Does this picture somewhat resemble your own bookshelf at home? If so, then perhaps it’s time to do some clearing out!! And what better time than now, right? So this is your challenge, today is the day you tackle your bookshelves at home, or even at work for that matter! And lucky for you, I’m here to encourage you in the process with step-by-step suggestions.

First thing’s first, and the first thing you need to do is completely clear off your shelves. I’m talking, taking every single thing off.

The next thing you need to do is get a dust rag and some cleaner, and clean off those shelves from the very top to the very bottom. Wow, look at all that dust! But it will look so much nicer, and is now all ready for it’s new display.

Now it’s time to really get down, and go through every single book, one by one. Make three stacks (if you have big boxes that would help), one for KEEPERS, one for SELL/DONATE, and one for NOT SURE.

• KEEPERS: These are the books that you find yourself reading often, or referring back to regularly. If you haven’t read it in years, no matter how useful you think it might be one day, you probably don’t need it.

• SELL/DONATE: These are the books that are in good condition, that you don’t need anymore.

• SELL: You can sell these books at a local bookstore, on ebay, Craigslist, or on sites like Cash4Books.net. Or you could always Yard Sale them.

• DONATE: If you have some books that you like to read, but don’t really read very often, consider donating them to your local library. That way they will always be near when you want to read them again, but not taking up space in your home.

If you have some good Christian books that you don’t read very often, see if your church has a library that you could donate them too. You can still check them out to read when you’d like to, but again they aren’t in your home just wasting space, and you will be able to bless somebody else by sharing the book. If your church does not have a library, maybe you could suggest that they start one! You could even organize a book drive

Of course you can always donate to charity, or list for free on Craigslist or in your local paper.

• NOT SURE: These are the books that you aren’t sure if you are ready to part with yet. Once you have gone through all of your books, and have them all in their own piles, go back through your “NOT SURE” pile and make your final decision about what you want to do with these. Really try to lean towards LESS!

• And of course if you have books that aren’t in such hot shape anymore, recycle them.

So, now that you have your KEEPERS lets put them back on the shelf. Hopefully you have significantly less books than you did before. If not, then maybe give it a day or two, and then revisit your KEEPERS pile to see what else you might be willing to part with.

Now, don’t just line your books back on the shelf in any old way. No, this is the time to beautify it!

Doesn’t this bookshelf look so much nicer than the first?! Here are some tips to get this look:

• Leave space between the books to put pretty little trinket, candles or picture frames.
• Place books together in descending order; from tallest to smallest, or vice versa.
• Place some books vertically; stack some horizontally.
• Use baskets, totes or other decorative containers to store items on the shelf.
• If you have magazines to store, consider making a magazine organizer (out of a cereal box!). This is a great way to keep all of these flimsy stacks neatly displayed. Use a cute scrapbook or wrapping paper to make it chic and fun!

Nice and tidy, now that’s so much better!!

Now it’s your turn, and I would LOVE to hear how you did! Just write a post on your blog, and then link back here to share with the rest of us, or you can tell us all about your job well done in the comments section. And as always, you are welcomed to share with us any other way that you have minimized your home as well. Encouraging each other to simplify our homes, one section at a time! Thanks for joining in!

I’m glad you stopped by to join us for our series on Making Your Home a Haven. If you haven’t been with us, you may want to start here . So far we’ve looked at nourishing your own walk with God , honoring and respecting your husband , serving your children and nourishing both the bodies and souls of your family .

Today we are going to talk about:

Keeping a Clean and Orderly Home

One of the most practical things that you can do in your home to make it a “haven” is to keep it clean and organized. Think of how crumby (don’t mind the pun) you feel when your home is a mess. Now think of how good you feel when it’s clean!

My husband has told me that when he comes home to a house that is clean and fresh (rather than cluttered and dirty), it makes a world of difference on his attitude. Wow! So, that means that I can be a blessing to my family when I keep my home clean! My diligence in this area can actually be an avenue of ministry to those around me.

And that’s absolutely understandable because I know how much better I feel when the home has that crisp and sparkling feel to it!

While I am by no means saying that my home is 100% of the time clean and organized (ha…just drop in randomly some time!), I do want to share a few things that I have been learning over time. Let’s look at a few practical steps to maintaining your home’s overall order and cleanliness:

Knock out the clutter first
Believe me, no one is going to notice that you dusted the mantle if your floor is covered with toys and the counter strewn with mail. Try to keep yourself from getting too caught up in cleaning when your home probably needs to be de-cluttered and organized first.

I generally do two to three de-cluttering walk-throughs per day to keep the clutter maintained: one first thing in the morning before I do anything else (usually if I wasn’t able to do a walk through the night before), one midday or right before my husband gets home, and one right before I go to bed. When clutter is under control, I feel much better and the cleaning is a snap to get done. As far as my “walk through” goes, I generally start at the front door and walk from room to room in my house picking up anything that is out of place and returning it to it’s “home”.

Cut down on “stuff”
One reason why de-cluttering is pretty simple in our home is because we try to keep our “stuff” level down (though I still have way more stuff than I’d like to have!). Our home isn’t covered wall to wall with knick-knacks and furniture. It actually looks very simple and almost bare, but it’s much easier to maintain and very quick to clean (since I don’t have to pick up tons of knick knacks and such to clean and dust under!).

A good rule for cutting down on “stuff” is to go through each room and look at what you have. If you haven’t used it in three months, you may want to either trash it, sell it or give it away.

Doing an annual or bi-annual “stuff toss” may be a good idea for your home! This may also be something that you would want to do to keep your children’s toys under control.

Have an organizational system
If you don’t have a “place for everything”, you won’t be able to keep “everything in its place”. Having an organizational system is key in keeping your home organized.

There are as many ways to organize your home as you can think of them, so the main point is to walk through your house and make sure that everything has a “home”. Designate a place and keep it there. You may want to do a weekly maintenance check to make sure that everything still has a “home”.

Create a cleaning schedule
Once you’ve got the clutter and organization under control, cleaning will be tons easier. Creating a cleaning schedule will help you stay on top of the dirt and grime. Some people create a daily cleaning schedule, some clean once a week. It’s up to you and what works best with where you are in life right now.

Personally, I have a daily cleaning schedule (very basic: dishes clean, do at least one load of laundry, counters wiped, floors swept, beds made), plus a weekly cleaning schedule which is more thorough. I also have things that I do once a month as well as bi-annually.

Just do it
This can be the hardest part – but in order to get (and stay) clean and organized, you just have to do it. I find that jumping on it at the beginning of the day is much easier than trying to tackle everything near the end of the day.

I hope that gives you a little inspiration as you seek to create a clean and organized “haven” for your family to enjoy.

Next time we’ll look at how to provide your family with plenty of wholesome, fun and creative times together.

For some time now, people have been telling me that I ought to do blog designs for other people. After thinking (much) about it, praying about it and talking with my husband about it and I have decided to give it a go!

I’m very excited about “opening shop” because I’ve often tried to think of a skill that I might have to offer like the Proverbs 31 woman who made “linen garments and sold them” (Prov. 31:24). Unfortunately, I couldn’t ever think of any “marketable” skills that I had and wished that I knew how to sew or could give music lessons (I am probably the most un -musical person alive). When others started mentioning that I ought to sell blog designs I thought – “why haven’t I thought of that before?”. I love art (actually started out in college as an art major) and I have quite a bit of experience doing graphic design.

My husband gave me a lot of encouragement and I started to get the ball rolling.

That being said, I am very excited to announce the opening of Sashwhy’s Studio !

Here are a few examples of the Ready-to-Order designs that I am selling ($25 each). These are simple designs that are, well, ready to order! Custom designs will be a bit more complex and fit to the buyer’s style and taste.

Help me pass on the word and put a button in your sidebar, or just tell your friends who are looking for a new design to come to my site.

<br /> <a href="http://www.handprintsonthewall.org" mce_href="http://www.handprintsonthewall.org"><img src="http://www.handprintsonthewall.org/sashwhystudio/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/button.jpg" mce_src="http://www.handprintsonthewall.org/sashwhystudio/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/button.jpg" /><br />

Giveaway

As a promotional and way to spread the word, I will be giving away 5 free blog headers. Simply leave a comment below and I will announce five winners this Thursday!

So, pray for me, and spread the word!

Go ahead and say it, I know you’re thinking it. It’s what I thought too, Oh my goodness! That’s ridiculous! How in the world did my kids get SO MANY TOYS? And believe me, I’m a purger. This isn’t because I’ve been hoarding everything. These are the things that have just accumulated in toy boxes and baskets. It’s time to DE-CLUTTER! I’m tired of the kids pulling EVERYTHING out, and then them being overwhelmed when it’s time to clean up the mess. I’m taking this thing by the horns.

So, I went through the house and found every toy that I could find. I know it’s not all of them, some are in my mother-in-law’s basement for storage, but unbelievably all of these toys were hiding in the corners of my humble home. So, I spread everything out (while the kids slept of course), and began the daunting task of separating into boxes: TO KEEP, NOT TO KEEP. As I went along, I found it to be harder than I thought. Emotionally I mean. As I sorted I found myself wanting to keep more than I had intended. The problem is that my daughter really does play with most of the things I wanted to oust. What do I do? Do I get rid of them just because there are too many? She honestly has a good time playing with them. And then there were the toys that she used to play with a lot when she was younger, but now has grown out of. Baby boy might like to play with them when he gets a little bigger, so I decided to keep them too. Oh, decisions, decisions!

So, I ended up keeping some, boxing some up to sell, and boxing some up to store. I guess this is a good compromise. Initially I thought, I will let my daughter keep 10 toys, and get rid of the rest. Well, it didn’t quite work out so nicely. I have a love for educational toys, so most of what I kept are “lesson time” teaching toys. That’s okay, right? I did let my daughter go through her My Little Pony collection, and choose only 3 to keep of the tons that she had. Surprisingly, she happily chose her three, very decidedly I must say, and had no problem with me getting rid of the rest. Good for her.

So, here’s what I boxed up. These boxes were actually quite big, though they don’t look it in the picture. Stuffed animals…see ya! Small toys, almost all are gone. All of the Fisher Price Little People things are boxed up. And a select few toys remain. Finally, that project is done! For more Tackle It projects, check out 5 Minutes For Mom.

I’d like to know: How do you manage your toy surplus? What do you tell your kids when it’s time to purge? Do you have a limit as to how many toys you keep?

First thing’s first, where do I get all of my coupons?? Well, I don’t subscribe to a paper, but I know people who do and are more than happy to pass along the coupons. So, I get coupons from family members. I also put an ad on Freecycle and Craig’s List asking for any unwanted coupons, and much to my surprise, a wonderful older woman responded and has been keeping her coupons for me for a couple months now. What a blessing! I will occasionally buy a Sunday paper if I know it’s going to be worth it for me. Just ask around, I’m sure there are people in your life who are just throwing away those valuable coupons every week!

Okay, so here’s the real question:

Once you have all of those coupons piled up, how do you organize them??

I used to be one of those spending hours clipping all of the coupons, then filing them one by one into my small, expandable coupon file. Talk about exhausting! I had better ways to spend my time! So, I figured out a few helpful tricks…

• When I get my coupons, I write the date on the top of the insert.

• Next, I put the coupons by date into individual clear sheet protector sleeves in a 3-ring binder.

• You may be wondering now, how I ever find the coupons I’m looking for. Good question. Well, Couponmom.com has a virtual coupon organizer which will tell you which coupons were in which insert, depending on your state. If you haven’t signed up for this free website, do it now ! It will save you TONS of time and effort! Imagine, never clipping unnecessarily again! Then all you have to do is search for a particular coupon, and if there was one that hasn’t expired yet in any of your inserts, it will tell you which insert to look in.

For example: If I needed a coupon for Huggies. I would just go to Couponmom’s Newspaper Coupon Database, find my state, then type in “Huggies”. The search would bring up all coupon inserts that had a Huggies coupon inside. It would look like this:

03-16S 2 04-20 Huggies Diapers any $2.00 1

Meaning that the coupon could be found in the March 16^th , Smart Source (2^nd issue) insert. The coupon expires on April 20^th , and it’s good for $2.00 off any one Huggies Diaper product.

Pretty handy, huh?!

• All I have to do is find where the coupon is, pull out that particular insert from my chronologically organized binder, and clip just what I need. EASY!

• When my binder gets filled up, I will go through my older inserts. When most or all of the coupons have expired, I will empty that sleeve, cut out any good coupons that are left, and put them into my little expandable coupon organizer.

• My expandable file has sections which are labeled with different categories: canned food, frozen foods, medicine, baby, cleaning products, hair, makeup, etc…

• I also file any other loose coupons I may get in the mail, off of products, or printed off of the computer.

• Now, when I get a FREE w/ rebate type of coupon, I don’t want to forget about it, so I will clip it out, and file it in the front of my binder using a baseball card sleeve.

• I also keep my store coupons in the baseball card sleeve, so they don’t get mixed in with all of the others.

• I keep my CVS ecb’s in the pocket in the front of my binder so that I don’t misplace them.

So, there you have it. This is what works for me , and I’m telling you, it’s a real time and money saver!! Hope this inspires some of you to get your coupons more organized, and working for you more efficiently!

Instead of chucking the diaper wipes container when it’s empty, put it to use as a storage container! How much money do you spend at the store for small storage containers? Well, stretch your dollar and start using empty diaper wipe containers instead.

We have used ours to store cotton balls and baby samples (because I never knew where exactly to store these and they are impossible to keep looking neat and organized), but you could use yours to store whatever you can imagine – Q-tips, makeup, pens and pencils, samples, office supplies, rubber bands, stamps, cards, crafts…you name it!

My husband has already requested the next empty diaper wipes container to store some of his nuts and bolts!

For more Works-For-Me-Wednesday ideas, go here.

I am really good about putting leftovers into nice little containers and storing them in the fridge with every intention of making good use of it later. But, I’m SO bad about letting my leftovers get pushed to the back of the fridge to be forgotten for weeks! Since I started making my own baby food, and trying to live on $50/wk for groceries, I decided I had to do something that would help me be better about not wasting so much food.

What helps me to keep track of what is still good, and what can be thrown out?

LABELING!!

I have some small, blank labels that I like to use. I just write on the label the date of when the food was made, and stick it on the lid of the food container. That way when I’m digging in the fridge for a quick meal, I can see what leftovers are still edible, and what should be tossed, without having to try to remember when I made it!

I write on the label really small, so I can divide one into 5 or 6 little labels. This makes them last a really long time, and I don’t have a huge label to try to peel off the lid.

If you’re like me, you are constantly looking for ways to work faster and get things done more efficiently. Well, here are a few tips that I read and enjoyed today that I’d thought I’d share:

Inbox Zero: Decide what to do with every email you get, the moment you read it. If there’s something you need to do, either do it or add it to your todo list and delete or file the email. If it’s something you need for reference, file it. Empty your email inbox every day.

10+2*5: Work in short spurts of 10 minutes, interrupted by 2 minute breaks. Use a timer. Do this 5 times an hour to stay on target without over-taxing your physical and mental resources. Spend those 2 minutes getting a drink, going to the bathroom, or staring out a window.

One In, One Out: Avoid clutter by adopting a replacement-only standard. Every time you buy something new, you throw out or donate something old. For example, you buy a new shirt, you get rid of an old one. (Variation: One in, Two Out — useful when you begin to feel overwhelmed by your possessions.)

80/20 Rule/Pareto Principle: Generally speaking, the 80/20 Principle says that most of our results come from a small portion of our actual work, and conversely, that we spend most of our energy doing things that aren’t ultimately all that important. Figure out which part of your work has the greatest results and focus as much of your energy as you can on that part.

Do It Now: Fight procrastination by adopting “do it now!” as your mantra. Limit yourself to 60 seconds when making a decision, decide what you’re going to do with every input in your life as soon as you encounter it, learn to make bold decisions even when you’re not really sure. Keep moving forward.

Monotasking: We like to think of ourselves as great multitaskers, but we aren’t. What we do when we multitask is devote tiny slices of time to several tasks in rapid succession. Since it takes more than a few minutes (research suggests as long as 20) to really get into a task, we end up working worse and more slowly than if we devoted longer blocks of time to each task, worked until it was done, and moved on to the next one.

To read all of the tips, go here. Hope these ideas work for you!

Every time I pull a load of laundry out of the dryer and find socks who have lost their “mate”, childhood recollections of a “dryer thief” myth come flooding into my mind. Can it be true?

True or not, you have once again been left with tons of spouseless socks.

Since I have become a mother, the problem has only gotten worse. How? Two words:

BABY SOCKS

Yep – they’re tiny and they get sucked into the “black hole” like nobody’s business.

-

Soooooo….Here’s a tip!

When washing baby clothes, put all of the socks into a mesh laundry bag

You’ll never lose tiny baby socks again! At least, not in the dryer!

Despite the fact that I love being organized (or at least love thinking that I’m organized), I do not really enjoy doing laundry. Granted, I do not mind throwing it in and starting the machine – it’s the folding/putting away part that I don’t enjoy. Laundry is the one house duty that I am constantly behind on.

I also have a hard time putting together decent outfits each day because 1.) I was born with an impaired sense of style and color coordination (my poor roommates in college often had to aid me in my “fashion deficiency”, 2.) I can never seem to find the shirt that goes with that particular skirt (it’s probably in a laundry pile somewhere) and 3.) well, I don’t have anymore excuses.

This being the case, and me being very frustrated with the present circumstances, I was very please when I came across this idea when reading one of the (many) baby magazines that I’ve received since our son was born (can’t remember which one, sorry!):

THE 6 OUTFIT LAYOUT

This is how it works – or at least, how I’m going to make it work:

• On Saturday I’ll set out 6 outfits for the week (Monday – Saturday); I’ll also pick out a Sunday outfit and set it to the side (I’m sure they make 7-slot organizers, but we got the 6-slot one)
• I’ll place the outfits neatly in my new closet organizer (see picture)
• When each day is over and I switch over to pajamas, I’ll throw my clothes into a hamper to be washed
• At the end of the week, I’ll wash all of the clothes I wore that week, fold them and put them back in the slots and – bam! – they’re ready for the next week.

I’m very excited about this plan because (here I go listing again) 1.) I only have to worry about putting together 6 outfits (not counting Sunday), 2.) Less laundry, and 3.) Less time going from closet to dresser, from dresser back to closet, etc. to put together an outfit – it’ll all be in a slot waiting for me!

I finished the closet projects yesterday and reformed our closet as well as my son’s closet. Here’s what they look like:

Ah…the feeling of being organized…it’s good, real good. Now, let’s hope I can keep it this way!