Spring Cleaning Saturday: Time to Get Organized

Several of my 2012 goals have to do with saving money, getting organized, and being more intentional with grocery shopping/meal planning. None of those things were going to happen on their own, so I did some thinking. We have this weird little alcove in our kitchen where we put the recycling and C's play kitchen, so why not make a family organization station?

Weird little alcove on the right. Dutiful husband washing dishes on the left.

Based on the placement of the overhead lamp, I'm sure the architectural intention was for a breakfast table to go there, but the dining room is literally four steps from there so it seems like a waste of space in a small apartment.

While mine doesn't look nearly as artsy and decorative as its Pinterest based original, its functional and exactly what we needed in that space. I am sure I'll be adding more as I think of it.

We've got our family calendar (from Shutterfly), a cork board for notes, receipts, business cards, etc., a white board for our shopping list (including Post-its to transfer the list before shopping), clothes pins for photos and cards, and a weekly menu board with a clip to hold recipes.

The idea is to decide what we want to eat that week, make a shopping list, clip coupons, and then go shopping. We found that if we clip coupons first, we end up buying things that we don't really need because they are on sale. If its a good stock up item, that's one thing, but if we don't have a purpose for something, why buy it? Plus, we seem to be saving money this way!

I also upcycled three little boxes (that used to hold tea bags) to help collect pop tabs, box tops, and hold pens/scissors. No more pop tabs just floating around the kitchen all over the place!

I'm really hoping this will help centralize our schedules, meals, and shopping list. It will seriously help us reach our goals!

In addition to the adult stuff, I also added a gallery wall for C's art work. Despite my attempts to keep my baby teeny tiny forever, he's started coming home with art projects and I hate losing them in the shuffle. We obviously won't keep every scribble and finger paint masterpiece, but this way they each get their turn on the wall for everyone to enjoy.

I simply hot glued crayons to clothespins and used Command Strips to attach them to the wall. Cheap, quick, and removable!

Ya know, this doing projects from Pinterest thing is pretty fun. So is the whole actually attempting my 2012 goals thing. Hello productivity - its been a while. ;-)