Organized Sewing Kit Story

Once upon time we had a sewing kit which looked like this...

DIY diaper changing organizer

One of my favourite projects that really work for years now is my toddler DIY changing diaper organizer. I know I have shared it before but I thought also of making an update as some changes occurred. My toddler grew up a little and he no longer sticks in a place so some habits and activities changed. Another reason is because I didn't share an exact tutorial of how to make it. So here we are.

Organizing shoes

In our entryway we have an Ikea BISSA shoes organizer. As a reason we used to have an empty entryway for a couple of years, we decided to buy some pieces of furniture to be pretty and also functional in the entryway, so we decided to buy this pretty shoes organizer as one of those pieces to store our daily worn shoes.

It was kind of organized at the beginning but a while later it started to become messy and jam-packed with flip-flops and shoes. It is a little bit of a shame to show you how it looked before.

A simple mail center

The simplicity of a project is very important to keep it usable and functional. In our house entryway, we have a very simple mail system. Beside the shoes storage we added two simple magazines' racks. I decided to specify them to manage and organize all papers that come in and out our home in the mean time before they get filed.

We have a black shoes storage. I found these magazines' rack in an office supplies shop. Each one costs 100 EGP which are 13$. I wish I had them in black but I couldn't find them in colours. I solved the problem by purchasing some black files and put them inside the clear organizers. They look now more fantastic than I thought. Each one of these two racks is divided into two pockets. I aimed to keep the mail center as simple as possible to be easy for all family members to use. So four sections for the whole system are more than enough for me to sort papers.

The first two pockets are holding all papers that come in and out of the home. Inbox for incoming mail and Outbox for outgoing one. Paying bills as soon as possible and checking the mail daily are excellent tips for keeping your papers organized. So these two categories are so helpful when I feel lazy to sort the mail in more details or when I am in a hurry. When I get the mail, the whole papers are kept in the inbox section till the time they get sorted. The Outbox section holds the papers that need to go somewhere out of the house.

The other two pockets are used when I have some time to sort the mail. "To File" is the pocket where I put any papers that need to be filed in the office room or in my receipts file. Any papers I want to keep like paid bills or bank statements are kept in there.

Any bills need to be paid, paper that needs an action to call, to reserve or to ask for more details are all kept in the "To Process" pocket. It also holds any papers I want to take look at like catalogues or invitations. Any other unneeded papers are thrown away in the trash can after blacking out some sensitive information.



How to you sort your mail? What are the categories you specify for it? I am waiting for you to share your organizing projects to inspire me. See you in the up-coming post.

Happy Easter + Back again

It has been a long time since I released my last post. I really missed my few beautiful readers and I missed blogging so much. It was a hard way to go through to be able to back in blogging. I was making some changes in house and redesigning some of stuff places.  I just needed some time to get myself organized with bunch of challenges I am living with around my home.  You will excuse me if I said that I have no pantry. No coat closet. No linen closet. No laundry room. No basement or garage. I have smallest kitchen ever. I live in two bathrooms and one kitchen house with no closed cabinets under any sink. I know I can get some extra furniture and wardrobes and add some storages everywhere but as you know, we are renting the house and moving into smaller house is an option and I like to be sure I will not end up with throwing away some furniture plus I like the challenges and problem solving. So I am so excited about coming back and share all my solutions I came up with in the upcoming posts.

you also may noticed that www.sweetntidy.blogspot.com is changed into www.sweetntidy.com. Yes, I made some changes to our blog and I am looking forward a cleaner and neater look for its pages. Also looking forward improving my writing and photographing skills.


It's Easter time. I hope these beautiful Easter eggs give a good reason to forgive me for this long time of absence. And I will take the chance to say Happy Easter for you and please enjoy the beautiful weather as much as you can.

In Easter and some special events, I like to show up my talent in decorating and DIYing. Easter is a good chance for playing with colors. I tried as much as I can to break the eggs as cleaner as possible with keeping the egg shape at the same time. It took some time but it worth it.

I also chose my son little basket he plays with to act as a home of my Easter eggs. Speaking about colors and fragile eggs, if you have toddlers do not try this at home :D :D. There were some accidents but they finally went fine. Maybe I should apology for taking his beautiful handmade basket.

I used bright colors and tried some beautiful shapes and flowers. Wasn't so hesitated to use some black. It gives awesome contrasts. also cutting some light brown scrap papers was a good idea to fill in the bottom of the basket to give that kind of nest look. I loved how they become and they are ready to decorate my home.

For me I liked not to make the shapes so perfect and show a little hand drawing and  avoiding so sharp and harsh lines and shapes. I like it that way because it shows up the DIY atmosphere and home warmness a little, right?

Using some color markers would be great also for drawing some shapes and flower. For me I used water colors and it turned out so beautifully also with the paint brush.

So, This is how I decorated my Easter eggs. I like to hear from you how do you spend your Easter time and I will be happy I you share your Easter eggs.

Make your own Magic hanger

Remember those magic hangers we see on TV and here and there over the internet ?

You know how much this saves space, right?. It is useful for small closets and limited spaces. I wish I could buy too many, but why I have to buy when I already have a free one in my home? I just inspired the idea and it's all  done. I couldn't believe I have it. 

Anyone can do it with no time . It's super easy and inexpensive. Do you you know the hangers we used to  hang behind doors? those which you find everywhere in dollar store ? Just check this out.

This is the normal hanger. With S-shape hooks I hang it to the closet stick.

 The hanger already is divided like a chain.I hanged a cloth hanger in each section.

So this is the normal state for the magic hanger. To maximize the space . Just remove one S-shape hook and you are done. Are you ready?

Tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa .

All the shirts now are hanging vertically . I love the way it turns. 

You can see now. The shirts take no much space . No screws . No drill . No even glue and DIY complicated steps. Just S- shape hook and regular door hanger. you are done. Congratulation for the new magic hanger you freely have.

I hope you liked this post. Please leave a comment below if you liked this. Make my day and subscribe to not miss any up-coming posts. See you.

How to organize origami papers

As I said before I am so crafty person . I like crafts so much . I have  too many origami papers which I use to make very beautiful origami shapes. All what I did to organize them is to get a shoe cardboard box and covered it with contact papers and made cardboard dividers for it.

Here is how to do it

I cut 3 pieces of cardboard  W x H and two pieces D x H. In equal spaces I cut  H/2 stripes inside the cardboard pieces to make room for the mutual cardboard pieces to in like a mesh. It now fits all my origami papers . Also my folded origami pieces .

A quick tip . If you have small pieces of origami papers remained from your projects just group them with elastics  or rubber bands. 

And this is how I organize my origami papers. I also grouped them by colors to make it easier to use.

I hope this post was helpful . I like to see your comments and send me your pictures about any craft organizing you made. Thank you for reading . See you next post

Quick Organizing Tips : Exact baby milk standard every time

I like to share this little cute tip with you . I don't rely compeltely on baby milk bottles but sometimes I need it. When I open a new baby milk tin I like to cut the metal cover just like this.

When I make the milk bottle I like to have an edge to sweep the standard spoon in it to get the right amount of milk each time

I liked the idea so much.  You can use a tape to do the same concept. You can also it in all your seasoning.

I am waiting for your feedback and comments. If you have any question I am happy to answer you. Thank you for reading. See you next post.

How to organize manuals

I took a long time enhancing this project. I have inspired the idea from Alejandra Costello. She has already poly envelopes made already for binders and each holds up to 200 papers. She also got little cute tabs to label her manuals. She has two manual binders, one for things that she will leave when leaving the house and other for expensive things she buys.

Unfortunately I have totally different circumstances. that's why it took me some times to think and apply.We don't have same products in my country. I was looking for poly envelopes for binders and I didn't find any. I also couldn't find A4 poly envelopes also I didn't find A4 binders. We take everything when we leave houses. We don't leave anything when we leave so I have to have only one thick binder to store all manuals. How did I come over all of these problems? Check this out.

I got normal clear A3 poly envelopes and one think binder. I have punched the poly envelopes myself with the puncher. It was hard to punch them all at the same position point but I figured this out finally. I marked the points and I removed the lower part of the puncher - that holds the circles come from punching- so that I can see the marks I did from the back of the puncher. This way I punched all the poly envelopes in the same exact position and they are now ready to go inside my binder rings.

 Unfortunately this poly envelopes were a little taller than the binder, so I couldn't add any extra tabs over. This would be very high and would not look pretty. And this what I did

I just labeled the top of each poly envelope without any tabs. That way I can see what the categories are. 

If I put all the same category manuals in the poly envelope they will all fall in the bottom of the envelope and I will end up with very think binder. You may noticed that I don't have a very thick manual binder. This because I came up with this beautiful solution.

 I sewed the center of the poly envelope with the sewing machine. Now I have two pockets in each envelope for the same category and the manuals will spread over the envelope and not falling to the bottom of it creating a thick envelope at the end. That's because I noticed that most of the manuals come with half A3 size.

 I sub-categorized the categories. For examples I have all my temperature machines manuals in the same category. I just sub-categorized them into two sub categories, the machines that make high temperature like heaters and warmers and the machines that make low temperature like air conditioners and fans. 

Same goes for electronic devices I sub-categorized them into devices that we use inside house like land line telephone and devices we use in outdoors like cell-phones and cameras. 

Of-course computers&networks will be divided into computers and networks sub-categories.

Kitchen is divided into small  machines like boilers or coffee machines , and the big machines like oven and fridge.

For entertainment category, ummm ... I didn't find a good sub-categories. They all are around the TV. The receiver , xbox and DVD player. Maybe if I have a piano I will find something.

A good tip I want to share here is that I group the warranties and the receipts for each device together with a  paper pin . For example the xbox came with too many small different languages manuals. I grouped each three of them with a rubber band and inserted them sequentially.

May categories are 

Electronic devices  (In home -  telephones, irons ...etc / Outdoors - camera, cell-phones ... etc  )

Computers & NW (Computers  - USBs, DVD reader ... etc / NWs - routers , access points .. etc)

Beauty (Hair - blow dryers, flat iron ... etc / Others - sunglasses warranties, lash curler .. etc)

Baby stuff (Furniture - baby bouncer, baby walker ..etc/ Food tools -  milk bottles , spoons .. etc)

Temperature (High - heaters, warmers .. etc/ Low - air conditioners, fans .. etc)

Kitchen ( Big machines - fridge, deep freezer ... etc - Small machines - coffee maker, boiler... etc)

Furniture (Wooden - library, chair ..etc - Accessories - expensive vases , chandeliers .. etc)

Entertainment

You can add or adjust as you want. This is your categories and you are free to do what you feel and like.

I put the label on the binder.

and I put it in my office.

So that was how I organized all my manuals. I hope you liked the post and found it helpful. Have a food time and comments please if you liked the post. See you.

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How to organize ribbons

This is a lovely project I made few months ago. I organized my old and new ribbons in this small box and I spent ZERO BUDGET as usual.

This was a shoe box that I covered with contact papers and I organized all kinds of ribbons, threads and strings there. I also have my shiny tapes and wire rings.

I know this doesn't look fancy but it still looks pretty, organized, Sweet N Tidy. These are all my ribbons. New ribbons, old ribbons and even the remains. I will show you exactly what I have done here.

First of all I used to have big wide spools with small amount of threads or ribbons, so I turned  all similarities into one spool to have several empty spools so that I can use them for other ribbons which don't have spools. I started to turn the ribbons over the spool, and because the spool was so wide and the ribbons were thin the spool was happy to take several ribbons close to each other. I secured their ends with a hot glue drop for each. I made this for only ribbons that have the same size and colors because I am sure I will use only one of them - it doesn't make sense to open one secured ribbon while I already have an opened one that has the same color and shape - so I am sure now that I will use the ribbon freely with no effect to the other ribbons in the same spool because they are secured.


Some of the ribbons weren't have any spools. I made a DIY spool for them using plastic bags cardboard roll and two pieces of cardboard that I cut into circles, You can see them in the purple and the green ribbons.

I got grilling sticks and setup them into the box and have organized my ribbon spools inside them. To get the sticks more space to dig into, I added some pieces of thick tape.

For short ribbons, I cut these pieces of cardboard and covered them with duct tape then I turned around the ribbons over them securing the ends with pins or like the upcoming photo shows.

I secured the ribbons at the ends like that.

Sometimes I use those remaining pieces of ribbons to make a ribbon colorful balls so I secured them with rubber bands .

I used this small box to store them.

I had some shiny tapes that I grouped them all with some broken sticks.

So here we are. the final look

If you liked the post please comment. I am waiting for your comments and feedback. See you next post and thank you for reading.

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