Organizational BLISS

I love organizing.  A lot of people love this art...yes, I refer to it as an art...and with the lovely addition of pinterest into our world (where has this entity been all my life!?) there's not shortage of great inspiration out there for fabulous organization ideas.

Fortunately, I've had a little time and energy here and there to implement other people's suggestions...and here are some pictures to prove it! lol ;)

My utensil drawer before...

...the utensil drawer after.  I put the nice red utensils in their container on the countertop, added a few properly sized spots for shorter utensils (ice cream scoop, potato peeler, pizza wheel, etc) and kept the long ones in the other container.

Thank you IKEA for these great vertical organizers!  No more having to dig through an entire stack of lids, baking pans, and cutting boards to find what I need.  Woo hoo!

The project below reminds me of a good organizational principle: remember, sometimes the CONTAINERS can become the CLUTTER.  You have to be careful not to buy too many unnecessary boxes, bins, and drawers.  I bought these because they looked pretty and were on sale.  But, the reality is that they cluttered up my windowsill in my tiny bathroom, and I was easily able to put these containers inside the medicine cabinet instead of having them out gathering dust.  Eventually, I might take them out again if I'm feeling like some pretty-ness, but right now I'm feeling like less is more.  It's all about the ebb and flow.

Our medicine cabinet is actually inside our linen closet...organized by ailment.

Lots of drawers on our shelf in the laundry room (which I previously posted about).  I used my cricuit for most of these fancy pretty labels that you see...printed them on my printer, then cut them out using thick cardstocks that coordinate with whatever room the containers go in.

An idea my friend Katy thought would work well for me.  A "To Go Upstairs" basket on each floor (well...except the top - lol!)  A handy way to keep all those baby shoes, hair items, missing socks, etc ready to run up to their home.  Just always grab a couple items on your way!

Scrapbooking room...also previously blogged about :)

Have I mentioned how this "three basket rule" has SAVED me?!  I have one for "ironing," one for "mending," and one for "to be put away."  It works SO WELL to keep the top of the machines clear!  You could also make your three baskets different - whatever you need them to be ;)

Thanks for looking!  And, hope these organizational spots in my chaotic life will inspire you :)