WFMW: Recycling ValPak Mailers

I love to flip through the ValPak mailer that comes, to see all of the coupons and offers (you aren’t surprised are you?).  And normally I place 99% of it in the recycling bin.  I discovered though a better way to recycle the papers: we use them for preschool cutting practice.  Not only are the pieces of paper a good size for little hands to hold (half-sheet) but the majority have shapes already on them (the coupon boxes) that are the perfect size to practice their scissor-cutting on.  Using safety scissors helps with their coordination and is recommended activity for preschoolers.  It "Works For Me”.

How I Keep Organized

I love to be organized.  If there is such a thing as "over-organization", I probably strive for it.  Until then, I continue to stumble around finding what is the best method for me.  In my quest I have been leaning towards electronic methods, though I have discovered that I love the feeling of crossing something off of a paper "to-do" list.  That at least is one thing I refuse to go electronic on.  But here are a few of the other ways I have been staying on top of things (or trying to at least):

Springpad

Although I am not currently using this system because I have already been working on other systems, when I stumbled across this website yesterday I thought "dang it, if I had known about this before..."  So I wanted to give you the heads up.  It has a place to store "My Stuff" - restaurants, movies, books, recipes, etc. - or "My Plans" - shopping lists, to-do lists.  It even has a tab called "My Apps", which has a receipts manager and (my favorite) a weekly menu planner, which comes equipped with quick links to add online recipes and create a shopping list from your plan.  Even though I have been using other methods for menu planning, this may become my new favorite.

Google Reader

How do I love thee, let me count the ways.  When I finally took the plunge into Google Reader (I had been using My Yahoo) I have never looked back.  Google Reader allows me to manage all of the blogs I enjoy reading (which now number into the *cough cough*, I don't know if I want to tell you that), sorting them into categories I designate and how I view them (by date, list form, etc.)  It is such a manageable system for ingesting an enormous amount of ideas and information in a short amount of time.  I have categories for "Creative and Inspirational" (from which all of my fun ideas come) and "Money Saving Sites" (where I can get the most up to the moment deals from the nation's best money savers) among others. 

My favorite feature is to just "add a star" to an article and table it for later.  There are many ways to search through all of the blog posts, like keywords, but I can also narrow down my searching to just items I have added a star too or simply view all of the items I have added a star too.  This makes it very simple to just add a star to items I am interested in reading later, crafting later, or wanting to refer back to.  Crafts, recipes, coupons, etc. - whatever I like I just add a star to weed it out from all of the others.  Then on my own time I take a look at the items that caught my eye in an original scan.  I love this method!

All Recipes

I have been using this webite for a long time now to search for new recipes, but recently I discovered that you can also add recipes to your "Recipe Box" from outside websites.  This means that all of the yummy recipes I have "starred" on Google Reader or saved to "Favorites" on my computer, I can now save them all to one location that is accessable to me from any location and by anyone else.  No more hunting for "where did I put that recipe?"

Delicious

Another place I have started organizing ideas is at Delicious.  It's a web-based bookmarking tool.  This means that I can access any of the crafty ideas (or whatever else you choose to bookmark) from any computer anywhere.  I can also share these ideas with any of my friends or family that wants to see what I'm inspired by.  You can also "tag" your bookmarks, making searching by subject so much easier later on.  I have tags for fabric, sewing, lumber, girls, tshirts, oilcloth, etc.  That way later on if I come across some awesome oilcloth but can't remember why I wanted it, I can access my Delicious account, search by oilcloth and voila!  Any craft I tagged with "oilcloth" will appear and I can plan out my project.  The only downside is that I wish a little thumbnail picture of the project came up so I could see all of my ideas at once.  Oh well, maybe I will suggest that!

Google Calendar

I use Google Calendar for family activities and meal planning.  The great feature about this is that you can create different calendars, color-code them and look at them all together or individually.  You can also create short-term calendars and delete them when the activity is over.  And once again, everything can be accessed from anywhere and (if you choose) by anyone.  I share my menu plan calendar here on the blog, but I do not share my personal calendar.  Easy huh?

WFMW - Favorite Organizing Tip

This week at Works for Me Wednesday the theme is our favorite organizing tip. Sometimes I am a bit of an overachiever when it comes to organizing; my labelmaker is one of my favorite toys.

My favorite organizing tip is to reuse my plastic baby food tubs to store my spices in. Using the tubs makes stacking the spices neat and tidy, and also makes it super easy to measure out spices for recipes. I love it! (As you can tell from the picture, I have used up most of my tubs and am ready for baby #3 to start eating solids so I can start collecting them again.)

I also have found another use for the baby food tubs - I store all of my daughters' hair clips and hair bands in the tubs too, which makes finding exactly what I am looking for simple and they stack nicely in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.

Using baby food tubs "works for me". For more great organizing tips this week, visit We Are That Family.

WFMW: Another Use For a Shoe Organizer

Awhile back I added an over-the-door shoe organizer to the back of the girls' bedroom to round up all of the random things that seem to float around the changing table. I stash hair care items (hairbands, ribbons, hairclips, combs, brushes, detangler, spray water bottle), medicines (diaper rash cream, cortizone, Vaseline, Tylenol drops), and other personal grooming items (lotions, nail clippers, "nose blower", Q-tips) that I would like to have handy to use on the girls.

The best thing about using the organizer is that I put the items I don't want them to get into in the upper shoe compartments where the girls can't reach them and leave the bottom compartments open to put actual shoes in (or whatever else Ava feels like storing in them, like her Little People.)

For more Work For Me Wednesday ideas visit We Are THAT Family.

WFMW: Cereal gift boxes

I read a hint in a magazine last month and have been employing it this holiday season with great success:

Save your cereal boxes and use them to wrap presents in. Why did I never think of this before? They are a perfect size for clothing and I am constantly recycling them at our house. So this year as wrapping paper comes flying off, people will be wondering if they got Rice Krispies or something better.

That's what works for me! Check out the entire Works For me Wednesday line-up over at Rocks In My Dryer.

WFMW: Dip for Kids

Ava is on a kick right now where she must put dip on everything, and I do mean everything - the other day she was trying to dip individual pieces of rice. Now, I admit that the level of fun my kids can have is sometimes directly related to the level of work it creates in my laundry room, so I am not a fan of ketchup. And I am not too thrilled about using Ranch dressing at every meal because it isn't that nutrious. So this past week I created our own Ranch dip, using plain yogurt and Hidden Valley seasoning. It is a HIT! I even think it is super yummy, plus Ava is getting some hidden calcium at every meal. Win-win.

Works for Me Wednesday

Whenever I have a tube of lotion that I can't get the last remnants out, I cut the tube in half then use my fingers to scoop out the remainder. To keep the lotion fresh, simply slide the top half over the bottom half and it will keep just fine until you can use it all up.

Check out more Works for Me Wednesday over at Rocks in My Dryer.

Works For Me Wednesday: The Five-Ingredients-Or-Less Edition

I have been inspired, thanks to Rocks in My Dryer, to start posting Works For Me Wednesday, as I love reading all of the other really great ideas shared each week (she has to cut it off at 300!). Even if I don't get to post on Rocks in My Dryer, I thought I would pass along my WFMW tips to my own readers.



This week we have been encouraged to share our simplest recipes so we can get the heck out of the kitchen. Immediately I thought of my go-to for biscuits/shortbread/shortcake, Easy Biscuit Squares. It only takes 3 ingredients:

1 c. yellow cake mix
3 c. Bisquick
3/4 c. water

Mix ingredients together in bowl. Turn onto floured surface and knead a few times until dough comes together. Shape and put into 8x8 pan. Score the top to make 9 squares. Bake at 425 degrees for 12-15 min. or until golden brown. Break biscuits apart at score marks.