Bracelets and Earrings: from travel case to their own space

A short while ago, I reorganized my necklaces, and it has made choosing a necklace and also putting necklaces back after I wear them so much easier. My earrings and bracelets were still not organized, and I kept them in my travel jewelry case. Before I moved to Charlotte, I traveled a lot, and I always kept my jewelry in the travel cases and never took them out. My earrings were in every little compartment of this jewelry role:

 

My bracelets and necklaces were crammed together in this other travel jewelry case:

I love the travel cases, and they are great when I'm TRAVELING, but since I don't travel as much as I used to, it was time to make a permanent home for my earrings and bracelets. I had read the tip to use ice cube trays for your earrings, along with some other really clever ideas on this site. Another idea that I found on another blog uses a picture frame, which I really love, but I just don't have a good space to utilize this method. It is almost like your own piece of art!

My solution came about because I'm always open for a bargain....and free stuff. One day at work I saw a pile of random items marked "free." (I think it was from several people clearing out their desk and cube areas.) In this pile I came across a drawer organizer with several compartments. It had a small tray that sat on top of a larger tray, and it slid along the two "ledges" on the sides of the bottom tray. I had been thinking about how to sort my earrings, so I thought I would give it a try!

I took my earrings and bracelets out of the travel case, sorted them by color (bracelets) and by type/length (earrings), and put them into my newfound jewelry organizer. It works like a charm!!

This is a view looking down on it.

 

The top tray (you can see above) holds my earrings. It has six compartments, which are not too big where things slide around, but the earrings can be spread out enough for me to see them all. I have a compartment for hoops/circular earrings, one for silver danglies, one for medium-length jewel/colored danglies, one for short-medium danglies, one for studs and one compartment for crazy-long-danglies.

 

Below is a shot of my bracelets, which are in the larger, bottom tray. Each compartment is a different color: gold, silver, black/dark grey, brown/tan/natural and "all others."

 

The tray sits in my linen closet on a shelf just below eye level. This way I can open my linen closet and pick out my jewelry with ease, thanks to my necklaces, earrings and bracelets being visible and easy to access!

 

 
 

 
 

Kitchen Cabinets: Paint by Number (kind of)

Even though our kitchen cabinets were in decent shape, we wanted to change the color. Here is the "before" shot:

 

We were not going to spend the money to buy new cabinets, so our options were painting or staining. Although our original plan was to stain the cabinets darker, we quickly changed our plan to painting them once we realized the inner shelves and "skeleton" of the cabinets was made of particleboard, (which can yield inconsistent results if trying to match them to a stain from what I read online). I will give props to Eric (husband) because the organization piece of this story was all his idea. To my pleasant surprise, I got home one day to find all of the doors and drawers not only off of the cabinets, but laid out and numbered! 

 

He used tape to number each door and each drawer with a number. Then he drew a diagram so he knew which door/drawer went in which spot in the kitchen. I thought, "Wouldn't we know where it goes just from what shape and size it is....and memory?" but evidently he had found (and read) that this was the way to go to ensure that you put your kitchen back together correctly. Makes sense, right?

 
 

 

Here are the drawers laid out in the living room before we moved them to the garage. You can see a small dark square on the side of the drawer above (on the white side). That is the piece of tape and there was a number on each piece of tape. Once he got them all numbered, we laid them out in the garage for priming and painting. 

After laying them in order, we put the piece of tape on the 2x4 that was under/next to each door. We had to make sure that if we picked up a door that we put it back in the right place by its rightful number. The picture below - primed and ready for paint!

 

The biggest pain was taping off all of the cabinets. It was worth it to not have to worry about being careful on the edges, but it took some time! (All that blue is the painter's tape...and sorry about the blurry photo...)

 

When talking to a pro at a paint store, he suggested using a paint sprayer to paint the doors/drawers. He said to have someone do it for us or to get a sprayer at a local home store. We took his advice and bought one, and it proved to be an excellent investment for this project! I have no doubt we will have plenty of other projects where it will come in handy. (In the photo below the paint holster is not attached yet...)

 

After the doors and drawers were painted, we put our newly-painted kitchen back together, with the help of our numbers and diagram, and also added new hardware. It makes a huge difference - and now I can't wait to save up for new countertops to match our cabinets! 

 
 
 

 
  
 

  

Tips & Savings Website

This week, I am in New York visiting a lot of magazines to share with them all the great new products we have coming out in 2010.

Today, I had the pleasure of meeting Beth Lipton at All*You.   We had a great conversation on coupons and savings and I told her all about our Adventures in Organization blog and how I wrote a post about organizing and couponing since I am obsessed with coupons lately.  Anyhow, she then shared her All*You blog and how they do a special savings every day on things Moms like most.  

It was pretty neat and I like its solution-oriented savings tips.  Anyhow, I wanted to share their site in case any of our Rubbermaid friends were interested!

http://dailysavings.allyou.com/

Pre-Garage Sale

We've been really busy with college visits and out-of-town guests, but we’re finally getting organized for our Garage Sale.

My husband and I decided to divide and conquer. He took the garage and miscellaneous shelves/storage areas in the house while I weeded through closets, one by one.

My husband did a good job cleaning up some dusty furniture, file cabinets and sports equipment no longer in use. My daughter definitely had an overstock of baby tees and blouses she could part with. I found a ½ dozen prom and bridesmaid dresses and a full dozen of nice dress slacks my husband hasn’t worn since we got married.

     
 

Combine that with 3 sets of old dishes, 4 sets of matching bedding, a small library of paperback books, a TV, boombox and stereo and I think our driveway is full.

We now have an almost empty closet we can now use for seasonal clothing. 
And remember the teenagers room? Messy room   Look at it now!

 

This is exciting!  We bought in-expensive dot stickers at the office supply store to price everything and bright neon cardboard for signs. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Save Money by Packing Your Lunch!

You can really save a lot of money and eat a lot healthier by bringing our lunch to work.   In fact, a few of us in the office formed a "Skinny & Rich Club" on Tuesdays last year in order to align on a date where we would all bring our lunches and eat together, at least one day a week. it was quite a gathering as people came upstairs from our medical division, and some guys came over across the parking lot from our IRWIN tools division. 

While the club disbanded due to hectic travel schedules, I try to make it a habit to still bring my lunch 2-3 days a week.

My favorites are:

1) Frozen Soup - see previous post on how I like to portion & freeze my soups

2) Leftover Dinner - I bring it in a Divided Premier to work and heat everything on foil in our toaster oven.

3) Salads - I put the ingredients (packed in little containers) in a large Premier and then dump & shake it all up when i get to work.  Our large containers are excellent for shaking and mixing dressing.

Here are 2 examples:

Left = Salad w/ Cranberries, Mandarin Oranges, Goat Cheese, Walnuts, Balsamic Vinaigrette

Right = Salad w/ Carrots, Ginger, Sliced Almonds, Asian Vinaigrette

What are your favorite lunches and how do you bring them to work ?

Being Organized to be a Grocery Deal Hunter

I recently found out that September is National Coupon Month.   What a reason to celebrate!  Those who know me realize I LOVE coupons and deals. So, in honor of this holiday, I dedicate today's post.

My love for grocery coupons started about 5 years ago when I started working on advertising for Rubbermaid and was learning how to plan and drop coupons in the Sunday newspaper for our food storage [Fun Fact - Officially, those are called FSIs - Free Standing Inserts].   So, I started to get the paper and look at it on Sunday to learn more about it, and soon became addicted to looking for myself!  It is now something I look forward to on Sundays - a good cup of coffee and my newspaper!

Just last night, I went to my local Harris Teeter and saved $27 on a $47 purchase.  So, I only paid $20 for my groceries.

I know there are a lot of experts out there (check out Jill Cataldo, she is my new favorite), but wanted to share my personal tips and tricks for how I stay organized to be a grocery deal hunter. 

1) ORGANIZE WHEN YOU CLIP

I have found this helps me to refrain from buying items I don't need.  For instance, I recently had to throw out 3 cartons of broth I had bought with coupons.  However, in the summer, not making soups, they expired and I ended up losing money by being overly coupon zealous.

Above is a photo of my organizer which is sorted:

a) By store. 

The front is for grocery. 

The back is for Target items like toiletries and cleaning supplies that are most efficiently bought at Target.   Even with tripling, Harris Teeter can be more expensive than the every day Target price on these items.  Every time I am going to Target, I take a look to see if I need anything that is in that section soon.

b) By Type of Purchase

Triple Coupons - Within grocery, there is a section for items to only buy when there are triple coupons at Harris Teeter.  For instance, I do not use mayonaise daily. But I sometimes use it for recipes. If there is a $.75 coupon (worth $2.25 on triple coupon times) and mayonaise costs $1.89, I will save it to get it for free in case I need it.

Everyday Shopping - There is also a section by area of the store - so when I plan my shopping list, I can quickly see if I have coupons

2) UTILIZE ONLINE SITES

A few of my favorites are SmartSource and Coupons.com for which you can sign up for weekly emails.  I like it being delivered to me because then I don't have to plan to take time to look for the savings.

3) ALIGN YOUR MEALS WITH STORE SPECIALS

I am so impressed with Harris Teeter.  They have an eVic program that you can sign up for weekly.  Every Wednesday, I receive an email with the items I frequently buy that are on sale and also what is on sale in the entire store.  It also alerts you if it is Triple Coupon Week.  I spend 5 minutes to plan my shopping and meals for the week.  I look for:

a) Things I already buy and have no preference on switching.  For instance, I eat fruit daily and yogurt for breakfast every morning.  When shopping, I switch between blueberries / strawberries / grapes as well as yogurt brands depending on the deal that week.

b) BOGOs.  For instance, this week, London Broil and Turkey Burgers are Buy One Get One Free.  So, I plan to incorporate those into my meals this weekend.

I hope you find my tips beneficial.  Please leave comments with any additional tips you may have for Organizing Coupons and Savings.