Holiday Card Organization

For those of your who haven’t had a chance to sign up for my subscription program, it is up and running and we’ve had a great response! I’d hate for you guys to miss out on such an awesome deal. I’m taking my readers through a hands-on program to revamp their lives without paying my professional fee. For those of you who are looking for that perfect gift for that well-intended, but perhaps messy little animal/best friend/boss/lover in your life, seriously consider gifting my program. It will help them come to terms with the clutter and start taking action! Now, on to my tips for all of those cards that are accumulating this time of year!

After you’ve set up the tree and found a spot to display cards from your friends and family, it will soon be time to find a way to store the keepsakes and make the hard decision of ‘to keep, or not to keep.’

·       Find decorative boxes that insight joy for your keepsake cards. These should be the lovely cards that make you smile, bring back joyful memories, or the cards you just can’t part with. Keep them in your beautiful box to keep year after year. Be picky—this box should bring you nostalgic happiness for years to come.

·       For the cards that you have purchased to gift to others and didn’t get a chance to use, stored in a similarly gorgeous box or bin that’s clearly labeled. This will come in handy next year and will be sure to save you money in the long run. Instead of misplacing unused cards or letting them get wrinkled in an obscure junk pile, just toss them in an easy-to-access box for a future gifting occasion.

I hope you’re all enjoying the season and feeling prepared and orderly for the upcoming holiday! 

If you enjoyed my tips above, don’t forget to check out my monthly subscription for an entire life remodel, you won’t regret it!

Your Life Revamped Subscription: Don’t Miss out on our November Subscription!

Hello everyone, if you haven’t heard our exciting news, listen up! Your Life Revamped has launched a new subscription program that will provide you with even more helpful tips for professional organizing in your home! We are ecstatic about the design of our chic and functional November printouts—you have to see them! And this is such a great month to start working on your home, with the holidays just around the corner. Our new program takes you room by room, through a progressive course to declutter your life and create a more efficient home organization system. I will show you how to integrate our course to minimize stress and live joyfully in your home. Yearly subscriptions are a great gift! Follow the link below to find details about pricing—you won’t want to miss out.

November is packed with all the materials to make the most of the upcoming holiday season. It’s all about maximizing the magic of the season! Check out our NEW SITE to get started!

be a wrapping paper boss this season

It’s beginning to look a lot like WRAPPING PAPER SEASON! You know what I’m taking about: the cute reindeer prints, the embellished snowflakes, and golden swirls that have already started popping up in every store. No gift is complete without beautiful wrapping. It is my experience that giving gifts is a lot less stressful when your life and home feel organized and put together. The stress of having to find the right box, wrapping paper, ribbon, and gift tags can be overwhelming, especially when trying to juggle the extra responsibilities the season brings.  

Keep your wrapping station tidy with this guide on wrapping paper storage (apply year-round):

·      Store gift bags within gift bags. Think Russian nesting dolls! It’s an easy storage concept that allows you to easily coordinate the right gifts for the right size. If you have the space available, I also like to store gift bags flat in a drawer or a flat bin if this is more functional for your space.

·      If you don’t already have one, pick up a tall bin to store those beautiful rolls. Nothing’s worse than pulling out a torn or wrinkled roll due to improper storage.

·      Store ribbon in an easily-accessible bin—a shallow one may be best. Spools of ribbon stack easily side by side for maximum visibility. Use pins to tack down the ends of your ribbon so that no unraveling occurs while in storage.

·      Store tissue in a flat bin that tucks and stacks nicely in a holiday storage closet.

 The holidays may become overwhelming if you don’t start planning in advance, so set up your wrapping paper station in advance so you can enjoy the process of wrapping and decorating your gifts this season.

For those of you who have already started shopping early, read more about preparing early for gift giving on my post about gift boxes. 

Closet Organization for Joyful Living

Closet organization, while it may seem complicated and daunting, is actually one of the most satisfying and straightforward tasks when tackling a room. After you’ve channeled all of that wonderful Kondo-ness from our girl Marie Kondo, decluttering and removing unnecessary items in the space, you should feel ready to approach joyful organization with calm excitement. Let’s get to the details:

First off, the clothing in your closet should be facing you when you enter your closet. For those who feel this is ridiculous, think of it this way—would you want a friend to greet you without looking up from a screen? Your clothing should feel inviting and function as a source of comfort and structure. If you go about creating joyful closet space, even if it takes some time, you should find your items more quickly, they will look better, and un-coincidentally, YOU will look better.

The next step is categorizing your closet. Take time to do this in a similar way that you would your pantry: Tops separate from bottoms, socks separate from shoes etc. My closet breaks down into tanks, t-shirts, long sleeves, collared shirts, cardigans, blazers, jackets—you get the idea.

Within the categories that you’ve made, take the extra step of ordering them by color as well. However, if you can’t commit to categorizing by both, item AND by color, choose the former. Categorizing by color alone is a great way for articles to get lost in the depths of wardrobe space.

For those of you who have already taken the steps to perfect and beautify your closet, how has creating an organized closet promoted joy in your life? Leave your comments and questions below.

Gift Boxes for Smart Foxes

My mother—queen of gifting—since I can remember has designated gift boxes that were stashed away in our house. Looking back on a function that once puzzled me, I realize now that it’s a stroke of genius for anyone looking to save time and become more efficient. She had a separate large box for every occasion to make it as easy as possible to be prepared for any event or party.

Find a spot in your house that you can safely store some large boxes to hold any fun gifts that you’d like to keep on hand. I know that when I’m shopping and see a great deal on an item I tend to gravitate toward anyway, I save time, money, and extra trips to the store—especially if it’s a bustling holiday like Christmas!

Implement boxes into your storage space to make your kid’s friend birthday parties, weddings, bridal showers, and baby showers fast and simple to prepare for—not to mention the money you’ll save along the way!

Create a Kid-friendly Craft Station: Fun for All Sizes

Now that the school year is fully underway, it’s a great time to focus on organizing a space for your children to work on their school projects, as well as have a great place for them to play as the weather gets increasingly chilly and play time is moved indoors. A craft station that can be cleaned up and moved out of the way is a necessary part of your home—unless you like chasing your 5-year-old child with the permanent marker that was left out while making Halloween crafts for school the next day.

·       Start with an extra-large multi-purpose bin (I like this one from the container store) as the basis of your craft station.

·       Fill neatly with coloring books, crayons, markers and any other crafty supplies that need to be an easy grab for your little ones.

·       Voila! This is such an easy project! Just find a convenient space to store the bin and you have an all-in-one craft station that’s easy to get out and put away for both you and your young artisans.

Make sure you only bring out the craft station when your children are supervised. Having it put together neatly will absolutely relieve the anxiety that straggling art supplies can cause. For those of you with crafty young ones, what other items would you add to a craft station? Please include in the comments below!

Where you “Bin” Traveling?

While I might be on the road more than the average person, I still think it’s helpful to have a travel bin ready to go at all times. This seriously helps to eliminate stress around all things ‘travel,’ whether it is a surprise weekend getaway, or that work conference you completely spaced! Get a large bin and let’s get started:

·       Ok, first off, make sure you don’t just throw it all in the large encompassing bin, let’s organize all of your go-to travel necessities nicely.

·       My second favorite tip (second only to “bins, bins, bins”) is bags within bags. Put all of your travel-size toiletries in categories first, and then continue by placing them in corresponding bags. Easy enough, right?

·       I suggest picking up a travel-size steamer to keep in the travel bin—they are a dream on the road!

·       I carry a travel journal everywhere, and this bin is the place to keep this gem.

·       Include a fan and a cute pair of sunglasses that you know will be comfortable as you travel, but aren’t your prized possession—I know that the sunglasses that I usually lose or break are usually on the road.

·       One of your tiny bags will have your electronic travel needs: headphones, splitter, and the like.

·       Any empty travel containers should go in your bin—don’t hog up the much needed bathroom cupboards with these.

Remember that this bin is meant to make packing easy and much more fun. It cuts out extra time spent looking in all of the nooks and corners for small shampoo, or the high-SPF sunscreen for your tropical vacation in January.

I packed a bin like this for my sweet husband so he knows exactly where to go to find all of his packing necessities. This travel bin has been such a lifesaver on all of the occasions where I’m dragging him along with me last minute.