This was worse than it looked...

With all the organizing I have been doing lately, it was just a matter of time until I got to our master closet. Whew, glad it is over. It was nasty. I have been intentionally avoiding it for a long long long time. This clean out was seriously overdue.

Look at the disaster on those shelves.

Shelves are great but look at the mess they are holding.

Um, yea that is way to many shoes just thrown on the floor. The sad thing is that if my 3 year olds shoes were pilled up like this I would have yelled at her.

All in all, I spent a little over an hour. I went through and pulled out anything that I have not worn in 2 years (normally I would use the 1 year cutoff but I was pregnant all last year so I figure that I could give myself a little longer). Anyways, if I hadn't worn it in 2 years it was pulled out. Once all the old was out I sorted tops and bottoms. Shirts were organized by sleeve length. Shoes were matched and organized.

All the things that were pulled out of the closet were put into 4 piles: Sell, Donate, Trash or Storage. Things that are a brand name and in great condition I set aside to try to sell on ebay. I only had 3 things that fit this description. Stuff that was literally trash, as in clothing with holes, broken shoes or actual trash, was finally thrown out. Leftover maternity clothes that hadn't been pulled out already were put into storage and everything else went into a pile to donate.

The majority of the donate pile. I think there were easily 20 pairs of shoes here.

Still not perfect, but much much better.

Shoes sitting with their mates.

On a side note, my little man turned 6 months old over the weekend. Crazy how time flies!

I did it again

Well, with a sick kiddo, we spent most of yesterday at home. We only got out to go to the doctor. I wasn't able to get much of anything done between tending to her and taking care of the baby. There was a small window of about an hour that they were both asleep. Since I have been on an organizing/purging kick lately, I decided to tackle another project that has been weighing on me. (You probably all think I live in filth and I promise I don't)

 

This is our home office area. It is a built in that is right off the kitchen so it is in plain view all the time. Since I run two businesses from home in addition to all the regular bills and stuff, this area collects a lot of stuff.

 

 Isn't this just overwhelming to look at?

 My two to-do lists and calendar and ultra dirty cell phone.

 This basket is my catch-all after I pay bills I dump them in here before filing or shredding. They sit in here until it is full and then I start over again. Terrible habit, I know.

Like with the other times, I started by taking most of the stuff out and sorting. Again, I had a big trash bag of stuff to throw out. Side note: Isn't it just ridiculous the amount of stuff we hold on to? I am constantly amazed by this! I truly believe that if we got rid of half the stuff we owned we would A. not miss it and B. feel so much more free.

Anyways, I spent about 40 minutes sorting and organizing. I started putting stuff back together and decided to move our monstrous printer to a different location. It is just too big for this tiny desk. It works out okay because it is a wireless printer that we don't even use everyday or every other day for that matter.

Even though it was a small project the end result gives me such relief. It is still not beautiful to look at but it is so much better. And most importantly, I can find things again!

Has anyone else been organizing?

This one took a little longer

I got to cleaning things out again like I did a few days ago. This time the project took a little longer than 30 minutes. The hall closet has been hanging over my head for a long time. I finally tackled it today. And it felt so good. It is like a boulder has been lifted from my shoulders.

 

Do you see this disaster? Oh my word! Every time I opened this door I would literally hold my breath.

 

The great thing about this closet is that there are tons of built in shelves. The bad thing is that it is so easy to just dump stuff onto these shelves when you are in a hurry.

I took everything out and organized stuff into piles. Like last time, I just used bins and organizational stuff that I had. It took me about an hour and a half but that is partially because there was a crying baby that needed tending to several times.

 Toys stacked neatly onto a shelf.

This is the pile of stuff that came out of the closet to sell. It is mostly onesies and tshirts that I had stocked from when I did custom work in the shop.

 

In other news, I started our tax return yesterday. I use Turbo Tax online and have for several years. I really like it. We are still waiting for a couple small documents but overall it is looking like we will get a nice refund (it helps that we had a baby and did some energy efficient upgrading this year)! Too bad the tax return money is already spent before it arrives. Isn't that always the way? I sure wish I could use it for an exotic vacation....

30 minutes well spent

The past few days have felt a little chaotic. I think it is because we were snowed in all last week and everything was put on hold. This weeks list of things to do includes last weeks stuff that did not get done. A long to-do list always raises my heart rate a little. It also makes me more productive. I always get more done when I have a lot going on. (Is anyone else like this?)

This afternoon during naptime I set out to tackle my to do list. I couldn't focus because this was what our pantry looked like.

(Please pardon the terribly ugly flash pictures. I didn't really think anyone would care about beautiful pictures of my pantry).

You see, at the beginning of every year I get the undeniable urge to purge things. A truly deep desire to clean out all of our closets has been hanging over head. So, instead of tackling my to-do list this afternoon, I took 30 minutes to address this situation.

 Seriously, look at this disaster.

Zoom in to the spilled bowl of odds and ends. This was the breaking point. What the heck is a bowl of odds and ends doing in our pantry anyways? It is like a junk drawer but in our pantry. Dumb.

 Koozie central. We don't even drink that much, but this picture makes us look like alcoholics.

 Did I purchase the entire chip aisle? No, just major leftovers from the Super Bowl.

 Random chaos. I don't like random chaos.

 Stuff just tossed up there. Old stuff.

Bags, baby food and a spice rack that we don't even use!

Well, I spent 30 minutes purging. There was so much crap in there! Seriously. I found a jar of baby food left over from my three-year old. It had expired over a year ago. Nice.

When all was said and done, I came up with two giant trash bags of junk. It felt so good to get that taken care of. 

I quickly organized stuff and put like items near like items. I did not spend any money on organizational stuff, I just straightened up. Look at the major improvement!

 Chips have a place and you can actually see what kinds we have.

 All the little packets of soup mix or seasonings went into a tin (which I found in the rubble).

 Bag boxes stacked up.

Koozies in their place as are styrofoam cups and plasticwear.

I seriously feel like a weight was instantly lifted. Since it was a quick clean up I was able to successfully tackle several other things on my list. It was a good afternoon. Next up, the terrifying hall closet.



Tips for Etsy Success: Creating a Schedule

Every standard 40 hour a week job has a schedule; a routine, a daily list of goals and a pace that your day is set to. A successful etsy business should have the same. To run a successful business from home it is important to set a schedule just as you would in an office. If you have an etsy shop in addition to a full-time job, it is even more important to make sure that you have your day organized.

First of all, set a daily schedule. Allow a certain time of day for all of your business activities: responding to convos, creating products, shipping, blogging, etc. If you know that every morning you respond to convos, then pack and ship products and then craft for 2 hours, you will get so much more accomplished then if the tasks are scattered. Not much gets done when you are back and forth between emails and packaging all day.

When you create your daily and weekly schedule, make sure to leave some holes in it. Life happens and things get delayed or new priorities come up. Having holes in your schedule allows you to tackle these things without your entire day or week getting pushed back.

If the items in your shop are all custom orders, make sure to set a reasonable lead time for them. My shop used to be all custom work. I thought that I had to have a short lead time in order to make customers happy and get a lot of orders. Well, the orders were pouring in and I could not physically handle the work. I hesitantly changed my lead time to 2 weeks and that did not stop the orders at all. Orders kept piling up so I changed it again to 3 weeks. What I found was that as long as you are up front with customers on your lead time and you offer them the option to rush an order (for a charge of course) then they are happy. I was shocked at how many orders I was still getting with a 3 week lead time. It was nice because my business kept growing and I kept my sanity.

Working from home can be tricky since you feel like you are always at the office. Your crafts are surrounding you and it can feel like there is always something pressing to do. It is really important to allow yourself time off. Make sure to schedule down time and vacations. The great thing about etsy is that you can simply “close shop” or you can put a note in your shop announcements that informs shoppers when you will be closed. Whether it is a certain day of the week, certain hours in the day or a week every quarter, it is imperative that you allow yourself some vacation time.

Don’t forget to schedule your paycheck. Accepting payments in paypal can be tricky and many times the funds get washed away when purchasing new supplies and postage. It is really important that you make sure to pay yourself so that you can feel the benefit of your business. For my shop, I give myself a paycheck every Sunday.

Along with setting a daily schedule, it is important to set monthly and annual priorities and goals for your business. This will ensure that you are working to grow your business or try new ideas. The most successful etsy shops are those that are continually trying new things and modifying their products. Think about where you want your business to take you and what financial goals you have for it.

Don’t forget to plan ahead for craft fairs and holidays. It is inevitable. You know they are coming, you can see them on the calendar. Don’t put off getting ready for the big days. Personally, I have found that Christmas orders start coming right after Halloween. This means that you need to start preparing in August (at the latest). If your shop sells pre-made items, start making extras in January. Make a few extras each week and set them aside so that you are stocked come holiday season. If your shop is all custom work, as mine was, purchase extra supplies early and make sure to set a cutoff date for orders. It seems crazy, but I always set the first week of December as my cutoff order date. This allowed me to sew like crazy until the week before Christmas. The week before Christmas I shipped out the last of the orders and was able to enjoy the holidays with my family.

Don’t forget to read up on the past etsy success posts below:

Tip No 1- Branding
Tip No 2- Photography
Tip No 3- Getting your first sale
Tip No 4- Pricing
Tip No 5- Tagging
Tip No 6- Customer Service
Tip No 7- Advertising
Tip No. 8- Etsy wants to help 

 

The New & Improved (& downsized) Sewing space

For the past 2 years, I have been blessed with an enormous sewing room. I am talking appx 150 square feet of space with 2 closets and 3 windows that was ONLY for sewing. It was glorious. I truly appreciated the space but I never "beautified" it because I could always just close the door on the chaos.

Fast forward to today. We are 8 weeks (or less) from bringing a new baby home. The only available space for him to reside is my former sewing room. A couple of weeks ago, we moved all the sewing gear out, downsized it considerably (hence all the destash I have been selling in the shop) and moved baby's things in.

The new nursery is all set and I have been working on getting my new sewing area set up. The new space is about 50 square feet. The kicker to the new space is that it is a common area in our home. The space used to be my daughters play area. It opens up to the kitchen and dining room and has no door. This means that not only do I need to keep it organized, but it needs to be somewhat appealing to the eye since everyone will see it when they come in our home.

I have always wanted to have a pretty sewing space and was thrilled for the excuse to finally create it. The problem is money. I can hardly justify buying things to make an appealing space when I have a baby on the way. So, I did my best using what I had around the house and buying as little as possible.

Anyways, here is the common space right after we moved all the sewing gear into it. All piled up and junky. I look at this picture and am totally amazed at how much stuff I was able to stash in other areas of our house. There is an entire armoire in our living room that is housing my fabric stash. Extra tools and supplies that I don't use on a daily basis are stashed in the hall closet.

Before

 

After

Notes and calendar wall. I had the bulletin board and just spray painted the trim and used extra fabric to cover the backing. The dry erase board was on clearance at Staples for $2.90.

Decorative shelf- Found this sucker at Ikea for $34.99! The N&M letters on the shelf, I bought on sale at Hobby Lobby for $.99 each and spray painted them.

I knew I needed to hide storage under the table. I found this home decor fabric on sale at Joann Fabrics for $3 a yard. I completely made up the skirt as I went. The best part about it is that it is affixed to the table with Velcro so I can take it off as needed.

The space is definitely still a work in progress, but I am happy with it so far. I still have some decorative touches that I am hoping to add soon, but for now it functions and does not drive me batty everytime I walk past the space.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway here. It ends Thursday at midnight.