Tuesday, November 3, 2009

New Contest

I am having a new contest.

Help me get organized. I would like your best suggestions for getting organized. We will have a 3 judge panel. Just leave you comment and you can win 4 skeins of yarn from my stash, it will be a natural fibre or $20 to spend at http://www.tinyurl.com/handmadebysheri my Art Fire studio. Each suggestion will be good for 1 entry into the contest. multiple entries are allowed. I have 6 weeks till Teri gets home and want to show some progress in zenning.

So lets get those suggestion coming in. You have till Saturday, November 7th midnight MST.

Thank you in advance for your input.

Enjoy your families and have a nice day.

22 comments:

  1. I'm only semi-organized myself, so I'm not sure I have great suggestions!! But for me, I found that the most important thing is to be careful about what things I bring into the house to begin with, and to try to balance bringing the new with clearing out the old.

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  2. shelves work wonders :) what kinds of things are you looking to organize?

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  3. The clear drawers on rollers work great for organizing you can easily move them around when needed and see what is in each drawer without pulling them out:) Hugs Darcy
    darcysknottyknitter@gmail.com

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  4. I suck at keeping organized because of a singular lack of time. But one of my favourite tips was to throw two things out every day. Even if they're little things, it helps you keep focussed on the eventual goal.

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  5. A very inexpensive way to organize is using those very large Rubbermaid (or cheap imitation) plastic bins. They are stackable. I organize by yarn weight and within each bin I put color families together in large ziplock bags.

    So I have a sock yarn bin (with bags of blues, bags of reds, ...), a bulky yarn bin, a worsted weight, etc.

    The outside of each bin is labeled with the contents for easy retrieval, and you can buy clear bins if you like. An added bonus is double protection of the yarn from nasties - sealed bags inside of sealed bins.

    It has changed my life! Really.

    By the way, I used to use the drawers Darcy mentioned and I swore by them UNTIL on a couple of occasions, over-crammed drawers got stuck and yarn got caught in between the outer drawer and the shell they go into. That's when I moved to bins.

    And you can buy wheely things that go under the bins to move them if you want, by the way.

    It will take you no time at all to do the organization and then you'll have 5 1/2 weeks to knit or buy more yarn till Teri arrives!

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  6. I like the clear plastic rolling drawers and the clear plastic boxes to store and organize things in. Just make sure to label the contents. On the dark colors you have to open the boxes to see the contents. I label them like Teresa's summer clothes or yarn, etc.

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  7. pick at least one small area each day, even if it is just 20 minutes time to sort through, then seriously resort and be tough.(have i touched this in the last 12 months...)Have you seen the show clean sweep? this truly is a great way to get organized... take everything out of an area and go through it, and then you can get organized without the shuffling of goods. ** lol, beware of over doing plastic bins!! Sorry, but i have ocd, and organizing is one of my things. Came in super handy when we did the big move across the ocean a few years back though!

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  8. Clear plastic or use Ravelry to remind you where it is stored (it does have a "stored in" tabby thing... use it!). Also seeing all my yarn in 1 place, like Ravelry's stash page, makes it oh so easy to not have to dig through things or know that you will NEVER use that.

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  9. I am a big fan of using tall open utility shelves or bookcases to organize. I have my entire stash in large ziplocs or clear plastic bags (if it's come that way when I've ordered a sweater's worth of something) on shelving. By getting tall ones, it lets you use height so they don't take up much room. We also used them for toys in my daughter's room and stuffed animals (in addition to books, of course). But the rule was always that since they were visible, they had to be nicely arranged - no just stuffing things on them that you'll fix "later"

    For the stash I put everything in plastic, arranged by color making it easy to retrieve just what I want and see just how much I have which sometimes even stops my from buying things when I see that I already have XX skeins of sock yarn in shades of blue. :-) I use shallow shelving so they don't take up much room around the walls and mean that nothing is buried behind something else.

    I use the same system for quilting fabric stash where it is essential that I know just what I have when I am designing a quilt. Fat quarters are all neatly folded by color on shelves. I have one set of shelves for solids and a different on for prints. This organization has been a godsend.

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  10. Assign a limited amount of space for things that don't have a place of their own, and go through those things often to find them places or get rid of them. (By "limited amount of space" I mean something you can go through in half an hour or less. Don't do what we did and use something like the basement.)

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  11. I have lot of boxes with tags :)

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  12. Every time you get up, put something away in that room. Every time you leave the room, take something that belongs in another room and put it away. Every time you enter a room put something in that room away.

    Decide on homes for everything. Not only does it make it faster to put away, it makes it easier to find.

    Good Luck!

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  13. Pick a reasonable amount of time - maybe an hour or two, and focus on one smallish area for that time. Then, reward yourself with an hour of something you love doing - knitting, walking, reading, biking, baking whatever. You will be surprised how quickly the work will go when you have something to look forward to at the end of the tunnel.

    And remember, your house did not get disorganized in a day, so don't expect it to get organized over-night. Don't be too hard on yourself.

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  14. My suggestion is to sort through and purge everything first. Then sort into groups of like items. Only after you've done all that should you purchase any kind of organizational system or containers, etc. Most people make the mistake of buying a bunch of containers before they know what they need to put into them and the containers become more clutter in your home.
    Chrissy at knittoday(at)hotmail(dot)com

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  15. i am not a very organized person (as my mother will tell you) but what i like to do with my craft supplies is keep all the yarn in a big bin with a lid, to keep bugs and other things out, except when i'm working with a certain yarn, that one i keep in a tote bag with any supplies needed for that craft, and my knitting needles are kept in canisters. this works well for straight needles, not so well for circulars :)

    sadiekate2001 at yahoo.com

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  16. I like the flylady method for organizing. Set a timer for 15 mins go through one bin or box for those 15 mins. Timer goes off you are done for that day or you can set it again don't pull out more than you can put back in that 15 mins. Shelves are great. Baskets that fit on them neatly help your items look nice without being busy. Rubbermaid plastic totes are my favorite for safe longer time storage items.

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  17. I use airtight bins (to protect from moths) and group by type. Cotton here, laceweight there, and that bin's full of merino roving. Once I move I'm getting an antique china cabinet. Those glass-protected shelves will show off all my pretty single balls.

    I use a set of zippered pencil cases (Target, a few bucks each) for my circs and dpns. 0-4, 5-9, etc. I don't use straights anymore.

    I use a cosmetic bag to corral all my notions. Tape measure, needle gauger, etc. Stitch markers are in a mint tin inside that bag, too, and the whole thing lives in my Ton Bihn utility tote, which is my knitting bag. Large enough to carry two projects and a purse!

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  18. I love clear plastic bags, drawers, boxes--I don't need to label as much when I can see what I've got. I also love spacebags--they're one of the greatest things--because once you let the air out--you've doubled-tripled your space. I have 2 or 3 different measures, and other knit-accessories so I keep 3 different clear make-up bags so I can grab one for the car, one beside me, and one in case I lose something!

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  19. I'm not organized at all, so I put the things below my bed, LOL, just kidding!!!, I use plastic clear boxes and they're in shelves in my room, and they're full with sewing, knitting and crochet supplies, I have them organized, btw, I don't need to open them, just label what's inside and the fact the boxes are plastic clear, I can see what's inside of them.

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  20. Hello! My mom is super-organized, and so she keeps us on top of organizing. :) One thing that worked surprisingly well was once a month, she has us go through our rooms and pick 5-10 things that we don't need--even including yarn stash. I mean, really, do you REALLY need that wool/acrylic blend sitting in the corner of your stash? Another thing that works wonders on my yarn stash is hanging cubbie organizers, which look like mesh shelves, but at the top have a hanger top, so you can hang your entire stash in a coat closet or even in your regular closet. :)

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  21. I would tackle organizing 15 minutes at a time, trying not to do it all in one day or week. Takes longer, but you keeps your sanity. This became necessary for me after having kids, but was confirmed by www.flylady.com. She and her peers are the bomb. I think of flylady as therapy for perfectionists, and a savior to the slobs of the world.

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  22. For some reason I don't like storing my yarn in plastic, something do with my eco-values as well as the fact I was taught to store quilts in clean muslin instead of plastic. Anyway, I have been buying these large glass canisters with metal tops from IKEA to store my 1-2 balls of leftover yarns or just one skein purchases. Easy to review what I have and can even decorate with them.

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