Scratch the Christmas Cards off the List!!!

At this point of the season I just want to scratch everything off of my list! This weekend I decided to tackle or attack our Christmas cards. My husband loves for us to send out a card with a picture of the boys. By the time you figure out who to send them to and you sent you one last year that wasn’t on your list, before you know it you are sending out a ton of cards.

Here I am Saturday evening stuffing the picture into each card one after another. Now I am signing all of them with all of the members of our family. Where is my family during all of this, are you thinking? I am thinking the same thing! My oldest one is watching the football game (Texas vs. Nebraska), my youngest one is playing (Texas vs. Nebraska on PlayStation) and my husband is in and out listening to the game on the radio.

I decide to enlist in some help. I called a family timeout, TV time out and asked my husband to grab his radio. I had my oldest putting the cards in the envelope and my youngest putting stamps and return address labels on the envelopes (crooked and diagonal but they are on) while my husband and I addressed the envelopes. It was quite a production. Sure I would have loved to have Christmas songs playing on the stereo and yes we could have all been sitting in front of the fire place…enjoying the Christmas spirit. Instead we are on a roll, knocking them out!!

I know you are wondering where I am going with this? As we were finishing our task as fast as we can, my husband notices that one of the envelopes is not staying shut. He looks to see who it is addressed to and notices it is for one of his friends he likes to tease and joke with all the time. My “three boys”, yes “three boys” decide they are going to tape it, put Ninja Turtle stickers all over it, put a band-aid on it to keep it closed. They wrote on the envelope “warning contents may be hot”!

Never in my life have I heard the three of them laugh so hard, they thought they were so funny! We started off by attacking my Christmas cards as fast as we could so we could all go back to what we were doing and ended up having the time of our life. Our new tradition is to pick one card every year and “decorate” it Lehman style. Who would have known that it would have turned out to be a great Christmas memory and isn’t that what it is all about?!?!?

By Michelle Lehman Organizing Solutions “Clear the Clutter”

Organizing Your Spending

Yes, I am going to try and organize your spending. I know, I know I have gone over the line this time but if someone doesn’t cross it you maybe wondering how to organize your budget after the first of the year.

First of all, find all of your available balances on your credit cards and your interest rate. If you don’t have to use them great, but just in case, let’s try use the credit cards wisely. I would use the card with the lowest interest rate and leave the rest of your cards at home so it will be easier to calculate your holiday spending. This will help you from accidently grabbing the wrong card at the checkout. Not only with this protect your budget it will protect your wallet. Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of shopping for all those gifts we loose our wallet or worse yet it is stolen. Can you imagine trying to cancel ALL of your credit cards and losing your personal information?

Speaking of which if you have not already made copies of all of your credit cards front and back of the card (account number is on the front and the toll free number for the credit card company is on the back along with a three digit security code number). If you don’t have a copier PLEASE take the time to write all the information down. I promise this will give you peace of mind knowing you have all of your information at your finger tips and you don’t have to guess or scramble to find all the account numbers.

Quick reminder, don’t over organize your holiday receipts. Keep it simple…one envelope or shoe box…all receipts no matter who the gifts are for, including you and your husband. Just fold the receipt into an a tiny square if you think he might take a peak and smudge some lipstick on a corner to make sure it hasn’t been opened.

Happy shopping and I promise I am not trying to drive you crazy, I will save that until after the first of the year!

By Michelle Lehman with Organizing Solutions “Clear the Clutter”

Decorating in an Organized Style

Can you believe Christmas is going to be here in a few weeks? I swear I can still smell turkey in my house! Not only did I not go shopping on Black Friday, I didn’t finish decorating our house for Christmas. Football won my vote on Friday!

I love decorating our house for Christmas. With that being said, I like to decorate in a organized style. I am not artsy fartsy, shocking I know…I am very methodical about how I do things and I like to accomplish my tasks in a timely manner.

To save time and effort for me, I take pictures of my Christmas decorations in each room so that when I pull out my decorations I don’t have to try and remember how I did it last year or worse yet try to come up with some fantastic new decorating idea. Besides balance and having everything symmetrical is very important to me. Who would of guessed, uh!?!? I have found taking pictures really saves time and there is no guess work involved.

As you put up your Christmas decorations take some of your current decorations down so you home does feel so cluttered or dare I say it…like a “blue light special” going on in your family room. Enjoy the simplicity of your Christmas decorations.

If there are a few items left over in you holiday supply that didn’t get used this year and they are not a “special” ornament, we have a beady eyed Santa that my husband had as a child that scares me so he stays protected and never comes out! If you happen to have extra Christmas ornaments or decorations now would be a great time to donate them. Sadly there are many families this year that are struggling and would love to have your Christmas decorations. Just a thought…

Don't Worry, It's Not the End of the World

It’s Thanksgiving week and the house does not need to be organized in order to eat turkey. As a matter of fact, the closet can be stuffed and so can the turkey. I know you would love everything to be perfect but it doesn’t have to be. Let it go, focus and what really matters and enjoy the preparation of Thanksgiving.

You have invited family and friends into your home to celebrate Thanksgiving and you have so many things to be thankful for this year. I say if any of your friends or family start snooping through your closets or even mention that you have a little clutter…no pumpkin pie for them!!!

I am asking you to relax, let it go, enjoy and put a smile of your face…company is coming and your house doesn’t need to be perfect! Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers!

Organize Toys Now, to Make Room for More Toys?!?!?

No, I am not kidding…have you looked around your house? The toys are taking over your entire home and Christmas is right around the corner. How will all the new toys fit into their bedroom or playroom? They start out in a bedroom or playroom and before you know it, they've spread to every room in the house. It's almost as though they multiply or come to life at night like Toy Story and invite friends to come for a sleepover!

If you take the time to organize the toys now, this will help give you some gifts ideas for Christmas and at the same time make room for all the new presents. The key to organizing toys is finding a “home” for all the toys. Children can learn to put toys away if the method is simple and easy.

Start by clearing the clutter. Gather all the toys together in the room you choose to have their toys instead of the whole house. Sort the good toys from the junk and either donate the things that are in good. If you happen to find new toys, now would be a great time to donate them for Toys for Tots. Repair any toys that are meaningful to them and throw away things that are trash.

Sort toys into appropriate bins and storage. Toys that are alike should go into the same bin. Power Rangers in one bin, cars in another…if you have girls Barbies in one, Little Pet Shop in another, you get the idea. One little addition I would like to add is make sure if that you keep toys close to each other if your child plays with them together. For instance if your daughter always has Barbie take care of the pets from Little Pet Shop, keep the bins side by sides so that clean up is quick and easy.

If you feel that you need to a label your bins and your child is not reading, print pictures from the toy stores; laminate the picture and velcroe it to the bin.
If space is a problem in their room. Try hanging toy organization tools on doors. Over-the-door shoe hangers are perfect for organizing small toys, stuffed animals, Barbies or even Match Box Cars.

I use Ziploc Bags to store “accessories” from Barbie, G.I Joes, for organizing the pieces they don’t play with very often. Not only is less of a mess to clean up but hopefully your feet won’t get anymore on those small pieces. Boy does that hurt, I swear Legos are the worst on your feet! I would suggest you place the bags in a bin on a top shelf and get them down when the child asks for them. So many times, they just want to play with the person and really don’t want to change out guns or shoes.

Rotating toys is a great way to keep children entertained and interested in playing with their toys. Every month or so, rotate the bins so that your child has something new to play with.
Designate a time once a week for room cleaning. Everyday, your child should put their toys away, but once a week they could make sure that all of their toys are in the rights spot to prevent a future mess. "A place for everything and everything in its place."

By Michelle Lehman, Organizing Solutions “Clear the Clutter” www.organizingsolutions.info

Recyling Your Tennis Shoes!

Oh my goodness, this is the coolest thing ever! I just learned about this very cool program by Nike ReUSE A SHOE that recycles athletic/tennis shoes in any condition, or any other brand and turns them into sports surfaces! They collect shoes from partnering retail stores and other shoe recycling centers.

The shoes are taken apart in three sections. The rubber on the bottom, the sole of the shoe and the fabric of the shoe and they place them onto three different conveyer belts to get ground up. After it has been through the “Nike Grind” they use the material to make running tracks, tennis court's, basketball courts and play grounds. How cool is that?!?!?

This is from their website to give you better details of the Nike Grind process….

“No matter how your shoes are processed, the end result is the same – three high-quality Nike Grind materials ready to be put back in the game:

Nike Grind Rubber, made from the shoe's outsole, is used in track surfaces, interlocking gym flooring tiles, playground surfacing and even new Nike products, such as the outsoles of the Nike Pegasus or the Jordan XX3. It’s also used in trim items like buttons and zipper pulls.

Nike Grind Foam, made from the shoe's midsole, is used as a cushion for outdoor basketball and tennis courts, as well as futsal fields.

Nike Grind Fiber, made from the shoe's fabric upper, is used in the creation of cushioning pads for facilities like indoor synthetic courts and wood courts. “

Maybe now would be a great time to organize your shoes!

Organizing Your Gift List

I don’t know about you but we don’t have any trees with money growing on them. I keep looking out our back door but still no money trees. I know several of you will be attending the 918CouponQueens Black Friday Workshop tonight and will get great tips on how to save money this holiday season. I would like to back up a bit to make sure that you purchase things that you need and not just because it was a great deal.

So many people have a gift closet or gift tote of over bought presents. I will tell you I am probably the worst offender when it comes to my boys. We will make a list, I will check it off and then I keep seeing “extra things” that I think the NEED to have, I ended over buying every year.

I realize if we all had the financial opportunity we would buy gifts for everyone down to the school crossing guard. Sometimes we have to make choices and maybe this year we need to cut back a little so that we are not overwhelmed with the credit card bills in January. This is going to require some planning and budgeting so you are not scrambling the week before Christmas and just buying something to buy it.

Take some time to sit down to make a gift list of everyone you might possibly want to give a gift too. I would suggest if you don’t have a money tree in your backyard, you put a $ amount by the person’s name so you can have a budget for your gifts. If you have budget of $1000 for everyone and your $ amount by each person is adding up to $1300, you need to do some trimming and I don’t mean the Christmas tree.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your list and budget, go ahead and choose the people that are most important to buy a gift for. Maybe this year you could bake cookies for some people on your list instead of buying a gift. You could ask your siblings if they would like to draw a names in place of everyone buying something for everyone to help save money. We used to buy for our sisters and brothers and found out that all we were doing was exchanging gift cards, now we just buy for our nieces and nephews.

Once you have your list written out and your budget in place, now is the time to put the 918CouponQueen's suggestions into action. Look for deals, coupons and rebates to save money. Save all of you receipts in one envelope marked Christmas gifts. Nothing is worse searching high and low for a receipt to find you have lost it and can not return the gift.

Do you enjoy gift buying Christmas gifts, or do you find it stressful? How do you make sure you stay in your budget?