As part of my role as an Official Apartment Guide Organizing Blogger, I’ve had the opportunity to contribute to their Organize the Clutter Pinterest board.

Their entire Pinterest account is enough to make any organizer or decorator drool, but this board — with its nifty organizing solutions to corral and organize clutter — is my favorite.

Check out these cool solutions I found:

source: Classy Clutter

If you’re lacking in pantry space, this may just be the answer for you. ClassyClutter.com shows you how to build a skinny  rolling shelf unit that sits next to your refrigerator for all of your cans and jars.

source: Erin's 2 Centz

Swapping seasonal clothes for growing kids is one of my least favorite activities. However, we use a system much like Erin’s, and it’s made a world of difference.

source: BHG.com

Whether they’re alphabetized or not, a shelf full of DVD cases can make a room or shelf feel cluttered. Try using pretty photo or storage boxes for your cases instead.

source: Random Thoughts of a Supermom

I love these labeled galvanized steel buckets for outdoor toy storage. My favorite label is “dirt”.

source: Mona Luna Design

Recycle an old frame for practical jewelry storage that looks pretty too!

surce: Unsophisticook

A little chalkboard paint and a few old baby food jars is all it takes to makeover your spice drawer. This setup is so much easier than the one I’ve got going on. How about you?

source: MSN

Add a few hooks and a bench to your entryway to keep it neat and organized through all of your comings and goings.

source: BHG.com

This is such a great idea, especially for younger children. Use garden baskets to hang toys on the wall where they can easily be gotten out — and put away!

source: beautyRIOT.com

Similar to the jewelry frame, this magnetic makeup frame is a great way to keep your makeup easily accessible and use vertical space rather than surface area.

source: iMOM

If you’re struggling to get your children on board with keeping your home clean, try setting up a “clutter jail”. Toys that are left out can be put into clutter jail and redeemed through various activities.

What clutter hot spots are the biggest challenge in your home?

	Mandi Ehman is the founder and publisher behind Life Your Way and the co-author of All in Good Time, as well as a wife and the homeschooling mom to four beautiful girls. She lives with her family on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia and loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

Apartment Guide and owner Consumer Source, Inc. have partnered with bloggers like me as Official Apartment Guide Bloggers. As part of this program, I have received compensation. They have not told me what to purchase or what to say about the products used, and believe that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Consumer Source’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations.

10 Ways to Organize Clutter Hot Spots is a post from Life Your Way

© 2010-2012 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Home Your Way subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please send an email to contact@yourway.net to let us know. Thanks.

source: Mandi Ehman

In many ways, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda is the ultimate green, frugal and simple product. You can use it in a variety of ways, from your kitchen to your bathroom, from the nursery to the laundry room. And at under $1 a box – a box that stretches and stretches and stretches – the price can’t be beat either.

I already use Arm & Hammer Baking Soda fairly religiously at home…in my homemade deodorant, in the trash can to absorb odor, on bee stings and rashes, and – of course – for baking.

But those things are really just scratching the surface as far as possibilities. Last year I put together a list of 60 uses for baking soda, and I still need to try many of these for myself.

This month I’m going to attempt to cross a few off my bucket list:

My girls haven’t yet discovered the fun of baking soda, so I’m looking forward to doing some of the fun activities on this list, like a volcanic eruption and bath fizzies.

In addition, we’ve been struggling with hard water stains in our bathroom and kitchen sinks, and I had completely forgotten about the scouring power of baking soda, so I’m going to attempt to get those shiny and new looking with a little help from baking soda and its partner in crime, vinegar.

Giveaway

The maker of Arm & Hammer products challenged me to switch to Arm & Hammer Baking Soda this summer, and they are giving away $12,000 in the Arm & Hammer Switch & Save Challenge Sweepstakes. To be entered to win one (1) of twelve (12) $1,000 prizes, simply reply to the question below!

Remember to join other Arm & Hammer Switch & Save conversations for even more chances to win.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Arm & Hammer. The opinions and text are all mine. Official Sweepstakes Rules.

Doing More with Baking Soda {Summer Fun & Shiny Sinks} is a post from Life Your Way

© 2010-2012 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Home Your Way subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please send an email to contact@yourway.net to let us know. Thanks.

source: Mandi Ehman

A couple months ago I talked about ways to use binders to get organized at home. Today I’m sharing more ideas specifically for kids. Binders not only help them organize but also archive and showcase their stuff, as seen below:

1. Art Binders: With four crafty girls in our home, we can only keep a fraction of their artwork or we’ll end up on Hoarders within just a few years, but I love the idea of storing the stuff we do keep in a special binder, one per child. Unlike the popular memory box option, which is how we’ve done it until now, using a binder makes it easier to actually flip through and appreciate their art. It also keeps it in order so you can see the progression of their skills over time!

2. School Binders: Use binders not just during the school year but also to archive your student’s best work after the school year ends. Use one color per child or a different color for each grade level.

3. Lego & Game Manuals, Puzzle Guides, etc.: Put manuals in page protectors and keep them in a binder. Not only will you avoid hunting for a missing manual, but the page protectors also, ahem, protect them so that they’ll last longer in better condition.

source: Shaina Olmanson

4. Homemade Books: Homemade books are a great way to teach colors & numbers, body parts, animals and more. Use pictures from magazines or your own collection and use page protectors to make the book more durable.

5. Baseball Card Collection: Besides school papers, this is probably the most obvious way to use a binder for kids, but I still had to add it to the list!

6. Activity Books: Print out activity pages (make your own or search Pinterest for tons of printables) and put them in page protectors to do with dry erase markers for reusable fun!

7. Scrapbooks: Create homemade scrapbooks for a fraction of the cost, a great way to introduce kids to documenting a season or trip with pictures and words!

8. Writing or Poetry Journal: Encourage your kids to write stories and poems and save them in a binder. Similar to an art journal, a writing journal not only showcases their best work but also lets them see their skills progress over time.

source: Mandi Ehman

9. Study Tools: We use a binder for studying our Classical Conversations memory work as part of our homeschooling, but you could use a binder to organize study notes and images for any subject as easy way to study and memorize information.

Naked Binder, a Life Your Way sponsor, makes a line of environmentally friendly binders that are perfect for kids. Not only are they completely recyclable and made from 97% post consumer waste, but they’ve also been independently tested to withstand more than 250,000 flexes. That’s a lot of use!

In addition, the project binders come with your choice of colorful spine wraps so that kids can choose a binder in their favorite color.

What other ways could your kids use these great binders?

	Mandi Ehman is the founder and publisher behind Life…Your Way and the co-author of All in Good Time, as well as a wife and the homeschooling mom to four beautiful girls. She lives with her family on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia and loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

9 Binder Benders for Kids is a post from Life Your Way

© 2010-2012 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Home Your Way subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please send an email to contact@yourway.net to let us know. Thanks.

The following post is from Joshua of Becoming Minimalist:

Source: Lucy*Lou

There’s something very refreshing and life-giving about a clean, uncluttered kitchen counter. It sets tone and culture for the entire home. It communicates calm and order. It promotes opportunity and possibility (who enjoys cooking in a cluttered kitchen?). Not to mention, it saves time and promotes cleanliness.

Yet it is one of the most difficult places in the home to keep clean and tidy. There are, of course, several reasons:

• The kitchen is hard-wired as a natural gathering place for the family (that’s where we keep the food).
• The kitchen is physically located in a high traffic area of the home.
• The purpose of the room requires messes to be made during its use.
• The kitchen is often used as a collection area for various odds and ends (mail, shopping trips, etc.).

While it is one of the difficult places to keep clutter-free, it is often one of the most desirable. Yet, many of us can’t seem to find the answer or quick fix. But maybe there are no quick kitchen counter solutions; maybe we need to change our thinking entirely. Maybe we need to take an intentional look at the reason ours remains cluttered… and then find a solution based on the problem.

Here are seven reasons why your kitchen counter stays cluttered… which of these do you see in your own life?

1. We own too much stuff.

One of the biggest causes of clutter in our homes is our tendency to put too much stuff in to too little of a space. When we do, it becomes difficult to store things, find things, and access them. As a result, we dread putting things away and it begins convenient to just leave things on the counter. Meanwhile, our cupboards and drawers become storage spaces for gadgets we rarely use.

2. Our possessions don’t have designated homes.

One of the most essential steps in organization and keeping a home clutter-free is to find a proper home for every item. We designate drawers for silverware, cupboards for plates, and shelves for food. If your kitchen counter is too cluttered, the first step in creating a clutter-free kitchen counter is to designate a home for each time – especially those you routinely leave out. Those items look different for each of us, but the principle remains consistent.

3. We think we use things more that we actually do.

If your counters are routinely cluttered, there is a good chance you are storing many “daily-use” items there (toasters, coffee makers, teapots, can openers, etc.) for convenience sake. But in reality, those items spend far more time as clutter than they do as needed instruments for food preparation.

For example, if you make toast every morning for breakfast, it’ll take roughly 3 minutes to toast your bread. And then the toaster will sit unused for the next 23 hours and 57 minutes. You actually use it far less than you think you do. Instead, try putting it away every morning for one week (completing steps #1 and #2 will make this easier). You’ll likely be surprised to see how much space those appliances take up.

4. We think leaving things on your counter is more convenient.

The fallacy of convenience is a big reason our kitchen counters stay cluttered. We keeps things in plain sight because we believe it makes our kitchen more convenient. As a result, our counters fill up with baking ingredients, knife racks, cutting boards, and coffee mugs.

And while it may be more convenient to readily grab those items when needed, we rarely notice the other conveniences we are sacrificing by storing them there. We move them every time we wipe the counters. We sacrifice precious prep space when we cook. And they subtly fight for our attention whenever we enter the room.

5. We leave things in our kitchen that don’t belong there.

As I mentioned, kitchens are notorious for becoming collection areas for all various odds and ends. But rarely is your kitchen the proper home for any of them. Change the culture in your home that allows them to stay there. Instead, think of your kitchen as a Department Store Customer Service Area – items enter there, but rarely stay. You can also extend this thinking to items you already store in your kitchen: televisions, radios, telephone books, etc.

6. We leave too many little jobs unfinished.

When a counter is clear and tidy, it becomes motivation to put things away. But a cluttered counter attracts clutter… and unfinished jobs are clutter. Granted some projects take more time than others, but many kitchen jobs (washing the dishes, putting dishes in the dishwasher, wiping the counters, etc.) can be completed right away before ever leaving the kitchen in the first place. And finishing them will do wonders for your attitude the next time you walk in.

7. We forget what we are missing.

We live our lives and get used to them. When we first moved into our house, we noticed all the little improvements that it needed (spots to paint, door handles to tighten, hinges to grease). Some we repaired right away, others we didn’t. And many of those that didn’t get fixed right away, still haven’t been finished – they’ve just become something we get used to and live with.

In the same way, we get used to our cluttered kitchen counters and don’t realize how freeing it can be to keep them clear. We may be reminded when we walk into a friend’s house or see a photo of a simple kitchen, but we’ve become so accustomed to the current state of ours we forget we can change it.

You don’t need to live with a cluttered kitchen countertop. The solution is closer than you think. Identify which of the reasons above are keeping your counters cluttered. And then find an afternoon (or a whole day if needed) to stage your kitchen for living.

Do any of the reasons above resonate with you? Are there any that I missed?

	Joshua Becker inspires and encourages others to live with less on his blog, Becoming Minimalist. He has also authored two e-books, Simplify and Inside-Out Simplicity. But more importantly, he loves his wife and two small children.

7 Reasons Your Kitchen Counters Are Cluttered is a post from Life Your Way

© 2010-2012 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Home Your Way subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please send an email to contact@yourway.net to let us know. Thanks.