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31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Cookbooks & Recipes (Day 29)

February 9, 2015 No Comments

31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Cookbooks & Recipes (Day 29)

Do you tend to rip recipes out of magazines, newspapers, etc. and keep them in a pile? Have a clutter of cookbooks just lying around? While recipes are useful, the sources can clutter up spaces in our homes. Keeping the cookbooks and recipes in order will be easier to find the recipe you are looking for.

Organizing your Cookbooks & Recipes

Organize recipe clippings by categories and put into a binder or recipe box.
Toss any recipes clippings you are not going to use.
Toss or donate any cookbooks that you are likely to never use.
Organize cookbooks by categories on a shelf, bin, etc.

Storage Solutions for Cookbooks & Recipes

The 31 day challenge is almost over. How many rooms have you accomplished?

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31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Garage (Day 28)

February 8, 2015 No Comments

31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Garage

Going through the garage can be quite a challenge and may take more than a day or two to tackle depending on how much stuff you have. A garage tends to get cluttered with seasonal items, tools, extra supplies, and more. It’s possible that you may not know what everything is stored in the garage. There is potential for getting rid of unwanted items making more room to move around.

Organizing the Garage

Go through one section at a time.
Set up your organizing system to make it go smoother.
Get rid of necessary trash, broken, and unwanted items.
Ask yourself the 5 questions to make sure you really need it.
Use storage bins, boxes, etc. to neatly store items and label each bin or box.
Declutter first and then clean garage.
Take your time and do it right.

Storage Solutions for Garage

Don’t get discouraged cleaning out the garage. Take your time and be sure to go through the entire garage even if it takes you longer than a few days. You will feel so much better when you get it finished!

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31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Refrigerator (Day 27)

February 7, 2015 No Comments

31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Refrigerator

Contents in your fridge may be taking up space making it hard to find what you are looking for. You may find expired food or leftovers that have been left there for a long time. Cleaning out your fridge will not only make it organized, it will also be clean and smelling better.

Organizing the Refrigerator

Throw out any food that has gone bad such as fruit, veggies, leftovers, etc.
Toss any expired condiments, sauces, spreads, etc.
If you are not going to use a food item that is still good toss or donate.
Organize drawers by categories.
Put dressings, marinades, spreads, etc. in the side compartments of the fridge.
Wipe out the entire fridge before adding the items back in.

Refrigerator Storage Solutions

Using these storage solutions will make your fridge look neater and everything will be in plain sight. Now you can just grab and go rather than searching thru you fridge for what you need.

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31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Attic/Crawl Space (Day 24)

February 4, 2015 No Comments

31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Attic/Crawl Space

We often neglect our attic or crawl space but still keep adding more items in them. Some people may store away sentimental items, seasonal items and more in their attic or crawl space. But do you really know what else is in your attic or crawl space?

I can’t tell you how many times I have stuffed items in our crawl space saying I will go thru it later. When it got to the point of not being able to get in their it was time to clean it out. After cleaning it out, I was able to find items that I was missing, throw several bags of stuff out, and took 2 car loads of stuff to donate.

This may be an all day or several days project depending on how much stuff you have. Take it slow and be sure to go thru everything while sticking to the organizing system and toss or keep questions.

Organizing your Attic/Crawl Space

Remove items by taking small sections at a time.
Be safe if using a ladder, small spaces, or no floor support (in attic).
Use storage tubs to store seasonal items, sentimental items, etc.
Label each storage tub so you can find it easily when needed.

Storage Solutions for Attic/Crawl Space

I found that clear storage boxes are great to use as you can see what is inside each box and don’t have to label each one. And if you have room to build shelves in your space this is great for keeping items off the ground in case of dampness.

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31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Digital Photos (Day 23)

February 3, 2015 No Comments

31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Digital Photos

Digital photos may not take up space in your home, they do however, take up space on your memory card. This may make it difficult to find that photo you have been looking for or you may run of out room to take more photos. Photos are made for memories not to be sitting on a memory card.

Decluttering your Digital Photos

Go thru the photos on your memory card to see which ones can be deleted right away.
If you have multiples of the same photo, pick the best photo to keep and delete the others.
Delete any blurry or people’s heads missing in the photo.
Print the photos you want to keep by using an online service such as, Shutterfly or York Photo.
Download photos on your computer and keep them in a file that you can go back to.
Clear your memory card to create new memories!

Try to keep up with clearing out your digital photos monthly if you take a lot of photos or every few months. I went thru my photos today and cleared over 2,000 photos. Some of them I didn’t even remember taking as they were from last year.

How many photos do you have stored on your memory card?

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31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Video Games (Day 21)

February 1, 2015 No Comments

31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Video Games

With all 3 of my kids into Video Games the media cabinet tends to be a cluttered mess overtime. The games end up scattered and out of the cases along with tangled cords. I constantly hear the kids asking where a certain game is or to help untangle a cord. The cabinet is a mess and it was time to organize it.

Organizing Video Games

Have the kids put the games back in the case when they are finished.
Sell or donate games that they no longer play or want.
Use storage baskets to store controllers and cords.
Use zippered pouches to store smaller games such as Nintendo DS.

Game Stop or other video game stores often buy your used video games, controllers, consoles, and accessories and give you a store credit.

We often saved the Nintendo DS cases but found it was unnecessary to save them so we put the games in a zippered pencil pouch and recycled the cases.

Video Game Storage Solutions

Do you have a solution to store video gaming equipment?

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31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Jewelry (Day 20)

January 31, 2015 No Comments

31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Jewelry

How many of you have an entire jewelry box filled with jewelry you may not know you even have? This can happen over a period of time from gifts and buying pieces here and there to go with that special outfit. We may find hoards of jewelry cluttering up our drawers because we don’t know what is in there or we will never wear it again.

Organizing your Jewelry

Pull out items from each drawer
Find matching earrings. If you can’t find a match toss it.
Hang necklaces on separate hooks to avoid getting them tangled.
Separate by earrings, bracelets, etc. in separate drawers so it’s easy to find.
Donate or sell the items you no longer wear or want.

Storage Solutions for Jewelry

What do you use to store your jewelry in?

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31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Under the Bed (Day 19)

January 30, 2015 No Comments

31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Under the Bed

In one room or another, you may have items under the bed. Ask yourself how long it has been since you cleaned under there. Even if some of the beds don’t have something under them, it is a good time to get a good vacuum underneath it as it may have been collecting dust bunnies.

Organizing Under your Bed

Pull everything out from under the bed.
Set up your organizing system to make it easy to declutter.
Use under the bed storage bins to organize the items you are keeping to easy locate next time.
Relocate items that do not belong under the bed.

Items to possibly store under the bed is seasonal items, toys, cameras, linens, gift closet, wrapping paper, crafts, etc. Remember we are decluttering so try to not store too much under your bed. Having less will be easier to find when you need it.

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31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Magazines (Day 18)

January 29, 2015 No Comments

31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Magazines

Do you have a pile of magazines just lying around waiting for that one day to read them? Yes, that is me. From free to paid subscriptions, I have several piles. I try to read several week but with our busy lives that doesn’t always happen. This could be an easy task or a hard one depending on how many magazines you may have. With several piles this is causing clutter on my nightstand and a shelve in my bedroom.

Organizing your Magazines

Recycle magazines that you are not going to read.
If you have magazines that are older than 2 months, think about if you are really going to read them or not.
Try to read at least 2 magazines a week to keep up with the decluttering.
Unsubscribe if you feel you can’t keep up.
Donate or pass down newer magazines to friends, family, or other places.
Keep a magazine rack or tote close by your bed, couch, etc. so you are tempted to pick up and read when you sit or lie down.

How many unread magazines do you have right now?

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31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Dresser Drawers (Day 17)

January 28, 2015 No Comments

31 Days to Declutter Your Home & Live Life Simply: Dresser Drawers

Delcuttering your dresser drawers is just as important as the rest of your house. It is nice to have them organized so you can find matching socks or anything else you need without have to dig through the drawers.

Organizing your Dresser Drawers

Empty out on drawer at a time.
Remember to stick with the 5 questions to ask yourself when you go through each drawer.
Organize each drawer by categories such as socks, undergarments, pajamas, etc.
Fold items nicely so they are easy to sort thru.
Use drawer dividers to separate items in the drawers.
Keep only the current season clothing in each drawers. If it is out of season store it away for now.
Toss in a dryer sheet or satchel to keep clothing smelling fresh. (optional)

Dresser Drawer Organizers

If you are looking for some products to help organize your dresser drawers, I found a few solutions for you listed below.

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