My Totally Organized, Hectic, Chaotic Life

We recently changed this dollar store shoe organizer into a recipe card holder, restaurant menu holder, and back to school organizer! I love that it fits right behind the door between the laundry room and kitchen, way out of my sight! I was so tired of little things piled up everywhere, I just had to do something! I like to be organized. It helps to keep my brain from spilling out when there is a place for everything, A nice place. So, we collected all of the loose pencils, pens, erasers, tissue packs, lip balms, Box Tops, made some hand sanitizers, filled with the kid's favorite mints, sugar free gum, anti bacterial wipes, and eye glass cleaner. Each has their own little pocket and the kids like to call this their, "back to school station". It's a busy place some mornings! Our youngest isn't in school just yet but he has a backpack that he likes to also fill with tiny things.


I think I must spend about 10 hours a week, just trying to figure out exactly how to organize some new pile of clutter, a stack of artwork the kids made that day, a new box of extra beauty products that I received that month from my favorite subscription boxes, and even bags of heirloom potatoes! I wake up, have my coffee and sit here trying to figure out, "How can I make this new pile of stuff, look nicer by putting it into something?" At least that's what my husband says I do. He thinks I prance around and try to buy more things to paint more mason jars or to glue some glitter and gems onto some subscription boxes, just so I can fill them up with stuff. Do I? I don't know sometimes! But, either way, I do love to organize and I can't get enough of the cute mason jar fad that has been all the rage! Maybe?

Well, to be fair, I have 4 children. One is grown and on her own but between the 3 who still live here? They have enough school work, papers, arts, crafts, supplies, books, clothes, and for some reason, a lot of this ends up in my kitchen! I have bags that I date and tie up each month of that month's coloring pages, paper towels with love notes that they make for me, handmade cards, A+ papers. funny sentences they wrote at school. I keep almost everything they make, ok, everything they make. School pages? I've learned to only keep the important things. But, these are all nicely kept in bags and then placed in bins up in my office.

Who doesn't love these adorable little totes? I like these for separating candles, wax tarts, cleansing grains, lip balms, anything that I make in my secret hideaway, my other kitchen! 

If you subscribe to any beauty subscription boxes or any subscription boxes for that matter, I am sure you try to find something to do with those pretty boxes that all of our goodies come in! I know I do! My 8 year old tries to take all of the plain colored boxes so she can make doll beds and closets for them. She does a great job too! She decorates and matches them to each doll. The problem is, now she has so many of these box beds and box closets! (I do have a problem with telling any kid they can't make, build, draw, color, paint, cut and glue, something. I do say no sometimes if we are getting ready to leave on an errand run or something. But, for the most part, it is always craft day at our house!) 

I make scented oils and I found that these red boxes from my Allure Beauty Box, are probably the strongest ones yet! They are also perfect to fit a few rows of oils in and I can label the scents with these fancy chalkboard paint markers I found! Some of the other boxes are used for leftover candle wicks, labels, ribbons, and any other odds and ends I accumulate. Waste not, want not, right? We try to upcycle as often as we can. Yes, even the trimmed wicks from candles I make. Do you know what else these beauty boxes are good for? 

LEFTOVER CRAFT SUPPLIES! 

Along with the beauty boxes that fill our mailbox each month, we subscribe to a few craft subscription boxes. If you have little ones, you just have to check these dandy little subscription services out! The kids just love them and lucky for me, we seem to always have scraps and buttons leftover. Of course we can't throw these little gems away! We have a few boxes where we store the leftovers for a rainy (or a snowy) day! 

Besides the perfect size of these boxes, they stack nice, they have lids, they are usually either plain so we can design them however our little hearts desire, or they come in a gorgeous shade of red and are beautiful just the way they are! (Yes, the picture above is really a picture of some of these smaller boxes, inside a bigger box!) Because, after acquiring so many of these boxes, it is time to organize those boxes. 

What we need are labels! Maybe more boxes to fit them in would be nice? I don't know. I am kinda going towards labeling the boxes so the kids know exactly what they are looking for and we can arrange them by type. 

How do you organize a busy home with children? Especially all of their art supplies and tiny Lego guys?