One of the things on our New Year’s Resolution list is to simplify and organize. Over the past year, we’ve organized a few areas of the house – like our coffee station, our touch up paint collection, the tool drawer in the laundry room and my office storage system. BUT… we still have a “junk drawer” in the kitchen and areas like the foyer and guest room closets could also use a little purging and re-organization. In light of that, I really want to get this year in gear and aim to simplify and organize every nook and cranny of the house. Obviously, it’s not going to happen overnight – especially since we have so many other projects up our sleeves for this year – but we’re setting out to tackle spaces here and there little by little. Baby steps.

The key to organizing a space (even something as small as the junk drawer in the kitchen) is doing it in a way that will allow you to keep everything in order. Otherwise, you’ll be reorganizing things every few weeks, which totally defeats the purpose of organizing in the first place. To accomplish this, it’s good to have an arsenal of organizing supplies on hand – or what I like to call our “Organizing Toolbox”. Here’s what’s in ours…

1. Metal Bookplate Labels – These are what I call “fancy labels”. They’re great for permanent labeling and the adhesive backing makes them that much easier to use. They have a way of dressing up an ordinary shelf or basket. I’ve used them inside our storage furniture and on the spine of binders. When I’m close to running out, I always buy a few back up packages just in case. In other words, they’re a must.

2. Small Paper Rope Baskets - I’m pretty obsessed with these little baskets. It seems like every time I go to Target, I end up picking up one or two. They fit perfectly in the upper kitchen cabinets, and the lining comes out in case you don’t need/want it or need to clean it. As far as storage baskets go, they’re really affordable too – you can get a set of 6 for $29. They also look great with a metal bookplate on the front.

3. Label Maker - I love using a label maker. It’s a no-brainer when organizing anything – even the left overs from Thanksgiving! I especially like this label maker because you have a nice selection of fonts and styles to choose from. If you’re looking for one a little on the simpler side of things, I also have this one and it’s really great (and easy!).

4. Home Maintenance Binder - Aside from my daily/monthly planner binder, it’s ideal to have a home maintenance binder to keep track of warranties, important phone numbers (like the tile guy and the flooring guy), serial numbers, etc. I’m still in the process of perfecting our “system”, but it’s definitely on my list of things to do before we get started with the nitty gritty organizing around here so I can update it as we go along. As for my daily/monthly planner, this year I’m using this daily planner system designed by my friend, Jen, over at iHeart Organizing. It’s so well-designed, it’s practical and I really love the colors. You can preview and buy the printable pages over on her Etsy store here.

5. Command Hooks - Whoever invented these things is one smart cookie. They are great to use inside cabinet doors and in random “secret places”. For instance, I have one just inside the linen closet (on the wall, right next to the door frame) that holds a pair of scissors. Having a pair on hand it so convenient – like, if I’m in our room and need to get a price tag off of something, a pair of scissors is just right there, two steps away, rather than way on the other side of the house. The fact that the hooks are easily removable and won’t mess up the surface is a major plus.

6. Sharpie Pens - For some reason, I think better when I use a pen that writes really nicely. I love the Sharpie pens because you get the look and feel of a fine-point Sharpie (which I love using) without having to worry about the ink bleeding through my paper. These are great to use on calendars, for quick notes and the next item on our list…

7. Post-It Notes - Sure, these are great for notes on your desk, but they also come in handy as quick labels in the midst of the organizing process. For example, when we cleaned out our closet over the weekend, we had one pile for keep, one for trash and one for Goodwill. I just used a Post-It on the wall to label the pile – easy peasy!

Do you have any specific things in your organizing tool box? Or any tips or tricks we need to know? Be sure to share them in the comments!

Happy Thursday! I just wanted to pop in and let you guys know about my post over at iHeart Organizing today. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen me mention this past weekend how we finally got around to buying a coffee maker. While Greg saw this addition as a morning must have, I found the new appliance to be a perfect excuse to break out the bookplate labels and baskets. My idea of a good time!

Click on over to the post and get your organize on! Oh, and if you haven’t visited Jen over at iHeart Organizing before, beware! You’ll be utterly amazed at her organizing handy work, wish your house was that organized and later realize you’ve been sitting there reading for four hours. Don’t say I didn’t warn you… ; )

Since I’ve got you here anyway, I might as well remind you that today is the last day to enter the Cutting Edge Stencil giveaway!

While going through renovations (or just everyday life) walls are bound to get nicked, scratched and scuffed. For this reason, we’ve been finding ourselves frequently lugging cans of paint in and out of the attached storage shed (which is insulated, and therefore safe for paint storage).

While I was at the grocery store the other day, I spotted these cute 4 oz Ball Jelly Jars. Being on an organization kick lately, I figured I’d find something to do with them and they were only $8 for 12 jars. So in my cart they went! When I got home, I immediately knew what we’d use them for. Touch up paint!

We “canned” the paint colors for each room in the house (which only totals up to three paint colors) along with the paint we used for the trim, front door and the kitchen cabinet touch up paint that Lowe’s gave us when our cabinets were installed.

Even though the jars are clear and you can see what color the paint is without opening it, I labeled each jar with the important information including the color (and the color code if it had one), brand, finish and where in the house we used it. I didn’t have any sticker labels on hand, so I just printed the information on card stock then traced the lid around the information and cut it out. Then placed it between the lid and the metal screw band. I actually like this option better than stickers because I can easily change it down the road if I need to for some reason rather than dealing with annoying sticker residue.

They’re almost pretty enough to display, aren’t they?! But for now we are keeping them in the laundry room tool drawer. It’s so nice to have the paint easily on hand. I’ve even been finding myself looking to scratches to touch up! : )