Challenge Day 3: Organizing!

The challenge question for day 3 is "Write a blog post on the same topic as one my most popular posts." According to my blog stats, my most viewed post is "Light Bulb Moment" which is a post about organizing scrapbook or other craft projects.

Today I am going to share show I organize a couple of items.

First up is Ribbon. I'm the first to admit that I have a ribbon problem. I absolutely love ribbon and lace. For the longest time I had ribbon stored in candy type jars. In fact, these exact jars form IKEA. I have to admit that it looked gorgeous, but it wasn't very practical to use. Here is now I store my ribbon currently.

It is just a craft organizer, and I wrapped my ribbon around embroidery floss cards. The thicker lace and ribbon I can fold and put on the side like the lace. I don't typically use much thicker ribbon so it works for me. I'm also not going to tell you how many containers of ribbon like this that I have. Once I am done organizing my craft room and find all my ribbon and get it wound, I'm going to organize this by color, using the main color of the ribbon as a guide.

The next item that I'm going to touch on organizing is photographs. I used to be really good at remembering when I took a picture and find it easily. As I'm getting older, I'm no good at all. Or for instance if I want to find pictures with the Bellywings in them, and don't care from when they are from, I would have to sort through each month, and then each day to find them. It annoyed me to no end. This is how my picture files used to look:

Very clean and simple right? Well, I couldn't find a thing in there.

In 2010 I started to organize them a bit better. I still wanted them to be found my date, as I'm a bit anal that way, but I started to rename the folders to what pictures were inside.

Now I can easily find all of the pictures with Cullen or the Bellywings in them.

You may have a different photo organization method than I do, and hopefully that is working well for you. I just wanted to share what works well for me.

Remember, you can click on any of the images to make them larger.

Light Bulb Moment

Today I had a light bulb moment thanks to Noell Hyman from Paperclipping, which is a scrapbooking video podcast and live show. Today she posted an article on "How to be Organized with you have 29 Unfinished Projects."

That article is amazing. I mean I can organize and such, but who would have thought to organize your unfinished projects with all the materials needed to complete it?! Why didn't I think of that? DUH!

Next time I am at IKEA I am going to get some of the lovely 12x15 boxes, as Noell noted, they are amazing for storing 12x12 paper plus embellishments in! Once everything is contained in the box, you can simply grab it for a crop and go. WOW!

I am so inspired by this post! I can't wait to get all my unorganized, unfinished projects together!

Notes from picture: Taken last week while I was working on organizing my scrapbook room. Still lots to go, but some progress is being made! :D

Works for me Wednesday {Daily Tasks}

This is my first time participating in Works for me Wednesday. It is hosted by Shannon at http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/.

This Sunday I started something on a whim and I'm finding it is working fabulously!! I decided to start a Daily Tasks list in a weekly format. Yes, that does sound confusing, doesn't it? Well here is a screen shot of what my Daily Tasks document looks like. I actually fit 2 of these on 1 page printed out.



Note: Click on the image to make it larger to see what I have on my list!

Yes, I had to use different fonts to make it a bit pretty. I thought about doing color, but decided against it since that would use up my color ink faster.

In the past I have tried to do a formal schedule and it never worked for me. With being part time now and varied hours and schedules, I can't have a formal schedule. I decided to create a simple one of things to get done everyday. Since my husband and I don't have kids yet, it may seem to simple, but it works for us.

Once I complete each task for the days I simply place an X there. There is something about doing that, that makes me feel like I accomplished something good. When I work 10-12 hour days, obviously I don't get everything done on my list, but so far it is working awesome for me!! I am just loving this.