5 Tips To Organzing Your Home

Hello Foxy Friends! It's the new year and everyone is trying to get organized. Trust me I've been at The Container Store several times all all of the times I've gone it's been empty, they can't seem to keep stuff on the shelves everyone is trying to get their lives organized. I decided, with the help of a YouTube challenge, to finally organize my pantry. It was one of the last places I wanted to really organize, and figure why not! While doing my pantry re-org, I figured out some great tips. So I thought I would share them with you.

Tip 1: Don't Get Overwhelmed

Don't get overwhelmed. Just take it one step at a time. Remember that it's going to get MUCH, MUCH worse before it gets better.

Tip 2: Take Everything Out And Purge

You HAVE to see what you have, so that means you have to take EVERYTHING out of whatever it is you're cleaning. It going to get messy, there is going to be stuff everywhere, but you know what? It makes the perfect time to purge. I can't tell you how many things I had in my pantry that were super expired, I'm talking 2-3 years past expiration date.

I had to make dinner...so everything got pushed away. This was only 1/4 of the stuff I had on my counters. Every inch was covered in stuff. Yep I'm making bacon.

Tip 3: Organize

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While you're taking the stuff out and purging, try to organize into like things. I know I found a bunch of stuff I didn't know I had in random parts of my pantry. Once you organize you can figure out what sort of containers you can then go out and buy.

Here are some of the things I used in my pantry:

OXO Containers I used the .9 Qt, 2.5 Qt and the 4 qt. Basket Weave Bin Clear Bins
Spice Rack

Tip 4: Sort

Now that you're organized, sort them into the containers that you bought. Figure out the best way to store things, and whether it be how you use it, or with like things. Either way, make sure it makes sense to you and your family because the whole reason you are doing this is so you can find things easier and not have to spend 10 minutes trying to find a pair of scissors.

Tip 5: Enjoy!

Now you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. In all honesty, my pantry was a wreck! And it took me about 5 hours to get everything out, sorted and put back, in reality it took about a week because I had to wait for things to come in the mail and stuff.

Now that my pantry is all organized, I really think when I'm at the store, do I really NEED this? Most times it's a no, so in a way I'm saving money because I know there won't be anywhere to put it when I get home, and I don't want it to go back to the way it was!

Of course I made a video of my whole pantry organization. Take a look below, see not so hard is it?

 

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Franklin Covey Sprial Bound Day Planner Review

Last week I did a full review on my new Erin Condren planner. This week I am going to go over my Franklin Covey Day Planner.

I have been a Franklin Covey girl from day one...when I mean day I mean 25 years of getting one every single year...here are the last 10ish years. In the last three years I switched to their spiral planner, sort of like the Erin Condren. It was the first time I had seen it, so it must have been new 3 years ago? Not sure, but in any case. I got one and haven't looked back to the individual sheets like this.




This is what my 2018 Franklin Covey Planner looks like this year, I am going to use this planner for my daily life. While the Erin Condren is going to be used for blogging. I find that it helps to keep those two worlds apart.

Here is a view of the 2 page calendar section.

And then the weekly breakdown for writing down notes for each day.

And this is new, that they have another note section in case you run out of room or want to keep track of something else.

I also made a video for this review, but in case you like reading better/you have better thing to do with your time then watch a 5 minute video. Here are pros and cons:

Pros:

1. Smaller than Erin Condren
2. The weekly breakdown after the month is on one page, so you can get a better overview of the week
3. There is another page for notes after each weekly breakdown to write more note

Cons:

1. Bigger than the Franklin planner from last year
2. Pages aren't as thick as the EC planner
3. The pages are slightly grey, I personally like white pages

Here is the video, in case you want to see the Franklin Planner that way, instead of just pictures.

I'll be back in a couple of months with an update on both my Franklin and my Erin Condren and let you know what I think of both. So which planner do you use?

Linking up here also linking up with here

Unboxing My First Erin Condren Life Planner

Hi Foxy Friends! It's Thursday! Woo hoo. Mr. and I decided (I'm seriously doubting our decision making skills right now) to do a 3 day cleanse. Today is the last day. Man it's been mentally tough this go. this is my 4th time doing a 3 day cleanse and this one is mentally the most challenging. I think it's because of the time of year and all of the yummy goodies and it being slightly cold, so you want to snuggle up and eat lots of bad for you things.

Anyway, getting to the whole reason for the post. Today I'm reviewing my very first Erin Condren planner! I won a giveaway back in March and was saving the gift card to use for a 2018 calendar. I am so excited to start using it. I've been a Franklin Covey girl since 1996...I know I'm totally dating myself...but it's true. See this post for proof.

Here is my 2018 blogger planner

And a look at the inside:

So pretty right?

And a look at the month.

And I like that the weekly view planning is just after the month.

I made a video with my review, but here are some notes:

Pros:

1. The weekly planning pages are behind the month that it occurs.
2. The boxes are big so I won't have problems writing in it.
3. There are no lines on the 2 page monthly, I hate when they confine me to lines.
4. Customize the cover
5. Buy new cover throughout the year if you get tired of the one you have

Cons:

1. It's big
2. It's big
3. Did I mention it's big?

So far the only con I really see is the size...other wise I think this might be the perfect planner. Perhaps I need to come up with a new system, instead of carrying my planners everywhere I go...what do you do?

Okay onto the video!

Pin for later: 

 

Linking up here also linking up here

Best Way To Store Your Christmas Cards

Happy Tuesday Foxy Friends! Today is day 10 of  Blogmas, and today we are talking about whatever Christmas-y thing we wanted. I have so many DIY's in the works that I thought I would share a fun DIY project I thought of last year, but didn't get around to doing until this year.

You know all of those Christmas/Holiday/New Years cards you get every year? Well I keep them all, anything anyone sends me I keep. I mentioned that in my Why You Should Buy Holiday Cards Every Year and now I'm going to show you how I am going to keep them from now on. Originally I was going to put them in scrapbooks like this...start with our Christmas card and work from there.

In this book I was able to get 4 years, but those were years that we didn't have as many cards as we receive now. I realized that was going to be a lot of books, of which I store in a cabinet and never bring out. I just love looking at old pictures, so I wanted them to be accessible. So I thought, hey let's put them on a ring, put them in a cute box, display for Christmas Decorations. Done. Super Simple DIY

*Some of the links are affiliate links and I will  either receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you click on it or if you make a purchase from one of these links, I may also receive a commission on the sale of the product. By purchasing through Foxy's Domestic Side, you're helping me to continue creating fun things for this space.

What You'll Need:

Cute Box To Store Cards In (I found mine at Hobby Lobby last year, and I saw a similar one this year too, this one and this one is personalized, that's pretty cool)

All of your old Christmas Cards

Binder Rings (originally Mr. bought me some cute red ones, pictured, but then I quickly realized those were too small, so I bought 3" ones, which are way too big, so I would go with 2" ones)

Directions:

Step One:

Punch holes into cards. I tried to get them so they all faced the same way, so position the cards accordingly. But ultimately even the ones I did horizontal instead of vertical, still worked out, So really just have at it and get it done quickly. Took me about an hour to get through 5 years worth of cards.

Now repeat 100 times.

Step Two:

Put cards through the ring.

Step Three:

Put all the cards in a box

I think it is so super cute! I sort of even like the bigger rings, as you can grab them to pull them out of the box. I haven't decided on how I want to designate the year. Right now there is a piece of paper on the back with the year...but a lot of the cards have the year on them, so I think I will be able to figure it out, even without a card designated.

So if you ever want to send me a card, know I'm keeping them all, and if you want to know what card you sent to me in 2011, I have that, 2017, yep have that too.

Take a look at the other Blogmas bloggers and what they are up to today.

The Tastiest Homemade Hot Chocolate
Gift Guide For Beauty Lovers

Don't forget to enter out giveaway for $1500 worth of prizes!

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Organizing Your Home From An Unorganized Person

Happy Monday Foxy Friends! If you are coming from The Blended Blog, thank you for stopping by! It's another Monday, which means another Nuggets for the New Year. This time we're talking about organizing your home. I will be the first to admit that I am the MOST unorganized person when it comes to my house. My life, appointments, anything other than material things, I'm all over it. But everything else, it's a wreck! That's why this year I decided is going to be the year of organization, read that post here.

So I don't have any huge, organize your house in these easy steps. This is a learning process for me too. So join me in my organizing adventure this year. I'll keep you posted...Mostly we're trying to get the toys in check it's a mess in our house! Seriously. It's going to get real right now...

I never took a "before" picture, but if you can see behind the sweep fox, that it's a mess back there and that's what it looks like when it's "picked" up. This was Baby Fox's Room: The baskets under the window were catch alls, for everything, shoes, toys, hats, blankets, you name it, it just got thrown in there.

This is actually what it looks like after I've already gone through it back in October. We did a garage sale and cleaned it out and I tried to get organized then...but it didn't really work out. All of the toys that I had brought up stairs that were Baby Fox's always ended up back down stairs.

I talked to my cousin who is the queen of organization. She said that in order to get organized EVERYTHING has to have a place. If you/the kids know where it goes then it will get put away in the correct spot. So that's what we're aiming to do, go through every room and make everything have a place. We started with Baby Fox's, Mini Fox's and our room (because our room was starting to look like a catch all for the left over toys. We took every single thing out of both rooms that didn't belong or didn't have a home, and put it in the hallway or our bedroom. Part of the problem was, Mr. and I were storing our stuff in their closets. We had to take all of that stuff out of there, give them a clean slate to work with.

At this point we decided what was going back in their rooms, what was going to Good Will and what was being tossed. A lot got tossed, let me tell ya. Since Baby Fox's room already had the toy organizer we decided to really concentrate on his room. We had a bunch of puzzles and games down stairs in our family room. There is no need for those to be out all the time. So we put them in Baby Fox's closet. Now they had a place to live. We collected all of the weapons, put them in a bin, put all of the costumes, put those in another bin, then stored all of the other toys in the toy storage collection.

We got rid of the baby toy airplane hanging, and the baskets under his window.

We then decided to give him a place to do his Legos, since he got so many for Christmas. Before he got small sets, so he did them on the kitchen table, that was no longer functional, so we bought him the $20 4' table from Costco and put it in his room, instead of storing it in the garage like we normally would.

So far, almost a month after we did it, his room is staying clean and organized, because he knows exactly where everything needs to go. Our bedroom, is no longer that catch all for all of the toys.

This is an old picture, and the problem got much worse. 

Now everything gets put away at the end of the night. So our room no longer looks like a bomb went off in it every night. It now looks liked this.

So much better! Onto Mini Fox's room. We haven't done as much in her room. But we're getting there. We took out everything that didn't belong in her room, and put it somewhere else...mainly down stairs in the living room. We put in bins by sizes, the hand me down clothes we had, so we can easily access them. Currently they are down in the living room until we are ready to put her room back together. This is a before:

All those totes up there are mine, they are full of purses and other craft things. Definitely not needed. The main reason they were in here, there were no shelves in my closet. Take a peek into my old closet here. But we had someone install some shelves and now there is a place for all of this! Still has some work, but when I'm done I'll show you all.

This side had more purses and a bunch of random stuff in those bins, those are all out of there too.

Her bookshelf is even worse. We're working on this still, I haven't decided what to do with it all, but when I do you'll be the first to know.

So far this is how her closet looks right now. Lot's of work to do, but it's a start! The only thing left on her shelves is her Amerian Girl doll that was a hand me down, and I haven't let her start playing with it yet, and some clothes that she came with and some diapers. Other then that, nothing remains on the closet shelves.

The last thing I worked on since the new year was our down stairs craft closet. It was a mess...I forgot to take before pictures, but trust me it was awful! But I took every single thing out, threw away what we didn't need and then stored some of the double, triple and quadruple stuff (who needs 16 coloring books? We left them a few and stored the rest in the garage).

I thought of taking pictures half way through cleaning it out.

Can you see where I was sitting?

Here is the after, so much better right?

And then I started to tackle the craft area...but so far I've only taken everything out, and just this past weekend I started putting everything in a place. But haven't finished. But here are the before pictures.

This is an armoe that was Mr.'s when he moved out, he kept his TV in it. It has doors that close, so you can't see anything inside, but this is what it was looking like, horrible right?

This is where we kept a LOT of the games...but now they have a place in the Baby Fox's room.

This was a catch all for random things, it's now all out of there and in the living room waiting to get put in a place.

I bet you're wondering what my living room looks like...yep like a bomb went off, but you know what, it won't get better until you know everything you have and then everything has a place. You have to start somewhere.

We ended up donating a bunch of stuff, this is just what we took to Good Will, does no include the bags of things we took to a local shelter and stuff we are giving to family.

Man it felt good to get rid of a bunch of stuff! Now to tackle the rest of the house! I can do this. Now hop on over to Leslie's blog to see how she organizes, I'm sure she's way more organized than me!

Linking up here