September Acres

Displaying and storing kids' artwork can be a daunting task.  As a mom, we want to keep everything . As a homemaker, we know it's not possible to keep even half of what they do.  Between the stuff they do at school and the things they make at home on their own it's just too much to consider keeping it all.  And multiply that by 2, 3, or more and we'd need a room devoted to displaying and storing all those great masterpieces! That's where things like blogs & Pinterest come in handy - there are millions of ideas for displaying and storing your kids' artwork.  Some are pricey, some are DIY.  Some permanent, some temporary. One of my favorite articles on this subject comes from Houzz.com   It gives 20 great ways to display kids' artwork.  They are all items that you can purchase for displaying artwork but most of them you could DIY in some sort of fashion.  It got my wheels turning for sure.  This cute lavender display is one of those th...

As the year comes to an end, I always like to look back to see what I worked on over the year and what themes or ideas were popular here at September Acres.  I love reading year in review type posts and there are a ton of them out there right now.  I hope you will enjoy reading (or re-reading) my most popular posts from this past year. 31 Days of Organization-Day 1 - This is where the series starts.  It has links to all of the posts for the month (a few of them are also on the top 12 list). Home Management Notebook - Also part of the 31 Days series.  The notebook has been such a useful tool for me. DVD/CD Storage - Even with MP3 players and the like DVD & CD storage can be a bear.  This solution really helped keep our home looking a bit neater.  This was also part of the 31 Days Series. Organizing Basics - Yet another in the organizing series.   Key Lime Bar Recipe - We spent a week organizing our kitchens and I loved taking a break t...

I have no business talking about laundry rooms.  Mine is in the garage.  It makes it super fun to do laundry in July. Even when it's cooler out it's still not the serene place I would like it to be, try as I might. On paper, my laundry area is not too bad: front loading washer and dryer,  wall cabinets for storage & a utility sink.  I even got a nice hanging rack for my birthday.  But I'm still in the garage. I love the wall cabinets for storing detergent & other wash related  items (dryer sheets, vinegar, spot remover, etc). In an ideal world I would love to have something like one of these rooms: Source Look at all the storage here.  Would it actually be fun to do laundry here?  HGTV I love the green wall color and the stenciled definition of laundry in this room. Source While I don't love the wall color here, I am in love with the amount of storage in this room. Check out my Laundry Room Pinterest...

Who doesn't love a beautifully decorated home at the holidays?  Along with all that decor comes the challenge of storing it when it's not in use.  Enter the storage bins.  I often wonder what our grandmothers did without Rubbermaid or Sterilite . Plastic storage totes are my number one way to store decorations.  Think about the following when choosing your storage bins: Size -Yes, it matters.  Storage totes come in all sizes, from a small five gallon to a 45 gallon wheeled model (by Sterilite).  I like the larger sizes for big, light weight decor (like wreaths).  Smaller sizes are perfect for decorations that are smaller, but heavier (like door stops, metal figurines).  Bigger isn't always better so you need to keep in mind what you're storing and make sure you can actually pick up and carry the totes. Material  - It might be less expensive to toss your decorations in a cardboard box and be done with it but plastic seems to be a bet...

With the popularity of itunes and Netflix you would think that our music and movie storage dilemmas would be far behind us.  Not around here.  We still need places too keep our DVD & CD collections. I prefer them to be out of sight so I found these collapsible boxes a few years ago at The Container Store.  I don't think these ones are still available but they have a plethora of attractive options. These boxes fit perfectly stacked two high on the bottom of our library table.  I measured the space before I committed to 12 of these babies so I knew they would work. The area looks neat and everything is easily found when we want a movie or CD. And, yes, everything is in alphabetical order.  It's super easy to locate what you're looking for this way. I'm am joining The Nester and over 1000 others this month for the 31 Day Challenge.  You can find all of my 31 Days posts here . I hope you'll check out all of the organizing ideas. ...

Today we're going to discuss the basics of organizing.  Every professional organizer (which I am not) has a system for organizing.  Some have fancy little acronyms - like Julie Morgenstern's SPACE .  But organizing is pretty basic.  No matter what you call the steps it boils down to this: Define your space - Figure out how you will be using the space you want to organize.  Some spaces are obvious - like a kitchen or bathroom.  It gets tricky in a room such as a family room that needs to serve more than one function.  Maybe your family room is a lounge area/playroom/office all in one.  I break my rooms into zones- for a family room it may be a sitting zone, a t.v. zone, a play zone and an office/work zone.  Once you've defined your space it's time to move on to the next step:  Sort  - To start the sorting process I create four categories: keep, toss, sell & donate.  This is usually the hardest part for most people. ...

Kids' schoolwork.  It can over take your house if you let it. But there are always a few things that are 'keepers'.   And a lot  of things that are not keepers.  How do you decide?  Here's what I do: What I keep:   Certificates (honor roll, straight A's, star student, science fair participation, etc) Art projects - not necessarily every single drawing but any different media (watercolors, chalk, etc) & ceramics. Things that are handwritten - again, not everything but poems, short stories, etc. Small projects that involve writing & coloring.  I love being able to see the progress from year to year. Test results involving reading levels. Again, I like to see the change from year to year. Report cards. What I toss: Fill in the bubble type tests.  We have TONS of those in our school so we get to toss a lot. Multiple choice worksheets/tests. Flyers from teacher, PTA, etc. Lunch menus (this seems obvious but I thought ...

LM has these cute little hooks by the door in her room.  I got them when she was a baby from Pottery Barn Kids.  The idea was that I could hang her jackets or a backpack on there.  As time went on and she grew older, they kind of became a catch all area.  Anything that could remotely be 'hung' went on the hooks.  Which lead us to this: Obviously, the hats don't get worn everyday but I couldn't figure out a good place to put them so they didn't get damaged.  Until one day I was putting things away in the closet and noticed this space to the left of her shelves.  I took one hat over to see if it fit in the space and it did.  I headed to the tool box and got 3 nails and a hammer and ended up with this: She can reach them all, they are out of the way but she can still see them when she's picking out her clothes. So there's no fear of them being forgotten like they might have been in a drawer. I used nails so this was a no cost fix. ...

We have our fair share of framed prints and pictures but not so much space to display everything all at once without making our house look like a store. For a while the 'extras' were just leaning up in the corner of our office waiting for a new home. So I thought, wouldn't it be nice if I could display them without actually hanging them on a wall. Then somewhere, and I don't remember where, I saw that someone had put their framed prints in a basket in their living room. Kind of a decorative storage type of thing. I can do that! So here's how I did it. I bought this basket from Michaels (with my 40% off coupon!) because I liked the size. The color wasn't quite what I needed. Black was more like it. Nothing a can of spray paint can't fix, right? I spray painted the basket black and then added a little tag I made with my Cricut . It looks nice on the hearth plus I remember what I have when I am redecorating since I see the basket everyday. It's also neat ...