Day 1: Project Home Organization

It’s Day 1 of my home organization project. I’m finally ready to get on with organizing all the things in my life that are driving me crazy.  It seems that most days, being a mom and daycare provider, takes all the time I have to just get through the day.  Tasks such as organizing a closet, a desk, a drawer or even my paperwork, gets pushed aside.  I’m sure most of you can relate to that being a mom and taking care of the kids always comes before the “extras”.  Organizing is not something that I want to put on the back burner, it just happens.

I’m not the most organized person in the world, but I want to be and I felt like now was a great time to get started.   I’ve always looked forward to the 1st day of school, even when I was not in school or had kids in school.   There’s just something about it that gives me a sense of new beginning and renewal.  And so, I have decided that now that I am a mom of a preschooler and have a tiny bit of free time each week, I’m going to tackle organizing my family, my home and my life. In my quest for finding the best tips on accomplishing this,  I’ve visited several blogs that I would consider “pros” in this area and will be using some of their tips on becoming a more efficient, productive and organized mom and I’ll share this information with you as I go along!

Today I started with my 1st project: Organize my daughter’s craft supplies.

My daughter, Ella,  LOVES to color, paint, cut, sticker, draw, and do puzzles and spends most of her free time doing so.  It’s the first thing she does in the morning and the last thing she does at night.  We didn’t have a designated area for all of her supplies and she normally works at our island on her projects.  Ideally, this was not the best set up.  Her stuff would be scattered and cluttered and she would always loose things since we only had them in a basket on the counter.  I knew I needed something to keep it all in, but didn’t know what.   Here’s what I came up with:

1.  Preschool Desk from Pottery Barn Kids.

(I was going to link you up to this, but they must have sold out since I ordered it last week.)

This is an adorable little child-sized desk and the kids all love it.  I actually think my 15 month old need his very own.  He spends alot of time sitting here as well.  As cute as it is, it’s not very practical for keeping Ella’s supplies in order.  The two drawers are narrow and not very long – just enough room for  some pens and pencils and maybe some other little items.  So, I came up with another storage solution.

2. 4-shelf Organizer Cube

I picked this up at Michael’s but also saw one at Target.  This was a snap to put together and holds all of Ella’s construction paper, drawing paper, notebooks, coloring books and marker and crayon holders.  I even placed some of her scissors and stickers in closed containers on top of the cube. For now, it sits on the island in the kitchen so that the little kids don’t make confetti out of the contents.  My plan is to sit Ella’s desk beside my desk (that will be delivered this weekend) and place the cube on my desk for her to use.  I also have another modular storage system on order that we’ll put together later.

But  this is a good start.  It doesn’t look like much, but I feel a ton better AND more productive since I got this all organized today.  I’m also going to be working on a great tip from Simple Mom for all of Ella’s completed artwork. She has some great ideas to storing and displaying all those special pieces that I’d like to save but not have it just cluttered into a drawer or taped all over the house like it currently is.

I’ll keep you updated every step of the way on my Project: Home Organization.  In the meantime, send me your tips and tricks that you use to keep your child’s projects and hobbies in order.  I’d love to see pictures as well.  I’ll post them right here!

Tagged as: Blank, crafts, michael's, organize, pottery barn, simple mom, supplies, target