Organizing Children's Books: Our Home Library

Finally, I can tell you that our home library is organized!!  This summer, my amazing aunt and uncle hauled a huge Expedit shelf from IKEA to my house.  When I say hauled, I mean from Arizona to the Mid-west.  So yes, hauled!!  I am forever grateful :).  This week, I finally got my rear in gear and got it to look the way I wanted.  

Here is it!  After purging two large boxes of books I was able to fit pretty much every book (not curriculum) that we own on the shelf. We have very few adult books since we use digital.  But, I feel that children need real books when they are young.  

I hemmed and hawed about how to arrange them.  Initially I thought about sorting by theme, but too many overlapped and I was stressed about whether I should put the book about sea creature with oceans or animals.  Then, I thought about by author-but only one of my children can read so I would be the only one putting them back.  Not cool.

So, I chose by color!!  I saw this once a long time ago and thought it was silly.  Now, I think it's genius, LOL!  I did pull out chapter books and put them in bins and some of the chapter books are in the drawers at the bottom.  They just aren't as pretty!

Our shelf tour starts at the top.  

Our globe pillow-it might get swapped out for a real globe.  But, I wanted one the kids could play with.

Camera bag that belonged to my great grandma.  It needs to be repaired so I can't use it for a formal bag.  BUT, it can be used for storage and makes me happy when I see it.

Our continent box.  This was going to go in the school room, but I thought it would be great to have it out with the books for my children to explore when they are reading.  It is slowly being filled with continent packets.  I'll show you them when it's finished.

The view from below.

Little pom poms with magnets for magnet pages which will be in the drawers at the bottom.

On the left is a set of rug checkers.

Some of the checkers are on another shelf.  I like the way they look!

A super cool marble mind game for kids.

One of our favorite games, Flea Circus.  The bin holds our Happy Hollister books-LOVE!  Our poetry books are here, too.  One of the few things that didn't get put into the rainbow.  The last package on the right is a book and puppet set.

Books are held in front by plate holders. I chose our brand new book, There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly to make sure the kids saw it right away.

In our Classical Conversations timeline, Egyptians are mentioned.  I thought that my children would enjoy reading about something they had heard about.  It's a cute story!

In honor of the Presidential debates, I brought out Arthur Meets the President

and Duck for President. 

I will change the books out as I see they have been read or want to bring attention to others.  Mustang has already switched them out for ones she is reading or wants to read-specifically all four slots are each holding one of the Happy Hollister books.  I had wanted to put the books lower but Explorer kept pulling them off the shelf and the plate holders aren't that durable!

 The bins below hold a few games, chapter books, and some art supplies.  

I hope you enjoyed our little library tour!  

Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!

Garage Sale Treasures: For Sale

This last weekend we were out of town. And, though a couple towns over they were having citywide rummage sales, I honored my hubby and stayed at the hotel (er motel). Boy was that yard lol!

But, I mentioned a few weeks ago that we had our own sale, and I figured this would be a great time to blog about the ways I keep my house from being overrun by the stuff I bring home each week.

I get rid of things one of 3 ways (well other then the trash): 1) I sell on eBay. 2) I join up at yard sales when I can. and 3) I donate/swap/give.



I sell on eBay. I'll be honest that there seems to be a bit of stigma that surrounds the idea of telling people you sell on eBay. Why? I'm really not sure, but I have been reluctant to tell many people about it unless they ask me. I have been selling since Mustang was about 3 months old. My major source of inventory are my own children's closets. As you have seen, I have a *bit* of a buying habit, so there is usually plenty to list.

I go through my children's outgrown clothes and pull the things that are likely to sell for a profit. Certain brands: Gap, Hanna Andersson, Nike, some Gymboree and some Carter's are what I normally work with. Occasionally my kids have nicer brands-Mini Boden, Deux Par Deux, and Ralph Lauren to name a few. I sell their dress clothes, pajamas, and jeans. Sometimes I will lot together a bunch of polo shirts or even tee-shirts if they are cute enough.

I generally put them in my store at a price that I would like to receive for them. If you try selling, make sure that you never price an item lower then what you would be happy with. You cant change your mind after the purchase is made, and you dont want to lose money or be sick about what your prized item sold for. I take advantage of great listing sales to run things on auction, but that's about the only time I run auctions.

eBay is not a get rich quick business. It takes a lot of trial and error, patience, and persistence. But, it IS fun, and addicting, and I make enough to buy a few things for the kids. So, for me it is worth it.



If something will not sell on eBay-it has a small flaw, its slightly dated, it is the wrong brand, it's too heavy for me to deal with shipping, etc. It goes in my yard sale/donate pile. I live in the middle of nowhere (as you know) so, I cant really plan on a yard sale. But, if someone asks me to be in their yard sale, I make it a point to start finding things to sell :). I think I may end up designating a few large totes in my basement to store things I'd like to take to a yard sale.

We had a yard sale a couple of weeks ago. My goal: motivate myself to declutter some areas I dont normally go through-toys, books and kitchen wares especially. Knowing I could make money on an item motivated me to take it to the sale. Once it was there, my motivation was no longer about making money, it was about getting rid of things. So, my own total was *only* 83.00. But, I know that means I got rid of a ton of stuff at the prices I had on things. I was only one of 4 ladies selling things, too, so the actual sale was much more profitable then that.



Some tips for selling kids clothes at a yard sale. Hang up everything that you can. Ask for the hangers back so that you are able to come up with hangers-my kids' clothes were folded at the bottom of their closets that weekend.



Separate by size. I found these awesome clothing dividers as a free printable from KdBuggie Boutique and Designs I just printed them out and laminated them. They were so helpful in making our sale look clean and organized. I am already reusing them in my eBay room, but you could put them in your kids' closets afterwards.



Keep the stacks of clothing small. Some people love to dig through piles and bins-but most do not. I put out all of our shorts and skirts on the table. They are hard to hang, and would take up a lot more space then needed. Below the table, there are 2 bins. Now I know what you are thinking-I just said people dont like to dig through bins. In those bins were my quarter items. These had small issues that made them desirable to only a few people. As the tables where cleared of other items, then I moved things out of the bins. But, to start, use your tables for your higher priced items. For the most part, the people who will be interested in your quarter items are the ones who are willing to dig in bins anyways.



Price items clearly, and put like items with like items as much as possible.

Most important, price the items for the market. Plain and simple, yard sales ARENT eBay or Craigslist. So, you arent likely to sell your items for the same level of money. If you arent willing to part for your items at yard sale prices, dont sell them there!

I knew going into this sale that the area I live in does not support high yard sale prices. I tried the clothes at 50 cents for one item and 1.00 for a set, with coats and dresses at 2.00. I knew that this was high for our area, but that's where I started and sold some of our things. At 9 AM on Saturday (we had a 2 day sale), it went to a quarter. At 11 AM (one hour left) it was fill a bag for 1.00. I wanted it gone! Had I left my pricing where it was, I would have probably made about the same amount of money, but had to pack up more stuff. I have made 200/300 dollars at sales in better neighborhoods before we moved here, but that was because the market was different. I'm actually quite sure that I did well for what I had to sell for the market that was shopping.

One other thing...July isnt the time to have a sale. This sale was in July and I needed to have one so I went in with my friend. But, really? May is the time here. You want to be one of the first sales of the year. Not so early that people freeze their rears and are interested, but early enough that you arent the 450th yard sale they have been to that summer and are tired of seeing the same thing. Lots of people spend March and April dreaming of yard sales, and are ready to buy just about anything in May.



Option #3...Donate! If you cant sell it-donate it!! Actually, many of my things go straight to the donate pile. Many times I just want things gone and dont have the time or energy to try and sell them!

I try to give to family or friends first, if I think they might need/want the item (and I am not burdening them with stuff). Last year, I participated in a swap with our homeschool co-op. That was a lot of fun, and I hope we do it again. It was fun to drop of a whole van load of stuff and take home a few new (to us) things in return.

Our church also runs a thrift store! It's a great ministry that has brought 100's of thousands of dollars to be used for helping people of all ages around our city and world. I really love that I dont have to question the beliefs of those in charge of handing out the money that is made. It is a ministry that has also blessed my own family by offering the items they have at very reasonable prices. I can purchase things for the kids at only 1.00!

So that's my game plan for keeping myself from being nominated for the next episode of Hoarders :). Oh, and if I dont feel motivated-I just watch a few episodes of and BAM I am ready to declutter, lol!! I'd love to hear your tips and tricks for decluttering!

I really didnt find any treasures this week, but I'm going to go ahead and link up to Mrs. Taffy's weekly linky at My Life on a Taffy Pull, because I know that I am not alone in wanting to think about how to keep the cycle of things moving week after week. If you want to see some great yard sale purchases, check out the other posts there. There were some great finds this week!!

God Bless!!

Organizing the Homeschool STUFF

I have been on a bit of an organizing frenzy lately (thank you 2nd trimester nesting energy). The last couple days I have turned my focus to an area that has been frustrating me for a LOOOOOOONG time. My homeschool stuff.

Our homeschool style is a little different then some. We are very eclectic. We have a curriculum, but I most just use that as a guide to keep me on some sort of track. Then I use that to help me determine our unit lessons and the activities on our shelves. I pull a lot from the Montessori method of learning as well and try to make it all mesh together. This style of learning/teaching seems to require a lot of 'stuff.' Or maybe its just me and my slight addiction to buying learning tools, games, and manipulatives. I like to change things up often and to do that you need things to change to.

As I looked for inspiration for my organization project, it was hard to find! There are many posts about organizing your homeschool. These posts tend to be where to put the glue, crayons and pencils. It just wasnt what I was looking for. I did find one post, on 1+1+1=1, that helped a lot. It makes sense that the blogger that got me going on my homeschool journey would be the one who would understand the need to tell me how to organize all these wonderful school toys and resources.

Here's where I started:





I have designated 1/2 of my storage room for school stuff. My store room is right next to our school room, so the proximity is great for moving things back and forth. I moved all the stuff in here about 2 months ago when I got tired of looking at it in the school room. It wasnt a calm learning atmosphere in my opinion.

As you can see there was an attempt at organization-with banker boxes and such, but this set up wasnt working for me. I couldnt see what was in the boxes and there was no real rhyme or reason to why I put what where except it fit. Of course the last picture shows no organization at all and thats because it wasnt.

So, off to Walmart I went. Like I have mentioned before we just dont have cool organization stores. Thankfully, I found a few things I thought would work and brought them home.



I found these stackable laundry baskets that allowed me to take advantage of the large height of each shelf without using huge, bottomless pit, bins. They can hold little pieces in place while still allowing me to see what's in them and access them pretty easily.



It took me a bit to decide HOW to divide the things I had. I finally came up with the following categories, mostly following the Montessori areas: Math, Language, Practical Life, Sensorial, Geography, Science, Bible, Music, Fall, Christmas/winter, Spring & Summer, Tot School stuff (many of the other things are for Tot school, but some things are just for a Tot), Containers, Building toys, and puzzles.


If you look at the pictures you may realize that there arent THAT many bins. Some things got combined just due to the fact that I had less items in that area. Things too big for the bins were placed just to the side of that bin. I purposely chose to put bins that had overflow on top of bins that didnt so there wasnt any confusion as to which bin it went with.

I didnt create labels, because I'm the only one touching these items and I can see where everything is. I figured that labels in this case were not a priority. I may do them in the future, because I love the way they look :).



And speaking of looks, I did not like the way that this dresser looked in our school room. Its very functional for holding supplies and paper, etc, but it wasnt making a calm atmosphere in our school room. It was heavy and couldnt really go anywhere in the room other then where it was, and I just didnt like it there. I didnt want to loose this storage, though. Drawers provide a great storage medium!



So, I hauled it next door into the storage room. Thankfully, I could do that since the rooms are so close!



The top shelves are being used (mostly) for puzzles. There is also a box of our books on tape, finished work, and a few odds and ends that didnt have another home. The drawers are currently holding extra notebooks, glue, pens, paper, etc. You know the 'normal' stuff :).

I realize that it still has a bit of a cluttered look to it, but that is to be expected with these types of things. At least now, I can close the door on it!

How do you organize your school stuff? I would love to see your set up. Let me know if you have a post I can read about it, please!

Have a great weekend! God Bless!!

Organized Basement Playroom

We moved into our new house in March of this year. Ever since, it has been an on going goal to get things unpacked, in a space, and then organize that space. One that has been at the front of my mind is our basement playroom.

I'm going to start with GASP! the before pictures.





To be fair, it didnt always look this way (sometimes it was worse ha, ha). No really, I had gotten so tired of the disorganization that I avoided it for a couple of weeks-which meant the kids didnt have to pick up after themselves-which they loved. We had a number of problems with the set up that have became more apparent the longer we were here, and until they were addressed I refused to spend any energy on the room.

The #1 problem: The basement gets wet. It was dry the first month and a half we were here-until all the snow melted. Then we found out about the problem. Not all the basement gets wet, but half of it. The half I am not showing you would double the size of the playroom, but the toys would be wet about once a month-or more the way this year is going. So we had to move all the toys over to this side of the room, which meant we no longer had enough spaces to put everything away.

2nd problem: The shelving we had was all wooden. Now, we all know that wood and moisture do not mix. I needed to take away the shelves and replace them with something else. I had never completely finished buying all the wood shelves I wanted before I found out it would be a problem. Thankfully, only one of the shelving units ended up with any damage, I caught the problem in time.

3rd problem: (Which I am still working on)-Carpets and water do not mix. The corner of the first rug actually got wet during the last rain storm before the redo-we had gotten 2 inches of rain in about an hour. The other carpet is not in a place it will get wet, but I know it adds to the musty smell so I am on the look out for more foam basement tiles at a good price.

4th problem: It is a BASEMENT playroom. Playrooms should be bright and cheery with fun colors and decorations. We have cement walls, cement floor, and exposed wood work on the ceiling. And, its rented. We have permission to paint as we want, but I'm not sure that painting the basement walls primary colors are what they had in mind.

Solution:

I received a little money from the hubby for my birthday and decided to head off to the local home improvement store and see what kind of PLASTIC shelving I could find. I didnt want to spend ALL my birthday money on plastic shelves, so I was looking in the 25.00 range plastic shelving units.

I had started to made a decision, when a clearance sticker caught my eye. Sitting just to the right of where I had been looking where 3 different sized shelving units. One was 49.99 marked down to 24.95, one was 45.00 marked down to 22.80 and the third was 15.95 marked down to 5.00!! The 5.00 one said it was missing a leg, which meant it would be 3 shelves instead of 4, I was fine with that. The other 2 shelves had the same 'damaged' sticker, but didnt say what was wrong. They were both 'new' products (there were plenty of the same on full price) but at 1/2 price, I preferred these to the others. I was getting twice the product for less then the price I was willing to pay. After verifying I could still return them, if Heaven forbid they were unusable, and I bought them all. Turns out there was nothing wrong with the 2 shelves-nothing. The mark down was a Heaven sent special just for me :). Grand total: 52.75.

Then off to Walmart we went. We have a huge lack of 'fun' organizing stores here. No IKEA, no Target, no Container Store. We have Lowes, Home Depot, Menards and Walmart. Loveliness. I didnt know exactly what I was looking for, but as I walked into the store a voice in my head (I'm thinking the Lord) said 'milk crates.' I was skeptical, but I still walked over to the office supplies and wouldn't you know? The milk crates were 1/2 price! I bought 5 (all there were) and went on. I also purchased 4 laundry baskets, a package of floral wire, and a package of tissue paper-total spent: 36.75.

I still needed artwork, so I took apart an extra copy of Miss Spider's New Car that I found for a quarter at a yard sale and laminated a few pages. Then I made up a few labels and laminated them as well.

After I cleaned, purged, organized, rearranged, created, etc, etc, etc.....


The results:











A clean, organized, decorated, and cheery playroom.

Total price: $89.75. A happy mommy & kids: priceless.

God Bless!!

Not Back to School Blog Hop: A Day in the Life

I've been participating {mostly just reading} in the Not Back to School Blog Hop at Heart of the Matter Online. After reading a few of the 'Day in the Life' posts, I finally feel inspired to write my own.

Initially, I felt a little embarrassed that we dont wake at 6 am, follow up with an hour of prayers, an hour of exercise, feed the chickens, make breakfast from scratch, put on freshly pressed homemade coordinating clothing and sit down in our spotless classroom for our first subject by 8 am. Now I realize, that is completely impossible since there was absolutely no time left for feeding the chickens or people...but seriously our schedule looks NOTHING like the one above. And, honestly, I kinda think that's a homeschool stereotype. I dont want to live up to it, I have no intentions of living up to it, but if others want to think I live up to it, then I dont want to write an entire post saying differently-know what I mean?

But, really, my point for blogging is to encourage others. And, if you think the about is a Day in my Life, then I'd be surprised if I would encourage you.

So here's the real deal:

9ish am: Roll out of bed. Mustang is often up earlier then this, but she is allowed to watch TV till we wake up. Sometimes the hubby gets up before this. I usually get up with Charger or Mini Cooper or both-which ever gets up first.

And then:
Wake up time lol. Greet others, sit on the couch or outside on the lawn trying to fully wake up. Take shower, get dressed, get kids dressed,feed them breakfast, spend time on computer, chat with hubby etc etc.

Once everyone is dressed we usually hang out a little, let the kids play, start a load of laundry, little more computer time, etc.

Then it's clean up time. This varies on time depending on how dirty things are and how agreeable kids are being.

Then we take a break lol. If its lunch time we eat lunch.

After lunch, we have Bible time. 10 minutes on the couch or on your bed with a Bible-no matter your age. Even Mini Cooper has a few prayer books we give her {she doesnt sit still but we try}.

Then a last ditch pick up any toys that have found their way to the school room floor and start school!

School order is:

-Prayers, Pledge, Calendar time
-Circle time which consists of memory verses, songs, rhymes, & story books
-Bible Lesson
-Read aloud-the kids color while I read a chapter book
-Individual language lessons
-Group Science/Nature, Math and Art lessons

We spend about 2-3 hours total together doing school, sometimes less. We dont always get everything done, but we do what works.

after school:

Free time-play, watch TV, Computer
Outdoor time
Dinner
Free time
Bed

Bed is usually around 10:30 for the kids. Notice there are no naps??? Mini Cooper takes naps through this, but my other two have never been willing to nap. I hope that Mini Cooper doesnt change, but I figure she will. Also, my husband is a farmer. The last month or so has been his down time so he is usually here in the mornings and evenings. This has a lot to do with all our free time slots, as we spend them hanging out with Daddy. Once harvest starts, he will be gone from dawn till dusk so we will likely have school a bit earlier.

And that's our peek. If you would like to know how other families run their ship check out the blog hop at Heart of the Matter. Thanks for stopping by & God bless!

Giving Everything a Place: Bathroom/Laundry

I am on a mission to give everything in my home a home of its own. This week's focus was my guest bath, which is also our laundry room...which is also about 4 steps from the front door. I have only one room in my house that I would rather guests not see when they visit {well other then the storage room, that's a given right?} is the laundry room. So, placing the laundry room in the guest bathroom would not be my idea. *SIGH* It is what it is...and I do thank God that I dont have to go to the laundromat!!

I realized that I really only organized the inside of the cabinets, the room itself was pretty clutter free. It does need some decorative touches-but that's for another mission.

As I went through each cabinet, I thought about how I currently use them and what I should keep in them. When we moved in, each cabinet was pretty much already full, so I emptied the remainder of what was in them. Then, I changed the heights of some of the shelves. What had been best for the last owners were not the best for me, but I just threw my things in when we got here and didnt really think about how I needed them.

Laundry Cabinet Before & After:




Um yes you do see labels. I dont think labels will be best in all of my rooms, but in this one I felt they were needed. Most of these cabinets had become 'catch all,' because they hold a lot of regular use, regular rotated items that just get tossed into a close cabinet when used. Since I am getting used to the fact that there is actually a place where each thing goes {and so is my ehem husband} I wanted these guides to remind me when I put things away to not just put them 'somewhere.'

And on the subject of labels. I didnt go buy a label maker {though I DID change my Facebook status that day to reflect my desire to own one}. I used purple printer paper, a marker, and packing tape. Works just as well!

Under the sink before & after




I added toilet paper! Nice touch eh?

The cleaning supplies before & after:




I have since added a roll of paper towels to go with the Windex. I hated that I was always going to the kitchen to get paper towels and getting distracted when I got there.

And the toiletries cabinet before & after:





I buy a lot of toiletries ahead of time due to my couponing. It helps to have them all in one spot so that you know what you have too much of and what you dont have enough of. I had so much toothpaste at one time that I was actually giving it away to family. But, I didnt have it all in one spot and ended up having to buy toothpaste at full price because we didnt have any.

I have found that these basket/bins are useful in every part of my house. Walmart recently clearanced them out for 50 cents a bin, I bought nearly every one. I would buy 5.00 worth each time I went to the store until they were gone! You will be seeing them in a lot of my posts, as they are the perfect size and shape for most of my cupboards.

My next spot is the clutter catcher right next to our TV. God Bless!