Organising Baby Cards

Last year we received a lot of cards to congratulate us on the arrival of our precious baby girl - lots at the baby shower, and then lots more once Annabelle had arrived. If you know me, you would know love cards! I love making them, I love writing them and I love giving them, and of course I love receiving them.

I think it is important to hang onto cards for special occasions as they are a wonderful keepsake of the event. My mum glued all of our baby cards and birthday cards into giant scrapbooks, which we have looked back on many times over the years. I decided that I wanted to do something similar for Annabelle so when we were given this gorgeous baby album as a gift, I knew it would be perfect for this job!

Organising Tips for a Sick Baby

Now I am by no means an expert at this, but here are some of the things that I do to organise our lives when Annabelle is sick. This is entirely related to medication, bedding and the baby. I have zero advice about keeping on top of the rest of the house, as somehow everything falls to pieces when my baby is sick and that's ok with me ;)

Firstly, I keep a tracking page in my planner for medication. I have trialled a few different templates that I have previously downloaded for free online, but I found the easiest thing was to rule up a table on one of my blank planner pages and record it there. I record Date, Time, Medication, Dose and Notes. This was so helpful when we went to the emergency department on the weekend, as I was able to pull out my planner, turn to the M index divider, and there was my Medication Tracker with all of the information that my sleep-deprived brain needed to be reminded of. It is also so useful when determining when I can administer a top up dose (eg 6-8 hours later), as the days and hours really are a blur when the baby is unwell.

Fridge Organisation - Labels & Vegetable Prep

I posted way back about how I slice and dice our food after doing the groceries, so that we have everything at our fingertips when we need it during the week.  This has always been a system that works well for us, and I was quite happy with how my fridge was organised.  Towards the end of last year, the lovely Bianca, from A Little Delightful, made over her fridge, which inspired me to look at ours and try to make it more efficient.  My new-look fridge is below!  I love it!

My Weekly 'To Do' Folder

This week, I have been sharing with you how I organise my Command Central Station in my home.  This area is just vital to us staying organised with paperwork, plus it provides some much needed solutions to the clutter that would otherwise accumulate on the kitchen bench!

My Weekly 'To Do' Folder is another part of this station that I couldn't live without, so today I will unpack how I have set it up, and how it helps me to stay on track with my weekly jobs.

File Folders in my Command Central Station

Yesterday, I posted about my Command Central Station here.

Today, I want to elaborate on how I organise the file folders that hold the incoming paperwork that flows into our house!  I do admit that this is a long post, but I wanted to put all of this information in one location for you :)

My Command Central Station

Today I thought I would share how I organise our incoming/outgoing paperwork and general 'bits and pieces' in our living area.  This system has changed over the years, and since I have not been working and spending less and less time in the study for anything other than 'creative' work, having this all in the living area just makes sense for us.

Our Baby Zone in the Lounge Area

As mentioned in my New Carpet post recently, we have created a little baby zone/playroom in the lounge area of our home.  This area is right beside our kitchen, and obviously backs onto our lounge room, so it means that it is very central to where we do lots of the 'living' in our house.

My Baby's Nursery

Now that everything is ready for our little miracle when we bring him/her home from hospital, it is time to reveal the nursery!

If you follow along with my Finishing Off Friday posts, then you would have seen all of the bits and pieces that have gone into making this special room.  Today I am putting all of the pictures together so that you can get the overall effect!

This photo is taken from the doorway, looking into the room.  Outside the window is our pool and patio area.  A lovely relaxing outlook for our child, as they grow up :)

My New Laundry - The Robinhood Ironing Centre

It has been a while since I posted about my new laundry (which isn't really new anymore!), but I have a couple of posts that I wanted to put up, in order to finish the series.  You will see these pop up over the next week or so...

Including the Robinhood ironing centre in my laundry design was something I had dreamed of for many years!  After now having had the system in place for quite some time, I can certainly report back that it was money well spent :)

A Little Birthday Card Postage Bucket

Yesterday and today, I have spent some time preparing all of my March, April and half-way through May birthday cards for posting.  I admit that I missed two of my lovely girlfriends' birthdays at the start of March (sorry girls!!), so I needed to backtrack a bit and catch up on those, plus I wanted to do the next month in advance, as I know I won't have time to even think about writing birthday cards to send when the baby arrives!!  The end result - this cute little bucket of ready-to-post birthday cards!

Photo Printing Tips

It is obvious one of my major goals this year is to get on top of my photos.  I have been thrilled with my progress so far, and I just wanted to share some things that are really helping me to get the photos off the computer and into the albums in a logical, sequential order.

Firstly, last year I organised my photos digitally, which you can read about here.  This has saved me SO much time recently, as I know where everything is and it is in chronological order.  This is the first step to success.

I must admit however, that since having given back my work computer at the end of last year and now being solely a 'Mac' family, I am still adjusting to organising my new 2013 photos on the Mac, and this is something that I am refining and will share with you once I have a good system in place.

Secondly, I went through all of the digital folders of photos and did a big cull.  Anything that was blurry, had someone's eyes closed, etc has all been trashed!  I know it is hard with digital to let them go, but often I can have 3 or more of the same photo, each with something a little different or wrong with them.  I was very strong, picked the best one and trashed the rest.  This helped immensely when it came to decision time for the albums.

Next it was time to print my photos.  At the moment, I am using Big W.  It is nearby, it is quick (I usually only have to wait 30 minutes from the time I place my order), it is fairly cheap at 15c a print and I am happy with the quality.  I also like that I can print 3x4 photos that fit perfectly in the little journalling holes in my Project Life page protectors - this means I can fit lots more photos on a page than just the standard four 4x6 photos.

The Year of Finishing Off (2013)

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you will remember that 2012 was the Year of Good Hair.  I learnt how to curl my hair and do a few different hairstyles, which was lots of fun!

I decided, however, that 2013 needed a more serious focus.  As I am constantly guilty of starting new projects before finishing the ones that I already have going, and I have dozens of things that I would like to get finished (or at least make some progress on) before the baby arrives, I have decided that 2013 is the Year of Finishing Off!

I am not allowing myself to start a new project until I finish another, that includes buying things for a new project to 'put away' for when I am ready.  I have a tendency to get inspired for a new project, buy the bits and pieces and then it sits there forever waiting to be done!

Obviously, I have some big projects on the go, as well as some small ones - actually lots of small ones! I have a big tub overflowing with bits and pieces to be fixed/assembled/made/sorted.  Eek!

Organising Cards & Presents for the Year Ahead - 2013

Yesterday I reviewed my presents list for the new year.  I keep a Spreadsheet detailing all of the presents for the year, and this is how I allocate a fortnightly allocation out of our pay that gets automatically transferred into my Presents Account.  The past two Christmas' I have come out with money left in the account (yay!), so this indicates to me that this system works, needless to say that we will be continuing with this system again in 2013.

Organising Photos Digitally

With all of the time I have been spending on the couch lately, I haven't done many projects at all.  One project that I could work on from the comfort of my beloved couch was backing up and organising all of my digital photos.

Earlier this year, I bought myself a 1 Terrabyte External Hard Drive.  I wanted something that would last for years, and hold all of my photos, movies and computer files as a back-up.  I have backed up my work laptop, my portable External Hard Drive which has all of my work files on it, my Digital Frame USBs plus all of our photos. 

Organising the DVD Cupboard

As I have been sorting through my boxes of goodies in my study, and putting them into matching boxes for my new-look red and aqua study, I have ended up with dozens of empty storage boxes!  I am seriously embarrassed that this whole bed is full of EMPTY boxes/baskets and storage solutions!  I think I need to stop buying storage containers for a little while ;)

My Study - New Folder Labels

I just love holidays!  I have made so much progress on my study make-over in just a week, compared to the last 11 weeks of the school term!  Just look at how 'refreshed' my old folders look with their new labels:

A Summer Serving Tray

The weather is finally warming up, and for us, that means we move our meals to outside on the back patio!  There is nothing like being outside in the fresh air, it sure beats sitting inside in front of the TV!

To make the constant transition from kitchen to patio (which isn't really that far, but the door is always where I have to juggle things!), last year I decided to leave my favourite serving tray out on the coffee table near the kitchen.  This way, I could just pop it onto the bench and fill it up with whatever we need for the upcoming meal.

20 Days to Clean and Organise Your Home - Week 3

This week I loved the outdoors challenge!  My poor back patio area has been very neglected after such a cold winter, so it was definitely time for me to get out there and give it some love.
This is what it looked like before:

20 Days to Clean and Organise Your Home - Week 2

I have been so proud of everyone who has been doing this challenge with the Organised Housewife!  What an impact she is having on households around our world!  There is nothing better than a little organising challenge, and it is great to see so many people inspired to participate.

I am finding it hard to do before/after photos of the little projects I have been doing, as I am mostly doing them late afternoon/night and it just is not the prime time for taking good photographs without the natural light... 

So, rather than post some awful before/after pics of how I am going with the challenge, I thought I would link back to some of my posts that show how I already organise some of the areas in my home that have been in the challenge this week.  And thankfully, most of these systems are still working a treat in my house, so it is just fine-tuning and tweaking that I have been doing to make sure that things are still running smoothly.

I am still in love with how I organise my baking tins, everytime I open the cupboard door...

Organising Baking Tins - here

My Planner - Daily Planner Page

Following on from my post last weekend on My Planner, today I will share my daily planner page.  This is my planner page for my working week - I use one page per day.  As mentioned previously, I find commercial diary pages don't suit my needs, so I have designed my own pages, based on what I need and use.  I have changed my daily planner template numerous times, although the one I am currently using has definitely lasted the longest and has been the  most efficient.  So, here it is...