Regift(bag)ing

I love saving gift bags to reuse them. Those guys are expensive for being nothing but a little paper and ribbon! The only problem was that my gift bag collection was taking over our guest closet and it was getting hard to quickly find what I needed. Plus, some of them were getting scrunched. So, as I grabbed a bag to wrap a baby gift, I decided to organize them all!

First, I sorted all my gift bags and threw away all of the crunched up old ones. The next step was deciding what to store them in. I didn't want to spend any money on it right now, so I went into my laundry room to grab a couple of paper grocery bags. Instead, I discovered a couple of white bags from Loft! I got really excited because they are much prettier looking! Everything fit perfectly in the bags, but I was one short. Luckily, I found a Bed Bath and Beyond gift bag that was similar. Here are the sorted and filled up bags.

I used a sharpie to label what was in each one. One holds tissue paper, gift boxes, ribbon, bows, and gift tags. The next one holds gift bags for holidays, weddings, and baby showers. The last one holds my non-specific gift bags. I labeled it miscellaneous.

The final step was putting them up on the shelf and hoping they fit... I had just enough space for them! I love it when things work out so easily like this! I hope the rest of the closet is this easy to organize (yeah right)!

As for how I store rolls of wrapping paper, I don't have very many so they are in the flimsy clear plastic box that a 4 pack I bought at Target one year came in. It stands up vertically on the floor of the closet.


How do you store your gift wrapping supplies? Do you like to reuse gift bags and tissue paper or buy new?

Party planning

In just four short months, my baby will be turning one! I decided to start planning his party early because I LOVE planning kids parties and I don't want to be crazy busy planning it last minute. So, I'm trying to get organized now.

I started off by making a kids party ideas board on pinterest. If you haven't signed up on pinterest yet, I highly recommend it! Here are some of the fun ideas I found:


1) Ducky Punch from TidyMom.net- this would be cute for a baby shower
2) Goldfish Party from Cake.- I love fishes cause they're so delicious! Buckets of Goldfish crackers would also be fun for a pool party or beach themed party.
3) The Very Hungry Caterpillar Food from Project Project- Gotta love a theme that comes with a menu! And The very Hungry Caterpillar is one of my favorite kid books.
4) Lego Cake from LikeCool.com- What little boy doesn't love Legos?!
5) Sea Turtle Cupcakes from theBERRY.com- This would be perfect for a Finding Nemo Party!
6) Monkey Cupcakes from Squidoo.com- These would be cute for a jungle themed party!

I think I am going to go with a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme for my baby's 1st birthday! I have tons of great ideas.

The next step was breaking out a notebook to jot down my favorite ideas that I want to incorporate into his party. To do this, I made a separate page for each of the following categories:

• Decorations
• Cake
• Food & Drinks
• Serving ware
• Activities
• Party Favors
• Invitations

The following is not my complete list, there will be more food!

Since I will be making decorations, favors, and cakes plus designing my own invitations and other items that I will need to get printed, getting organized now is vital!
The next step is making my party planning schedule!
Do you love party planning? What is your favorite theme for a kid party?

Bottled up

Our bottles moved up! For a while now we have had a row of wine bottles across the top of our kitchen cabinets, as you can see in the photo below.


Then there was a gap, followed by a group of vases. It was not very cohesive. And who needs this many vases?!


We also have had other bottles on top of one of our bookshelves including some antique Dr. Pepper bottles.


I decided it was finally time to make these vases and bottles more cohesive! I got rid of some of the vases, only keeping my three favorites. I also got rid of some of the less pretty wine bottles. Then I gathered the remaining bottles and vases to arrange them all together. I started by putting the taller bottles in the back, and filling in with smaller ones in the front. I also tried to spread out color and clear ones to make an attractive arrangement. Here's the result!


Here are a few close ups. Yes, I was standing on a chair to take these pics.




They look so much prettier than they used to. I think it would look even better if eventually I limit the color palette of our bottle collection. Maybe just clear, blues, and greens?

Do you save old wine bottles? I have been know to buy bottle of wine just for the label design. What kind of ordinary objects do you use to decorate with?

Feeling box-y

I'm back! We have been busy organizing papers in the guest bedroom which doesn't make for very exciting posts and then our computer was acting up for most of this week. After EIGHT phone calls with Apple Care and an erase/restore, my husband has it up and running again! Our Time Capsule to back up files was worth every penny!

I have been searching for the perfect storage boxes to go on top of our bookshelves in the living room for several months now, and I finally found them! They needed to be pretty since they would be out in the open and fit in the space while adding as much space as possible. I also wanted lids to prevent layers of dust from coating everything inside.

Thanks to the Container Store, I now own six of these beauties, also known as Square Havana Storage Boxes!


They measure 12-1/4" sq. x 9-1/2" h, making them the perfect size for my bookshelves! At $19.99 each, they were a bit of a splurge for me. The $45 I had in gift cards definitely helped. Plus, compared to all of the other options I found, they were actually on the less expensive side.


Here are what the shelves looked like before my gorgeous boxes came home with me. The photo albums have relocated to our master closet, the legos are on are bedroom bookcase, and the bottles are now in the kitchen (post on that coming soon!)


Here are the bookshelves now! They look so much less cluttered on top but we can actually store more! It's a win-win! What are we storing in our new boxes? One holds instruction manuals (this freed up TONS of space in the file drawers), my husband and I each have one for random odds and ends, one is for little decorative items that aren't currently being used, and two are still empty for now. I decided to get two gray instead of all black because a) my Container Store only had 5 black and I needed 6 and b) since the shelves are black too the gray breaks things up and adds interest. The black and gray also go with my couch pillows. The tan color they come in also matches my pillows, but I thought black and tan would have a little too much contrast.


You may also notice I have some picture frames leaning in front of books. I did that temporarily to get them out of the way until hang them, but I actually like how they hide some books and make things less busy looking. I will probably make a photo wall over the futon at some point, but for now they look good here.

What is your favorite organization-related splurge? Do you use pretty storage boxes? I am totally in love with mine!