Baskets and Bookplates

So, even though I know my house (and in particular, my living room) is full of unfinished projects, I also know that any decorating I do will be eclipsed by the insane messiness that is my daily life.

I am just a mess.

The thing is, in general, the messes don’t bother me (except for their detracting from my pretty decorating).  I get blind to them. There are little piles of things all over, and I generally know what’s in each pile, so they don’t look messy to me. My problem is that if things don’t have a specific place, I’m scared to put them “away” in a random place. Because if things are hidden away in a random place, I will most certainly never be able to find them.

As I’ve stated, my current solution is just to leave things all over the place in piles. But a better solution, for my marriage, for my decorating, and for getting ready for company coming, is to get organized and find a place for things to live.

My friend Nicolette is on a mission to help me organize my house. (We bartered. In exchange, I remodeled her wedding dress.)

One of our first small steps was on the living room bookshelves.

I like a fun, busy look on bookshelves, but there is definitely a fine line between fun/busy and just plain cluttered.

First, we cleared off non-book and non-decorative items from the shelves. (Here’s what the bookshelves looked like when we first put them up…they are a great catch-all!)

Then, I found some baskets around the house that match the wood tones of our floors (a suggestion from my designer friend, Valerie). Besides matching the floors, the baskets can now be the catch-alls…thus cleaning up my junk and keeping the bookshelves looking neat. 

Here’s where we are now. It’s not done, but it’s looking much better.

But in the spirit of organizing, I wanted to label the baskets…so that there’s never an excuse to not put something away, and so that I can always be assured that I’ll be able to find things later.

So I got to work.

I wanted the labels to be changeable, so I dug out these bookplates that I got on clearance from the scrapbooking section of JoAnn’s a while ago.

You’re supposed to be able to glue them right onto whatever your project is and be done.

But my baskets were a little too textured.

So I decided to glue the bookplates to thin cardboard, then glue the cardboard-backed bookplate to the basket.

I traced the bookplate out onto cardboard from a mailing envelope, cut out the cardboard, used Loctite super glue gel to glue the cardboard to the bookplate, then the whole thing to the basket. Slip a little piece of paper (a little paper label, if you will) inside the bookplate, and you’re done!

Labeled baskets with organized contents…all neat and cute on the shelf.

This small change is really making a difference in my “picking up the house” process. I can’t wait to keep this organizing trend going!

Upcoming organizing projects with Nicolette include the kitchen, the huge pantry, the rest of the living room, the closets, and the guest room/junk room.  So, pretty much the whole house.

Of course I will keep you updated.

What about you? Any good organizing ideas and tips? Of course, I keep pinning good ideas on Pinterest, but I’d like to hear/see any others you’ve got!