Friday Faves #48-Terrific Products and DIYs to Help You Get Organized

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     Last Sunday was Organize Your Home Day, which seems like an appropriate day for the month of January.  When you put away all of the Christmas trappings and new gifts, it is the perfect time to organize your goals and your home at the same time.  It takes me more than one day to do all of this.  January should be Organize Your Home Month! 
     The 4 of us here at 3 Winks Design are all in different stages of life that require various different types of focus when it comes to organizing our homes.  Alicia and her husband and 2 children live in a tiny little apartment in the expensive Bay Area in California.  Lindsey and her PH have a brand new baby in a new home.  Maddy lives at home with my husband and I in a small bedroom with millions of clothes and shoes.  Plus she eats vegan, so she has different food items that need to be stored in our pantry.  My husband and I are about to have a home with only 3 people in it. (My son and his family are soon re-locating to his new job!) We are going to be re-purposing some of our rooms in our house.  Because of all of these needs, we have decided that, for today's Friday Faves, to share with you our current favorite  tools and products that we are using to help us be more organized.

Helen's Faves

     If you have been following along with me at all, you know that one of my goals for this year is to go through all of the books in the house and weed them out and organize them.  I have always wanted to have a library area in my home.  To help me with this, I have purchased 2 new bookcases.  I love them! They are the Target Threshold brand and they look so nice.  They come in a variety of colors, they do require assembly, and they are sturdy and budget friendly.

​I purchased the espresso color.  I actually purchased my first unit from Amazon using my gift card that I saved up with my Ibotta points. The espresso color is currently all out, but I linked to the chestnut. My second unit I found on Black Friday at Target for a really good price.  It is on sale right now for just one more day! 
    One of the things I love is the molding that gives them a more stylish look.  And, they stand on legs that keep them up off of the carpet.  The shelves are nice and deep for even the larger books. 
​     This style also comes in various sizes and one with doors on the bottom, so you have a lot of choices.
          So far I have only gone through the books that I had stacked by my bed in my bedroom.  I actually got rid of 5 books! I am so proud of myself.  I have started sorting them loosely by genre and/or series.

     Another tool I use for organizing is something I made for my pantry.  It is an inventory method that I use to help me know what I have in my food storage and to keep my pantry stocked with the basics.  I used word strip charts that I purchased at the Target One Spot to make them. I don't see those available right now, but they are usually there at the beginning of the school year.  Many people have asked me to share my method and I will on another post in the near future.  In the meantime, here is what it looks like.  It hangs on the peg board wall of my pantry.

Lindsey's Fave

      Lindsey and Austin are furnishing their new house from scratch! They have of course spent a lot of time and effort in the nursery, getting it ready for Baby Emily. It was really nice when they received some Target Gift Cards as wedding gifts and were able to purchase this beautiful dresser with them for her.  Their crib is also grey so this goes so nicely with it and goes so well with the Where the Wild Things Are theme.  (I talked about that here, as well as her adorable letters of her name!)  The 6 drawers give lots of space to hold all of a baby's many article of clothing and supplies.  It is a dresser that will grow nicely with her over the next few years.

     This one isn't currently on their website, but there are similar ones here and here. 

Alicia's Faves

     When I tell you that Alicia lives in a really tiny place, I mean really tiny.  They actually rent a 2 bedroom, 1 bath guest house that just had a kitchen added.  (For awhile, they lived with a hot plate, microwave and mini fridge.  Their only sink was in the bathroom!) It is super cute, though and is helping them to save money for the future.  Alicia has worked really hard to make it as organized as possible and to use as much wall space as possible to make it work for their family.  
     Recently, Alicia shared how she made a hanging diaper stacker from a t-shirt.  It has been extremely popular, which leads me to believe that many young mothers are needing some of her space saving tips.

She promises to show us when she makes the girly version for Sofia!

     There are some other clever ideas that Alicia has used as well.  
     She ordered these plastic containers from Dollar Tree.  When you order them online, you get 24 of them! At first, she thought that was going to be way too many.  But, surprisingly she started using them at a very quick rate!  They are perfect for nuts, crackers, cereal and other dry goods.  When her kitchen was added to her apartment, they put in a nice long pantry cupboard.  Look how organized she is making it with her plastic containers! 

​    The moral of the story is to not be afraid to buy storage in bulk from Dollar Tree because these containers will definitely get used. 

     Another great buy from Dollar Tree are these cloth boxes for organizing shelves.  Baby Sofia has a cabinet instead of drawers for her clothing.  Alicia uses these fabric boxes to hold her clothes. 

     There are a couple of kinds of these boxes.  There are these with grommet handles, and these collapsible cubes.  When you order the grommet handled ones, they come in units of 24.  When you order the cubes, they come in units of 4! These boxes also look great on shelves and bookcases to keep things tucked away neatly.

     One last thing that Alicia loves are her library style bookends.  They work very well to hold up a lot of books and although they are plain, they are very hard working! Alicia has ideas for decorating them if you would like to to that.  But, in the meantime, they fulfill her need to keep her shelves neat. 

​Madalynn's Faves

     Maddy also uses the fabric cubes for storage in her room.  As I mentioned before, she has a ton of shoes.  One of the best ways to keep them organized is by using a shoe rack.  Here are some choices from Target.      

     Maddy also uses some Dollar Tree items to store some of the grains and things that she uses in her healthy diet. We love the decorative glass storage jars for storing chia seeds or other grains.  (Do you know that chia seeds never seem to run out!) 

    Dollar Tree also has these nice canisters! When you order them online, you can get 4 to a unit! That is perfect for flour, sugar, brown sugar, marshmallows, rice or any other thing you may want to store! 

    So, those are our suggestions for storage and organization around the house! We hope you can use some of our ideas.  Is there a product you love that you couldn't be organized without? Let us know down in the comments! We'd love to to try them out.   
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