Perfectionist...I am NOT.

For those of you who have stopped by unannounced ( It's okay - I still love you!) you can find my house in 1 of 3 states;
1. Disaster.
2.Messy
3.Messy, but trying to get clean!

With 4 kid's under 1000 square feet, messes are just going to happen! I have tried to learn a few tricks (still learning!) and although I am farrrr from an organizational guru, or anyone for that matter that should be even talking about this, I know I always appreciate when I learn new things that help our family function, so I thought I would share what I have implemented in our house.

My dear friend, Tara ( Dubbed 'Queen Organization' by me!) has great tips at her blog www.coleplace.blogspot.com under tidie whities. I have stolen a few tricks of the trade from her as well! Hey! Who says you can't teach an unhouse broke, messy old dog new tricks?

Cupboards: Not enough cupboards for how much I need to cram into them!

In my pantry I found stacking my cans for cooking/ veggies/ fruit was getting me no where, as our pantry was deep, but not wide. I was always re-buying things that I still had, hidden behind the can of tomato soup no one ever wants to eat! So, at a garage sale, I picked up a few lazy suzannes( I feel bad calling her that! :) and VOILA! I can stack a couple high, and spin to see what we have on the shelf! I would recommend grabbing a few lazy's. I also have used them in our cabinet that keeps our medicines, vitamins and spices! Makes finding things much, much easier!

Next, I too, enjoy clear plastic storage containers, labeled, so my kids can see what snacks are available. I also have an old fruit basket, I set boxes and such things that I haven't got any storage containers left for, in the basket, that way, in the deep pantry, I can reach in and slide out the bin and see whats back there!

 You can see, I use 'Hello My Name Is..." labels. My sister in law, Abigale gave me that idea and I LOVE IT! It's very easy to just slap another sticker over top of the old ones when changing out snacks, plus they are about .97 cents at walmart, much cheaper than any other label you can find!

 this is the fruit basket, pulled out, that you can see in the above picture, to the right.

 Our hallway acts as a storage space, with a small shelf that stores some of  the kid's fun stuff. Mr & Mrs. Potato head neatly stashed in a clear container, nail polishes and play dough! Since our bathroom has no linen closet, a basket of pull ups and some t.p dawn the bottom shelf!

 

The girls bedroom is very, very small and with three of them sharing  a room, we lack space and organization! These little pink tote store different play.  I was sO pumped to find this 'horsie bin' at Fleet Farm last Christmas, to pile all their barbie horses in!

 I label ( and attempt ) a drawing on the tote. That way if they are unable to read, they can see by the picture, what goes in the tote. This works great and provides 'No excuse's' for the lazy gal, who would love to claim," I didn't know dress up and my lil' ponies didn't go in the same spot!"

 If you have a sticker with what is in the box, I would recommend that as well- Dollar Tree has just about any sticker for any character known to man ( and some that are not! Gotta love Dollar Tree!)

 The top box is all their small Disney Princesses, and even tho it is not labeled this, they know because of the sticker :)

 I LOVE THESE!
 Hobby Lobby, will be the death of me, but I could not resist these HOT PINK trunks on clearance! They work great for storing the girls' fake food and dishes and grocery store stuff!

It's SO much more fun to play when the toys are right there, and you don't have to dig for hours to find all the pieces! Makes clean up so simple too. If ( IF! I mean, it always is!!) the room get's really bad, being that sometimes all 3 girls take a different tote out, I set the totes out on the floor, open the lids and they run around, dropping toys into whichever tote that toy belongs too! Has cut cleaning room time from about an hour to maybe ten minutes! Hope you can use some of these tips and I would LOVE to hear your tips as well!!!