You may remember my post My Toy Box Overfloweth! a while back, well, I thought I would post it again in honor of Minimizing Monday, for all of you who still need some encouragement to tackle your own toy box.

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 were sold on Craigslist. And a select few toys remain.

Need some more tips to clear out the toys? Free your home from it if:

• it is broken, or missing pieces (puzzles especially!).
• it hasn’t been played with in a while.
• you have more than one.
• there is something in your home that could double as a toy like it (ie: cookie cutters for play dough accessories).
• you can take it to grandma’s house for junior to play with there.
• your child can honestly live without it (they truly don’t need so many toys, so even if your child still plays with it, consider keeping only a few select favorites.)

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!

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!

Okay, I realize that this isn’t exactly a “priority” area of the home to be decluttering, nevertheless, if you have kids, then you probably have the same problem as I do of stacks of used up coloring books and buckets of broken crayons. In my home, cleaning them out was long overdue! And since I just cleared out my daughter’s collection of useless coloring paraphernalia, I figured I’d pass along some helpful little tips.

My first clue that her coloring books needed to be tossed, was when she would sit down to color and would flip through the whole book, then complain that there were no clean pages to draw on. Why in the world did I keep putting it back into the overstuffed coloring box? I finally got the hint, and went through all of her coloring books. The books that were mostly colored, I pulled out the pages that were still good. And the books that only had a few pages that had been colored on, I pulled out the used up pages. Here is my before and after:

These are the ones that I tossed, and the pages that I pulled from them that were still useful. Now I can actually close the plastic container that holds all of the coloring supplies! And Jada doesn’t have to flip through twenty books to find one clean page to color.

Next I took a look at all of her crayons filling their box. Just about all of them were broken, mostly into tiny little pieces that I know she wouldn’t pick up and color with. I decided they had to go. I set aside two sets of big, full sized crayons (two of each color), then I took the rest out. Now her little box is nice and tidy, and she doesn’t have to swim through waves of broken crayons just to find one big enough to color with. Here’s my before:

I did not get rid of the broken crayons though. No, I have another purpose in mind for them. I filled up three large yogurt containers with these crayons, and put them in the craft drawer. For Jada’s next birthday, I plan on her helping me make Crayon Muffins with these, to give to her guests as party favors. I think she will really enjoy making them, and I think it will make her feel good to give her guests something from herself.

Glad that little project is over! And now Jada can actually sit down and color without having to sort through a bunch of trash.

Maybe you’ve been inspired in some way to clean out the junk from your home as well. If so, I’d love to hear from you. Just write a post on your blog, and then link back here to tell us about it! Hope to have you join in! Minimizing our homes, one section at a time.

Okay you guys, it’s that time again! This week my challenge to you all is to clean out your jewelry boxes! Somehow most of us girls end up with a ton of jewelry, the majority of which we really don’t wear. Now, I know some of you LOVE to accessorize, so maybe this is a two-part challenge. If you are one who loves a lot of jewelry, remember what the Lord told us in 1 Peter 3:3-4, “Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God”. Don’t you see? You don’t need to dress yourself up with flashy jewelry. It is so vain to carry pride in how you adorn yourself. Perhaps it is time for some of us to begin embellishing ourselves with the beauty of who we are inside, instead of hiding behind some sparkly “bling”!

So hopefully now we are prepared to purge the unnecessary. Now, I’m a pretty simple girl when it comes to jewelry. I wear my wedding band, and my hoop earrings. Everyday. That’s it. Well, except for special occasions. But, I still had a lot of jewelry just hanging out in a big jewelry box that I’ve had forever. When I started getting my yard sale stuff together a few weeks ago, I decided it was time for that big ‘ol jewelry box to go, along with most of the stuff in it. (Sorry I didn’t get a picture of the purge when I did it, but I’ll try to make you feel like you were there . When I started going through my jewelry collection, I was really surprised at how much of the stuff that I had been keeping was actually things that I have not really worn in many years. Here are some of the things that I was able to clear out:

• Jewelry from ex-boyfriends.
• Stuff that I’d been hanging onto just because I’ve had it forever.
• Duplicate style things (ie: blue stone necklaces, dangly diamond earrings…)
• Things that didn’t “go with” any clothing that I own.
• Broken pieces; an earring without it’s match.
• Stuff I haven’t worn in the past year (or two).

And here are the things that I kept:

• Anything legitly sentimental (like jewelry from grandma).
• Things that I wear often.
• One or two sets of fancy jewelry for special occasions.
• One or two casual, cute pieces for times when I just feel like wearing a little more.

And now is a great time to be purging your unwanted gold. I ended up with a palm full of gold necklaces, rings, bracelets and earrings that I plan on selling for a little extra mula. Here is an excellent resource for how to sell your gold jewelry wisely. I haven’t sold mine yet, but I’m anxious to see what it’s worth.

And, like always, if you revisit your jewelry box again for a second and even third purging, you may, like me, find that there are even more things that you are willing to let go of.

Thanks for reading along, and if you have joined in the fun, I’d love to hear from you! Just write a post on your blog, then link back here to share your accomplishments with us all! Minimizing our homes, one section at a time. I can’t wait to see how you did!

I know you have one too… a big pile of magazines hiding somewhere in your home. Mine is in a cute woven basket, overflowing with useless pages. Most of them I’ve never even flipped through, it simply went from mailbox to basket. But I just let them accumulate, thinking It might have something useful to me that I might read one day. Bitten by the clutterbug! But no more of this. It’s time to lose the useless. So, I’m encouraging you to go through your collection of magazines, yes, every single one of them, and toss what you don’t need! No more stacks of junk taking up space in your home. I do realize that this may take a while. Depending on the size of your mountain, it may take days to conquer it. But, won’t it feel good to have all of that junk cleared out?! Now’s the time, so let’s get to work.

If you don’t have several hours to dedicate to going through all of your magazines in one sitting, break it up into little pieces of time here and there. When you go to the bathroom, take a magazine with you. When the kids are napping, sit down for a few minutes and go through a couple of magazines at a time. It may take a while (it’s taken me a couple of weeks, and I really didn’t have that many to go through!), but set your mind to finishing the job. Flip through each page and tear out only the things that you want to keep for future reference. What’s left of the magazines can be recycled or given away… just don’t keep them!

As I’ve been going through my mag’s I’ve quickly realized that most of the magazines had like one tiny little article or idea in it that I was interested in. I had been keeping the entire magazine for one little note out of it. Silly. So, I tore out all of the pages of interest, and am giving away what remains of the magazines. I like to keep little tips that I find: craft ideas, recipes, decorating ideas, stuff like that. But what do you do with all of those loose pages that you’ve saved? I have a couple ideas…

1. Create a binder with tabs dividing sections by category: Food (recipes and ideas), Crafts, Decorating, Kids/Baby, Gardening, Birthday Party Ideas, etc… Place each page into it’s particular category so it is easy to find when you are looking for a tip. You can use page protectors or hole punch each page to keep them in the binder. For the smaller sections I’ve cut out, I tape them to a notebook paper before putting it into the binder. This is a great way to keep everything organized in a way that makes the information easy to find.
2. Digitize it. For even less clutter, create a folder on your computer with the categories of interest, and scan and save your clippings to file away electronically. This way you can toss the actual page. It’s like creating the same binder as mentioned above, but without physically having one to take up more space. Just be sure to back up your documents onto a disk so that you don’t chance losing them. This is a great idea for people looking for ways to get rid of more “things” from their home. (Personally though, I think I like having the actual pages to reference.)

Magazines are so easy to accumulate, and so quickly take over your home, especially when they are FREE and just keep coming! The best way to deal with them is to go through them as soon as they come, and only keep what you want from it. If we can stay on top of the pile, then it won’t have a chance to get out of hand.

A couple more ideas before you toss your mag’s:

• Crystal has a really cute idea mentioned on her site about using magazine clippings to make cards. Hers are Valentine’s Day cards, but really this could be done for any kind of greeting card. So before you completely purge the mag’s, consider keeping some craft materials!
• Tipnut has the great idea of shredding your magazines to use for packaging material.
• This site has the coolest idea for making paper beads out of old magazines. This is really worth checking out!

Do you have another way to organize your magazines and clippings? I’d love to hear your ideas!!

Here are my “before” and “after” piles:

I know it doesn’t look like a lot, but that’s 54 more things gone from my home! Now I’m ready to reclaim my basket for another, more useful purpose!

If you have already done some purging, or if you are ready to join in, I’d love to hear from you! Just post about your efforts on your site, and link back here to share with the rest of us! I can’t wait to hear how you’ve done! And of course, if you have minimized your home in some other way we’d love to hear about that too. Let’s continue to encourage each other to simplify our homes, and our lives, one area at a time!

I’ll give you a head start on next week’s Minimizing Monday… you might need it! We’re going to be talking about minimizing our magazines. You know, all of those stacks of free magazines that you’ve been stashing somewhere in your home, thinking that you will read them one day. Well, it’s time to really go through them and get rid of the piles! This may take a few days of sitting down every now and then to really go through each magazine, and tear out only what you want to keep. We will talk about what to do with your “keepers” on Monday. Good luck!

For most of us cleaning out the medicine cabinet isn’t on the top of our To-Do lists as we try to manage our homes. But, it is a very important area to periodically de-clutter. Out of date medicine can be dangerous if left in our cabinets to be consumed. It’s a good idea to go through all of your medicine every few months to see if there is anything that has expired.

I haven’t been the greatest at keeping up with my med’s. I have to admit that when I did my purge a couple weeks ago, I found medicine in my closet that had expired in ‘95! Wow. How embarrassing. This stuff has been taking up space in my home for the past 13 years for nothing!! (Oh, how time flies.) I need to be better about staying on top of things!

I wish I had taken a picture of how much stuff I ended up throwing away. It was enough to fill up my bathroom trash can. I couldn’t believe how much of the stuff that I had been hoarding was actually just trash. And with all of the stuff that I’ve collected from CVSing I was quickly running out of room in my closet.

If you are like me, and haven’t cleaned out your medicine cabinet in a while, here are some suggestions of things to get rid of:

• Obviously, if there is anything that is expired, you should toss it. However… I do not toss pills that have expired, only liquids. Pills actually have a very long, and useful life beyond the manufacturer’s expiration date. Check out this article I found for a little more info. This is just my suggestion.

• If you have more than one bottle of the same pills, see if you can get all of the pills into just one bottle. I found two opened Tylenol bottles in my drawer, that were exactly alike. I was easily able to put all of the pills into one bottle. Even if you have two new, unopened bottles of the same stuff, after taking out the cotton balls inside you still probably have room to put all of the pills into one bottle. Just make sure they are exactly the same stuff. This is a great way to save space.

• Take things out of their box. A lot of times the product inside is a bit smaller than their box. This is another good way to save space. Here is a picture of one thing that I was able to take out of it’s box to save on space… see what I mean? Big size difference.

• Just because it was free doesn’t mean you need to keep it. If you know you probably won’t use it, get rid of it. Give it to someone else who could use it, sell it at a yard sale, donate it… there are lots of ways to make these items more useful than just taking up space in your home.

Here’s a look at my medicine drawers. Glad it all fits in here now!

There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Now, I want to see how you did! Post your pictures on your blog and come back here and share them with us all! Minimizing our homes, one section at a time… I’d love to have you join in!

I thought it might be helpful to those who would like to participate in Minimizing Monday’ s if I started giving a sneak peek of what project is to come. This week we will be cleaning our our Medicine Cabinets. If you have a shelf, drawer, container, or whatever overloaded with medicines and creams, Monday is the day to show us how you cleaned it all out! Of course you can always Minimize your home in some other way and share that with us too. Hope to see ya there!

Okay, so I realize that this isn’t exactly a huge part of your home, but if you are like me, it can become a huge part of the clutter in your bathroom! I like makeup. I like trying new shades and new products. I like playing around with it. But before I know it my bathroom drawer is crammed with makeup bags stuffed with an overload of cosmetics. After writing my post about how unhealthy most cosmetics are, I decided to go through my makeup drawer and get rid of the stuff that I no longer wanted to wear.

Once I dumped out all of the stuff in my makeup bag, my Kaboodle, my CVS stockpile drawer, and my regular toiletries drawer, I was amazed at how much of the stuff I really didn’t need, or even want! I should have taken a picture of how much junk I had. I ended up throwing away a lot of stuff. Old, clumpy mascara, empty lipstick tubes, barely-anything-left eyeshadows, raggedy old eyeshadow applicators. Junk!

So, after I tossed the stuff that wasn’t any good, I started taking out the stuff that was still good, but that I knew I really wouldn’t ever use. Most of the stuff was “Gift with purchase” type stuff that has been given to me, brands like Clinique, and Estee Lauder. I took out the stuff that I’ve had for a while and never used because the shade wasn’t right. I’ll sell this stuff at my yard sale, though unused stuff like that goes really well on ebay too!

Next I took out most of the makeup that rated High Hazard on the Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database. All of the stuff that hasn’t been opened that I got from CVS I am going to take back and see if I can return it (I’m pretty sure I have a receipt somewhere). If I can’t return them I’ll sell them. Since switching to Mineral Makeup I have a lot of stuff that I won’t be using any more.

I did keep my mascara, though it is rated High Hazard since I don’t exactly have the money to go out right now and buy a better one. When this one runs out I’ll replace it with something low hazard from this list of healthier products.

So, this is what’s left, my every day makeup. I did keep a few extras that I have for when these things run out, but nothing like what was overtaking my counter tops and drawers. After tackling this project I was so pleased that my motivation led me to the medicine cabinet… but that’s another post! Now I have no excuse for a messy counter top. Everything I need fits nicely into my cute little makup bag and can be put right back without any extra effort. And I don’t spend the extra time in the mornings digging through everything else trying to find that one thing that I need. Yay, more clutter gone! And one step closer to a clutter free home.

Feeling inspired? Even if you are taking baby steps, I’d love to hear what you are doing to live with less. Let’s encourage each other to be free from all of these things that complicate our lives! To join me in “Minimizing Monday”, simply write a post on your blog about how you are clearing the clutter (or any other tips, advice or ways that you are minimizing in general) and come back here to leave your link below. I’d love to hear from you!