Our kids don’t have a lot of toys by most people’s standards but there was still too much by our standards.

We noticed that they weren’t playing with a lot of their things, I think because they couldn’t even see them.

We used to have some things in the sunroom and others in the lounge but I reclaimed my lounge and moved all their stuff to the sunroom, so it is now decorated in primary colour craziness.

Dion and I got a bee in our bonnets and took away almost all their toys on Sunday.

It got better but like with any organising, the first round is just to warm up.

Once you see how good it looks and feels, you get inspired to do more.

I did a bit more last night after seeing untidiness in the toy area one too many times and cleared out everything except:

• blocks (they love the blocks)
• balls (regular and ones that come apart into about 6 rings)
• tools
• a wooden drum set
• paper and crayons
• books
• trailers
• motorbikes
• Connor’s lawnmower (he loves that thing and so does every kid who visits )

Let’s see if this makes even more of a difference.

If it does, we’ll rotate some toys after a month to keep things fresh.

How do you handle toys at your house? Do you keep them all out or rotate them?

Do your kids play with everything or only the things they can see?

I’ve got to take a moment here to give a shout-out to Kierste (don’t you love her name?)

Her blog is one of the most organised blogs out there and has such a fresh, uncluttered feel.

I sigh with pleasure when I go visit.

And this is the makeover version – the previous one was just as organised and gorgeous.

I saw this post on Kierste’s blog a few weeks ago and I so, so love it.

Why?

• Everything is labelled.
• The labels are big and clear so no squinting to read.
• Those storage boxes happen to be some of my favourites (I store my baking pans in one of them) and I love how uniform everything looks. (you don’t need cute to be organised but it does help keep it that way)

Have a look at another pic

Click to see even more pictures of all the labelling goodness.

As an aside which is not really an aside, Kierste has TWO sets of twins plus a singleton, AND she has a pre-school at home!

Being organised has freed her up to do all that and add in some crafty goodness too.

Kierste, here’s a button for your blog!

Copy and paste code

<a href=”http://takechargesolutions.org/blog/” target=”_blank”><img border=”0″ src=”http://takechargesolutions.org/blogjjd/Organising%20Queen%20Button4.png” /></a>

What do you most love about Kierste’s space?

I thought it would be fun to issue a challenge this week on something relatively easy to do – declutter your bathroom toiletries.

You all know that I have the smallest bathroom in the world so I don’t have enough storage space in there.

I use a drawer inside our bedroom to store excess bathroom toiletries.

This is my decluttered drawer….

and this is what I managed to declutter from the drawer and from the bathroom itself. 11 items

Right, over to you.

Are you up for the challenge? Let me know how many items you manage to declutter.

So the baby showers are over and I finally knew what I could go buy.

People like to buy “outfits”, in other words, cute clothes, so I put things like vests, leggings and babygrows (onesies) on my wish list.

Also, I like babies to look like babies, not like three-year-olds

We got a lot of what we needed but there being two, we had to go buy some stuff. I still don’t know if we have enough but at least we have some clothes.

How many vests does one baby need anyway?

Someone at work gave us a very generous gift voucher so we went and bought the rest of what we needed, at least for the first stage.

And so the laundering commenced.

leggings on the left and vests on the right

babygrows and knitted leggings and tops

burp cloths on left and blankets on right
(don’t worry, I have PLENTY – the rest are still being laundered)

I feel much better now that they at least have clothes to wear!

I’ve used gift boxes (the purple ones) and plastic drawer dividers because they were falling over in anything bigger and I hate untidy shelves.

Question – anybody have any bright ideas to store all these tiny little clothes?

Somebody asked a question – (sorry preggy brain) I can’t remember her name and I deleted the email too quickly

She is a short person and can’t access the top shelf in her pantry so she often has to throw expired items away.

Any ideas to get organised here?

Of course I do!

1. My suggestion is store surplus items here that you don’t need to access very often.

2. Then use see-through plastic baskets so that you can grab the front, pull towards you and see everything on the shelf.

3. I suggest that you keep like items together - for example, I have a big plastic basket with all my baking supplies, like cake and self-raising flour, coconut, yeast, bicarb of soda, baking powder, etc.

4. You could also keep a list of contents on the inside of your cupboard door with the contents of that top shelf, like 5 boxes cereal, 20 boxes milk, etc. and be sure to cross off as you use them.

5. I’m also short and I keep a cheap plastic stool nearby my pantry so when I want to get to the top shelf once or twice a month, I can quickly access it.

Hope these tips help you.

What other tips can you share with this reader?

This question came in from someone who is also pregnant with twins.

Seeing as you are the queen of de-clutter, I thought I would ask you where the best place to buy storage boxes is?

I need to start on my spare room cupboard (babies room) this weekend and have lots of files and papers that need to be sorted out.

My advice is actually contrary to what you’d expect – don’t buy a thing until AFTER the declutter is done. Just look at all the stuff I threw out here and what Anne, our makeover blogger, threw out here

I’d use the tops of photocopy paper boxes (or similar, like large shoeboxes) to sort the paper and once you decide how you want to store the paper, whether in files, plastic display folders, etc, then go out and buy just what you need.

When I’m organising people’s offices, all I take with me is a permanent marker and post-it notes and then only when it’s all done, we get the stuff if they don’t have it.

This post is about business filing but look at the pictures and apply the principles to your household stuff.

Some more posts on organising and storing paper

How to file

Different categories of paperwork

And more on paper organising

Hope this helps!

Any other tips for this pregnant mom?

These two mesh bags have a very important job in my life.

They help to keep my handbag organised. One has my makeup and the other has the medication I’m taking at the moment and my sweetener.

The pink one came in a set of three (for only R12,99 [$1,30] at Sheet Street – I know, crazy!) and I use the biggest of those to keep all my smaller bits and pieces organised when the handbag I’m using is just one big open cavern.

I can’t STAND scratching around looking for things. So all I have to do is haul the mesh bag out, get my wallet or car keys, and I’m good to go.

Why do I like these mesh bags to organise?

• I can categorise
• When I’m transferring items between handbags, I can quickly decide if I need it with me or not
• It’s see-through and I have a sincere love for any clear storage tools

Do you use smaller bags to organise your handbag? What other uses can you think of for mesh bags?

Check out the other favourite organising tools posts here

I don’t have a lot of jewellery. My thing is watches!

So I really just use a couple of hooks on the inside of my wardrobe door. The problem happens when I just keep throwing necklaces onto the hooks and eventually, it drives me crazy.

Like this – now I know it doesn’t look that bad but that’s because a hook fell off and I put those necklaces on some of the other hooks.

What did I do? I

• removed everything from the door
• decluttered stuff I never wear
• separated them into categories - earrings, pink and white set (only pink stuff I have), work necklaces, bracelets and weekend necklaces
• decided where to put new hooks (somewhat limited by the shelves when you close the door)
• hung everything up again, this time in an organised fashion

P.S. So they’re not the prettiest pictures in the world but they are organised – just keeping it real