Storage: Kid's Art!

I just love my creative kiddos and I hate to throw away any piece of artwork that they have spent their valuable time creating! But I must admit, it begins to pile up! What starts out as a small collection quickly grows. Here are some fun and creative ways to display and store your child's masterpiece.

Photo Courtesy of Family Fun

• Take advantage of a trusty old Three-Ring Binder! Let the kids decorate the front, punch some holes in their artwork and file away! Each child can have their own special color.

• Re-use pizza boxes! That's right, a clean pizza box covered in shelf paper is the perfect storage box. Flat and square, they stack easily and fit on most closet shelves, under beds and out of the way!

Photo Courtesy of Family Fun

• Display new creations by attaching string to a yardstick for an impromptu mobile. Using binder clips purchased at an office supply store, you can switch out old creations with new ones on a weekly basis!

• Scan artwork into your computer and use as your screen saver or digital wallpaper!

Photo Courtesy of Family Fun

• Purchase inexpensive wooden picture frames and paint them all one color. Frame your little Picasso's drawings and group them together to make a stunning and eye-catching display in their bedroom or in your entryway!

Photo Courtesy of Family Fun

• One of our favorite ways to display artwork is by attaching a clothesline and clipping art to the line to display a gallery of work. You can also use magnetic strips like the one pictured above, attach a self-adhesive magnet to the art and display!
  

Photo Courtesy of Family Fun

• What to do about on-going projects? We purchased simple wall-mount mailboxes from the local Home & Garden Supply store and painted them to match our walls. By using alphabet magnets to spell out the kids name we created the perfect spot to store drawings that didn't get finished that day and need to be finished. After all, some art is an on-going work in progress!

~Amber

You've Got Mail!

This month the Jewel Box® Home is focusing on storage - one of the biggest and most frustrating challenges of small home living. Amber and I have both faced the frustrations of creating storage in tiny spaces and know that this aspect of living smaller can never truly be solved. But there are ways to cope!

For me, finding a way to organize mail, bills, children's school information and everyday finances is a never ending problem. Here is my system. This is the cabinet next to the back door of my kitchen.

Photo Jewel Box® Home

Photo Jewel Box® Home

In this cabinet I store three bins:

• A mail bin where all mail is stored until sorted into the correct file folders
  
• A bin for bills/finances with folders for mortgage, utilities, cars, credit cards, insurance, etc...
  
• A bin for family with folders for each family member labeled for school, work, etc...

Bins for mail, bills/finances and family stored in cabinet.


Cabinet drawer holding invitations and flashlights.

Close-up of bins for mail, bills/finances and family

I'd love to hear your tips for corralling papers and bills!

On a completely different note, this past Saturday I was interviewed by Mindful Metropolis about Jewel Box® Home and decorating, entertaining and living in a smaller house. The interview came up very suddenly and I found myself without time to buy fresh flowers. Take a look at my 'spur of the moment' solution.

These are branches from my serviceberry tree and pomegranates from the Christmas fruit bowl. I was going for elegant simplicity. Not great, but in a pinch I think it works.

This is the house on the morning of the interview. If you look closely, you can see my dog 'Buddy' waiting patiently for the reporter to arrive.

And if you are interested in custom furniture, Small Room Decorating Magazine was kind enough to include my decorating advice in When to go Custom from their Winter 2010 issue.

Genevieve

Let's Get Organized! Closets!

Most people, around the New Year, make resolutions to lose weight, tackle long abandoned projects or, my all-time favorite, make promises to get organized!

We, here, at The Jewel Box® Home recognize the need for organization in a small home. Without organization a small home can become even smaller as our "stuff" accumulates. Paperwork and mail, out of season clothing, library books to be returned, odds and ends-it all piles up and can push us right out the back door and into the yard! We all have that "junk" drawer or nook where we put unwanted items that have no home. My greatest enemies, however, are my closets!

Photo Courtesy of Eva Designs

The dreaded closet. My private nightmare! It is so easy to tidy up by putting something "temporarily" away in a closet where you can shut the door. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Bad idea! Let's get organized and take some small steps to make our small homes more functional.

Photo Courtesy of Country Living

Some Tips to help tackle that closet chaos:

• 
  
  Remove all the contents! That's right-drag it all out and create an even bigger mess! Let's face it, there is just no other way to do it. You must look through each thing in your closet and determine whether it stays or goes!


• 
  
  Donate or discard anything you haven't worn or used in the past two years. Pitch out all those yucky wire hangers.


• 
  
  Is there anything that could "live" in another closet or elsewhere in your home? Is something best suited in another area? Make sure that coat closets are for coats, linen closets for linens, clothes closets for clothes. It is so easy to store items that don't belong, but this can only lead to inconvenience later.


• 
  
  If it is not within your budget to purchase an entirely new closet system, consider starting with decorative boxes, baskets and clearly labeled containers. Some fun places to shop economically for these items are Target, The Container Store, Eva Designs and Home Goods. I just love the Elfa Storage Solutions offered at The Container Store. Think about splurging on plastic shoe boxes for all your shoes or matching plastic or wooden hangers. A little streamlining can go a long way!

Photo Courtesy of Closet Solutions

Cleaning out one closet a week can make a huge difference when tackling your organizational goals for the New Year. Remember to reward yourself with before and after pictures of your project and be sure to put your feet up afterwards and admire your hard work!

Amber