With 4 kids to save stuff for, there is major clutter potential. Here’s how I keep school work, report cards, awards, etc. under control:

More accordion files! Get one for each kid and clearly label it or fancy it up however you want. Here’s Macy’s:

Label each tab with a year in school.

Put the important/save worthy work in the corresponding section.

It works for stuff other than papers, too. Here we have a CD of Macy’s orchestra concert from last year (which no one is ever *really* going to want to listen to):

and some medals:

For bigger projects that just won’t fit, like a giant Native American dwelling diorama, we take pictures and print them and file those instead.

We also have sections in the back for team pictures from sports and church/scout awards.

And speaking of school work….Guess who else got 100% on a district math test!

Looks like nerdypants-ness runs in the family. I’m so proud!

Because if they do, I am ROCKING this year’s resolution!

And see that shiny new laptop? I’m finally (after a MONTH) back to blogging on my own computer and not one I pilfered from BC. Woo!

You know those things that you need to have access to regularly but you don’t need misplaced or handled by certain toddlers living in your house?

At my house that’s things like library books, homework folders that come home Monday and don’t go back ’til Friday, recorders (every 4th grader in the state has to learn how to play one…WOO!), etc.

Here’s where we keep that stuff:

That’s right. I bought 2 more magazine racks. The one next to my piano inspired me! I made liners for my baskets out of some fabulous new Amy Butler fabric and used an old IKEA curtain for the inside.

The initials were inspired by this artwork from Pottery Barn but were custom made for me by my fabulously talented friend Lei over at My Many Colored Days. I Mod Podged them to Balsa wood circles that I painted cherry red. Once the Mod Podge was good and dry, I coated them with 2 or 3 coats of Triple Thick. It’s like Mod Podge crossed with Diamond Glaze or something…I love it! Then, I drilled tiny holes in the tops and hung them on the baskets with wire.

This wall is right as you exit to the garage, so the last thing we pass on our way out. You can see keys hanging in the top of my picture. We keep them on hooks there, too.

Next up? Kids’ school work.

Also, I just discovered that I’ve missed A LOT of emails. I have my blog email set to forward to my personal email but it doesn’t email anything it considers spam (including the address for one of the camera strap auction winners). I’ve got dozens of things I’ll work on replying to over the next few days! HUGE oops!

Seriously….”Emirate Lottery” emails get through but other stuff didn’t?!?!

Yes, that’s calendarS. You’ll need 2 for this to work well.

Mine are the Daily System from Pottery Barn. (We have too many kids to take fabulous vacations…gotta use our AmEx points for something, right?)

I’ve seen similar ones at Target in the $15 range. They came in both black and white.

You could also make your own, like these from the girls over at Nannygoat.

Whatever you decide, just be sure you have 2 that hook to the wall the same way and are somehow erasable — chalk, dry erase, etc.

These are hanging in my kitchen, right next to the computer area and the phone. We have a saying: “If it’s not on the calendar, it doesn’t exist”.

When the kids come home, I immediately take all papers out of their bags and transfer the important dates to the calendar and then throw the papers away or file them in the Family Binder.

At the beginning of a new month, I move that calendar up to the top and erase everything from the other calendar, re-labeling it for the next month and then hanging it back on the bottom. Any events further out than that get stuck in the binder or noted in the empty squares at the end of the month. If you look really closely at the picture, you’ll see that I’ve written a note at the bottom of February to remind myself that my kids go off track (again) at the beginning of March.

I don’t color code by family member, but the idea of doing so makes me very, very happy.

Next up? My love of magazine racks continues….

Here it is:

Fancy, ey? Just keeping it real! Go ahead and make yours cuter (anything’s cuter). We keep this in a cabinet above the computer desk in our kitchen, so it’s easily accessible.

Inside the front cover I keep Boxtops For Education and the sheets our school wants them turned in on.

Before the first tab I also have a school calendar (we’re on year ’round and I can NEVER keep straight what days my kids are supposed to be there) and a ward (church) telephone list. You might want to put a family phone list or emergency contact numbers or something like that.

So, that’s our family binder. I’d love to hear any other ideas you have or things that you think would be good to include!

Next up? My calendars.

I get a lot of emails asking how I find time to sew or craft with 4 kids running around and still run a household. Answer? Ignore them.

Kidding!

I thought over the next few days, I’d share with you all some of my favorite ways I keep organized.

Today, I’m showing you my bill box. Oh how I love my bill box! Going out to buy one *might* be my favorite part of the new year.

You’ve all seen these accordion files before, right? You can get a solid colored one at any office supply store or super center. Those run about $8. I usually spend a little more and get a cute one to make my bill paying life more pleasant.

Here’s last year’s:

I label it with the year clearly on the outside.

Some of these files come pre-labeled. I don’t really like their categories, so I re-label. I bought a pack of file folder labels for just a few dollars 7 or 8 years ago and I still haven’t used them all.

You can label them however fits your needs. I use the following categories:

Bank Account
Cable
Chase/Old Navy/TCP
Debit Receipts/Check Duplicates (I clear this one out after I’ve entered receipts and reconciled statements)
Dental
Insurance
Medical
Mortgage
Newspaper/Magazines
Pay Stubs
Questar (gas)
Qwest (phone)
Receipts (for major purchases)
Retirement
Taxes
Tithing
Utah Power (electric)
Water

At the end of the year, I take the entire box downstairs to our storage room. It doesn’t take up a lot of room and it’s easy to locate something should the need arise. Like the time the cable company turned us over to collections for a $16 bill because they hooked cable up at a house we hadn’t lived in for THREE YEARS and then tried to tell me I never paid off our original account. And I’m still bitter about it. :o)

Next up? The Family Binder

I bought PW’s cookbook a month or so ago.

And I wanted to make the Creamy Rosemary Potatoes (slightly different version of the recipe here).

Only the grocery store was out of rosemary. What?!?!?

Luckily, my mom was with. She suggested we check the floral department for those little rosemary Christmas trees they sell.

Jackpot!

Holy deliciousness! I had to keep making it. And now my tree looks like this from the back:

and this from the side:

At least I got my money’s worth out of it?

We bought our piano about 6 years ago. It’s 90 years old. The bench was long gone. I’d searched half-heartedly for something off and on, but made do with a kitchen chair. Plus, I’m not the one that does most of the playing so it wasn’t really a priority.

I decided to get serious about my search after I painted the piano last summer. I figured that I could paint just about anything to match, right?

In my search, I discovered something. Piano benches are hard to come by, unless you are a) made of money or b) a fan of padded black vinyl seats. I am neither. I’m also not traditional. I found this stool in the Sundance catalog.

Perfect…other than the $200 price tag. And the fact that it’s too tall to actually fit under my piano. But, it got me thinking. I Googled and Googled and Googled some more. I finally found this stool…perfect size, but I still didn’t like the price. I Googled some more and found it for $65. SOLD!

I didn’t really love the black “leather” on the seat. So, I went to a thrift store and bought the most hilariously ugly lime green leather jacket you have ever seen. (And of course I ran into a friend’s parents while I was buying it. Pretty sure they went home and told her how poor Char has lost her mind and she buys weird leather jackets from the thrift store.) The cashier looked heart broken when I told her I was going to cut it up. I peeled off the black and used it to trace a circle from the back of the jacket. Then, I used contact cement to glue the lime green leather down.

And I love it.

A few of you may remember this post from last year.

I’m happy to report that I failed at 2 out of 3.

The one that I succeeded with? TOTALLY worth it.

What am I resolving this year?

“Buy more lamps!”

Yes, really.

You see, lamps are something way out of my comfort zone. They’re foreign to me. We probably only have 3 in my entire house, and 2 of them aren’t actually plugged in. So, this year I resolve to “buy more lamps”….in other words, try more things I wouldn’t usually do and step out of that comfort zone a little.

And look!

I really did buy a lamp.

What are you resolving?