Old School Pinterest

I really like magazines.  I get a lot of magazines.  It's hard for me to get rid of magazines.  And therefore they're all over my apartment.  I realized this summer that the stack of cooking magazines in my kitchen, that I kept "just in case I needed to look up a recipe,"  hadn't been opened in months and was collecting dust.  I had to do something about it.  So I went through every. single. page of every. single. magazine and tore out the recipes and "tips and hints" articles that caught my eye.  Then I sorted the recipes into categories like entrees, sides, breads, desserts etc.  I bought a three ring binder and a pack of those clear page protectors, trimmed up the edges of the pages, and slippped them inside.  So instead of a basket of dusty magazines, or messy piles of torn out pages, everything is nice, neat, and organized inside the binder.  Basically,  it's like old school Pinterest!  Now, when I read something in a magazine that I like, I go ahead and tear out the page, and I can toss the magazine with no worries. 

One section for recipes...

...and one section for tips, hint, and how to's.

Closet Clean Up

On Friday I tackled another much-needed project at the office: cleaning out the craft/office supply closet.  Like many other areas of the office, by the end of the semester, it's a disaster.  Here's proof:

As I began cleaning it out I found things I didn't know where in there, like one of those old school label makers, the kind where you turned the disc to set the letter and then it made an indent in a strip of plastic.  And I found things that we were sure we were out of, like new plastic table cloths.  It reminded me that being organized can help you save money because you don't keep buy the same things over and over again.

So several hours, a few new plastic bins, and lots of labels later, this was the end result:

Seriously, give me some blank labels and a new Sharpie and I am in heaven; and there is nothing like neat, organized craft supplies!

Basement Before & After

There are still a few little things to be put away, but the basement is pretty much all cleaned up!  It's such a dark, dusty place to begin with that it still looks kinda dirty, but trust me, it's a HUGE improvement!  And I took all the "after" shots with a different camera, so the quality isn't as good.

Coming down the stairs, looking back into the corner.

To the right of the stairs.

Looking into the front right corner.

At the base of stairs.

To the left of the stairs.  This one doesn't look much better because there are a ton of trash bags still (full of water bottles), but all those pallets were underneath them!