Organization Tips + Tricks

Hi friends! How are you?

One challenge that constantly reoccurs in my daily life is organizing my stuff in an effective way. Things can get quite messy from a handful of activities; from crafting to just simply doing your homework! (Or at least for me, with all those rulers and textbooks and paper and pens sprawled across my desk!) However, throughout my 15 years of life, I’ve managed to pick up a few helpful tactics to tackle this tedious and often overwhelming challenge.

An actual picture of me trying to clean out a cabinet April 2016. Not even a joke.

When this challenge first came up (meaning my mom stopped cleaning up after myself haha), I would simply put my things back to where they came from. I would have a cabinet for any random craft-related materials and a general drawer for just miscellaneous things in my room and maybe throw a few posters in the corner of my closet. And that worked perfectly fine.

Until more and more things began piling up as I bought new clothes or crafts supplies or etc. Adding the new items in wasn’t as easy as pie. Because then I would see how messy the cabinet is and then dig everything out and try to put everything back in, but “neater.”And throwing things out isn’t an option for me either because I need EVERYTHING! (call me a hoarder but…)

An example of the cabinet we all love so much, but often take advantage of (oops); the “throw-it-all-in” cabinet.

Since then, I’ve tried and experimented with various different organization hacks and systems that now make my home, or at least my cleaning days, lovelier. I am an absolute big fan of up-cycling so I love finding things I’m not using around the house and remodeling it for organization! One trick I love doing is using toilet paper tubes and lining them in a small box. This allows you to store a bunch of small items in a box, without having them mix and mingle around.

Storing items on walls is the one of the greatest ideas since notebooks in my opinion! From bedrooms to workspaces, storing things on walls is definitely a space clearer! In my bedroom, I have a necklace rack and school supplies pouch hanging on my wall, which leaves much space for other knick-knacks on my drawer tops! Some awesome ideas for storing supplies on walls in a decorative way can be found in the picture below!

If you don’t have a lot of things with up-cycling potential lying around the house, then I highly recommend IKEA and Bath, Bed, & Beyond for a wide variety of versatile storages in all different styles and sizes.

Photo Shetler 2007 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 ©

Now that the hard part’s out of the way, I can tackle this chore in a more creative way! Adding stickers and decorative items can definitely spice up organizers from ew to oooh in no time! I ABSOLUTELY love covering my boxes with different printed patterns and pretty paper to match the different themes of my rooms. You can have a whole different mood in an instant! I love making things versatile so when I’m covering an item, I tend to cover one side a pattern and the other side, a totally different one! That way, I have a variety if I ever get bored and want to change things up!

When it comes to labelling, I highly recommend buying chalkboard paint (can be found at Target or Daiso – $1.50) for if you ever want to change the content in the storage, while keeping it cute! The bottle is pretty small but definitely contains a LOT! (I’ve already painted a whole wooden board AND still have 3/4 paint left!)

This may look like just a display pedestal but it is actually a storage box once you lift the tabletop also. The side shown on the left is for when I’m feeling a little more fun and inspired! And when I gotta keep my head in the game, I tone it down to a simpler matte gold to help me focus on getting those to-do’s done!

My current, very handy and effective organizer!

Of course, even after having developed a nice organization system, this challenge still continues to pop up every other week. (That’s right – it’s never officially finished. Sigh.) It’s definitely much easier though, with a categorized arrangement! It’s just finding the motivation to clean after large piles have been created of every different sort of category that is difficult! My tip (that I really need to stick by myself) is just to try and put back your stuff daily. You might be tired then and think, ‘Oy, just one more day leaving it out wouldn’t hurt’ but trust me, it’ll save you a lot of time in the long run! (I tend to leave my materials out and just wait until the end of the week to put it back, but I always regret it once the weekend rolls in.) Anyways, I sincerely hope this helped you out a bit! If you already knew / do all this, then niiiice! High five!

Until next time!

Elyssa 🙂