top of one of these

Stackable Sweater Drawer

I also used this shirt size of the stackable drawers

Shirt/Accessory Drawer

This was the perfect size for my belts.

And here are the shelf dividers I am using on the tippy top shelf to organize my purses

Chrome Shelf Divider

I also used them in my husband's closet for his sweaters.

I have talked about Huggable Hangers enough on here but you can't have too many of a good thing

Huggable Hangers

I am wearing all kinds of things that I haven't worn in ages.  I am accessorizing like crazy.  So far it has been very easy to keep everything tidy.  I think that is when you know you have a system that is going to work.  Everything has a place......it makes me very happy.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. See you back on Monday.

Summer Bucket List

I am setting some goals for the summer.  I hear myself all year saying.....I wish I had time to do this or that.  Well even though I have to still go to work.  Even though people still expect dinner every night.  Even though nothing in my life really changes that much in the summer.  It still feels like it is a little more relaxed and I should have some time to do some things.

So I am setting these goals up front.  Here are a few things I plan on doing this summer:

1) Take a chalk painting class


I've done a little with chalk paint.  I own chalk paint.  I am going to figure out some fun things to do with it.....and officially take the class.


2) Work on my hand lettering


I took a class in this.  It did not come natural to me.  But I feel like with some practice I just might be able to master it or at least be decent at it.

3) Get my closet life together (flooring, reorganizing, purging)

Not my actual closet but a good inspirational picture.  We bought new flooring for our closets a year ago.  Correct...ONE....YEAR....AGO....it is time for some installation to happen.

4) Get my storage container life together ( y'all this one cabinet - OUT OF CONTROL!!!)

Not my actual cabinet.....but close....super close.  Are plastic containers rapid procreators....what happens when I close that cabinet door?  I don't know, but some of them are going to have to go.  And the next person at my house who washes out a sour cream container to keep is going into timeout.

5) Learn how to use my serger.  Half of you are wondering what this is?  Just a magical seam finishing sewing machine.  I plan on serging some stuff this summer.


Any idea how many napkins I can make with a functioning serger.....tons....and then some.


6) I hate to even say this but - exercise


This one is last for a reason.....I don't want to do it. But I really am going to try.

Ok, I think that is enough.  Now that I have said it out loud here on this blog, I pretty much HAVE to do these now.  If you need a similar peer pressure, feel free to shout out something you want to get done this summer in the comments and this loving blog family will do our very best to shame you into getting your list done too!  See, we are here for each other.

So what's on your summer bucket list?

Let's do this!!!!

See you on Friday!

So good....I think I will stay

I love HGTV, DIY and other channels that are making a home more livable and beautiful.  I am always particularly amazed at the shows where a family wants to sell and move, BUT FIRST they must fix up the current house to get it on the market.  I always think well if the house had been like the designer left it, the family probably would never have wanted to sell........which always makes me think - what can I do differently in my current home to make it more livable and beautiful.  So I have a couple of projects going, but here is just a quick reorganization one to share with you today......and I am opening up cabinets for you.  Yep, that is just how close we have all gotten here.  I am swinging open cabinet doors.......I am sure you are not going to harshly judge me....right???....you aren't are you????....ok, well let's just go for it.

My kitchen
Now, yes, I have some real changes I want to make in here.  Changes that cost lots of $$$'s, but while I am saving for that I am going to do a little shuffling about, reorganizing and we will see how this works out.

Remember the new cabinet I purchased a few weeks ago

Well turns out it is the perfect place to store all of our cloth napkins.  So I moved those from this cabinet to the new cabinet

and now I have all my napkins within easy reach

Which left me with all kinds of space in this upper cabinet.  So I moved some random small appliances which I had previously housed in my pantry to this cabinet

Which allowed me tons more room in the pantry and more sensible organization there

Now that I have made these minor little changes I am wondering what took me so long to do this.  Take a peek in one cabinet that drives you crazy, make a few minor adjustments and you may find yourself with an end result that makes life a little easier.

It is good to take a look around and see how you can make what you already have work better for you.

Thanks for joining me for the kitchen cabinet shuffle.  Talk to you on Wednesday!

Favorite Product Series.....Oh My Sweet Elfa

Each Wednesday this month I plan to share a favorite product.  These are things I spent money on and still feel good about buying.  We all fall for advertisements, great marketing and suffer sheer loss of will power and common sense at times which result in purchase regret and the birth of yard sales.  But the products I will show you this month are things I love and would quickly buy again.

This week's product - Elfa door organization system.

I ordered this from the Container Store.  They have a step by step design tool on their site.

Click here to get started.  First you will choose your color.  I went with white wire.  Then you choose your installation.  I went with the 'hang on residential door' option.  Listen, the installation could not have been easier or quicker - super simple.  I'm talking less than 15 minutes.  Plus with this option you can easily take it off and move it to another door or even another home if you relocate. There is no drilling or anything. You then choose the size of your door and finally you select the items you want to put on your bar.

You can add up to six items to your bar to customize the storage to your needs.  I put some baskets to hold ribbon, a peg board to hang scissors and tape and a gift wrap organizer.

Now if you are nervous about customizing or need help getting started.  They provided some best selling configurations here.

I spent around $80 on each door.

Here's how I am using mine in our spare bedroom.

Sorry the pictures are not that great.  I had some odd angles because my gift storage is inside this closet and I didn't want to risk any of you to spotting your gift!


What are you doing with the back of your doors?  Nothing you say? Well here you go.....think pantry, bathroom, linen closet, bedroom closet doors.

I am currently considering another one for my closet door.  I need some accessory organization and this just may be the route to go.

Anyway, go bond with the back of one of your doors, have a heart to heart talk with it, tell it you need more and feel like it has more to offer.  Then go for it!!!!

Stay weather aware and safe today!