Family CAO

Last week, Shaun and I were discussing all of the random tasks that we had on our lists to accomplish, like rolling over my 403(b) account, getting Penelope's birth certificate sorted out (they printed my name incorrectly on it) and a host of other administrative situations to take care of. Shaun mentioned that every family needs an administrative officer just to keep all of these things straight! I couldn't agree more. In fact, I think every family should have a Chief Administrative Officer. With both of us back to work and now that we have a little nugget happily taking up the rest of our time, it is so tough to stay on top of all of the little things that need to get done.

A few ways that we try to stay on top of things:

Making lists. I know most people do this, but I find that making quick lists really makes a huge difference, if even to make some space in my head. I love making a giant list first thing in the morning (like the above) and also one on the way home from work so that I can prioritize what I want to accomplish in the few precious hours I have at home in the evening hours. Oh and using pretty paper and fun markers helps too ;)

Calendar sharing. Every couple of weeks Shaun and I sit with our calendars and make sure that we are both aware of everything we have coming up in the foreseeable future. Many of our weekends are crazy and book up quickly, so going over the calendar together really helps us to feel like we're on top of things.

Staying stocked. I've found that keeping stocked on paper goods really helps to stay on top of things. I like having plenty of envelopes, stamps and checks on hand for easily paying bills or mailing out various items. I also keep a stash of blank notecards and envelopes in my gift wrap station for sending out Thank You notes or bringing a hostess gift to a party.

Cleaning dishes/making the bed. These are two things that I just cannot leave the house without doing. While it doesn't help in the administrative sense, just having a tidy bedroom and a clean kitchen makes all the difference in the world, not only when I leave the house but upon my return as well. No matter what else happens, I at least feel like my house is tidy and presentable and ready to welcome me home.

So that's how we try to keep it together. I still would love to appoint someone CAO of the household though to keep me on top of all of the million things we have going on!

So let's be dreamers...would you like to appoint someone other than you as the Chief Adminstrative Officer of your household?

What little things to you do to stay on top of your to do list?

Baking Supply Organization

Have you noticed a theme around here lately?

I've been organizing and DIY'ing like it's my job. This weekend, I hot glue-gunned AND Mod Podged something. It's like I don't even know myself anymore.

While I've been waiting for baby girl to hurry up and get here, I've been taking advantage of some extra free time - and some seriously crazy nesting instincts - and getting around to all of those little projects that I simply never had time for previously.

It's like anything that gets in my path is going to get reorganized...and if this baby doesn't show up soon...well, there's no telling what I'll do.

This weekend was mostly spent relaxing at home and getting some final things finished, like hanging artwork in the nursery, putting together a little bouncer and reorganizing some cabinets. The first thing on my list? My little baking pantry. Of course, I got right in there and neglected to take a before photo...but I'll just describe it as half-filled mason jars of random ingredients (first organized here), and a bin of sprinkles, food coloring and baking cups...none of which could be identified in any easy way.

After just 20 or so minutes, my two baking supply shelves looked like this:

Not bad right? I know you have nothing to compare it to...but just trust me when I tell you that it's like..100 times better than it was.

You see, I have this small obsession with mason jars. I use them for just about everything. I love that they can hold just about everything - from rice or oatmeal to chocolate chips or food coloring. Not to mention that they make perfect party favors. 

I started by emptying out the jars that had little to no ingredients left in them or consolidating what I could (like two half-filled jars of chocolate chips and 3 - yes 3 - partially filled jars of chopped walnuts...yeah, I dunno). I then washed and dried the newly emptied jars.

Next, I took down my little bin of god-knows-what goodies and emptied it. I threw out any containers of sprinkles that were mostly empty and finally got a good look at how many baking cups (like, 100s) and half-filled food colorings I had, not to mention 3 half-empty boxes of birthday candles that had opened and were flying around in there. Yikes.

And so it was (once again) Ball jars to the rescue!

I organized the baking cups into 3 piles: everyday, Christmas and other holiday. I then popped each grouping into a wide-mouthed Ball jar.

Then I put all of my smaller sprinkles containers into a tall Tupperware canister. And the candles? I took them all out of their opened & falling apart boxes and just dumped them right into a jar. I actually think they looked really cute and fun this way...kind of like crayons!

And lastly, I popped all of the little food coloring bottles into another jar.

I love everything about this since now I can see exactly what I have and what I'm missing!

And as for the larger sprinkles containers, I just stacked them on top of the jars to save some space. 

Voila!

A newly organized - if not quite 100% perfect - baking cabinet! 

I think my favorite part is the baking cups in the jars. Such a cute and easy way to wrangle baking cups, not to mention that I can now easily see that I have like 200 Christmas cups and probably won't need to buy any new ones come December.

So what do you think?

What are your pantry cabinet tips and tricks?

What have you been organizing lately?

Spacesaving Gift Wrap Station

Part of the fun that's gone along with prepping for Baby H has been reorganizing every other single thing in my home. I've totally become one of those people who has to have everything in every aspect of my life in order before I can possibly bring my baby home. It's nesting on a whole new level.

When we started cleaning out our den/office/storage room/crapatorium, we had a long journey ahead of us. Not only was the room serving as a dumping ground for anything and everything, but our ginormous closet in that room was also not being used to its full potential. (And as an aside, this is also half of where Baby H's closet will reside and I'll be sharing that fun update later this week!).

One of my biggest organizational issues has been how to store all of my gift wrap goodies. I love paper, gift tags, boxes, bags...you name it. I started with an overflowing open basket of random crap stuff and towering rolls of wrapping paper that fell everytime I tried to get into the closet and after seeing this tutorial  transformed it into this little gem of a gift wrap station. 

We started by hanging a commercial door hook (we have large, thick doors) and adding the longest track they had. In fact, on a normal sized door, you would also use the bottom hook that is provided to secure the whole thing in place, but since the track didn't make it to the bottom of the door, Shaun simply added a few screws along the track to secure it.

I realized that we have super tall doors, the insides of which were completely untouched. Talk about finding space where you least expect it! When I saw that this could all be done so simply with the elfa system from the Container Store, it was a no brainer. (Oh and as a bonus, the system parts are all 30% off right now!)

After hanging the track, I used a deep basket with a media organizer to hold all of my wrapping paper in place. Can you tell that I love Christmas paper? Thicker rolls in the front, skinny rolls in the back with plenty of space to add to my collection.

In a shallow basket, I set up some little gift boxes that I like to keep on hand, along with notecards (somehow those end up all over my apartment and I can never find them when I need them!), and some leftover giant rolls of holiday ribbon. 

In another deep basket, I folded up all of my holiday tissue paper (I got a huge box of it from BJ's this season, the likes of which will surely last through next Christmas and possibly beyond!). Behind the tissue paper are a few flattened shirt boxes and more large spools of holiday ribbon in the front. Oh and some everyday tissue paper also made its way into the right side.

In yet another shallow basket went all of my leftover bows, twine and paper ribbon. I love having these little things on hand to really dress up a gift!

And finally on the top, I used one more deep basket for a little Ikea planter filled with gift tags (again, mostly holiday-themed...gotta love BJ's!) and a large gift bag filled with other gift bags inside.

 

So there you have it.

The elfa system doesn't come cheap, but I am so in love with the look and functionality of this that now I'm on the hunt to transform every door in my home to one of these systems! No more baskets of random wrapping stuff, no more searching to see if we have tissue paper hidden somewhere, no more 10 rolls of wrapping paper falling over in the closet at any given moment.

 

I've never felt so accomplished! Oh and yes, I'll even go in there from time to time to gaze lovingly at it!

Happy Monday friends!

What's the last organizational project you instituted?

Do you have a magic gift wrap storage solution?