Tutorial: Scarf/Belt hanger

As I have been going through the entire house eliminating clutter and unnecessary items, I decided I wanted to make my closet just a little bit neater with a scarf/belt hanger. Money is tight, and while there are some very nice store bought options, I thought I would use some items I already had laying around the house.

SUPPLIES:
Hangers
Shower Curtain  Rings (cheap plastic ones are perfect)
Electrical Tape

Optional:
Yarn
Crochet Hook recommended on yarn
Yarn Needle


INSTRUCTIONS:

Step 1: Lay out the shower curtain hooks inside the hanger.


Step 2: Tape the Rings to the hanger and to each other. I found bring the tape up from underneath worked the best.

Optional:

Step 3: Single crochet around the outside perimeter of the hanger, going inside the rings when you get to them.  Don't crochet around all the rings in the center.

Step 4: Wrap yarn around the center rings. When you reach a section you have already wrapped, use your yarn needle to "tunnel" through it to the other side, then continue wrapping.

I made the crochet one for my belts. I felt that the yarn would help keep them from slipping.

For my scarves and pantyhose, I just used tape as I needed the items to slide and I did not want fibers from the yarn getting on my scarves.

On a side note, I used a belt hanger I had but didn't care for as a belt hanger to organize my tank tops. I am not much of a tank top person, but I have a few for layering. By using the belt hanger, I was able to free up precious space in my drawers.

Spring Cleaning Purge #2: Clothing and Accessories

The next area of the house I tackled was my clothing. My side of the closet was overflowing. My dresser was stuffed to the point of breaking, and under the bed was 3 of the large underbed plastic storage containers full of clothing. That is just too much to handle. My boyfriend has a small dresser and a smaller section of closet, yet has everything he needs. I want to have less.

So out everything came from all of its hiding places; the bedroom closet, the spare closet, under the bed, the dresser drawers. I made a HUGE pile in the bedroom. The pic doesn't even do it justice as the whole queen size bed was covered, plus stuff was still inside the plastic bins.

I tackled the hanging clothes first. I had already pared down a good amount of those when we moved a year ago, so I decided not to get rid of anything. As my career future is up in the air, I am hanging onto a lot of dressier clothes that I rarely wear, but would be perfect for an office job. If it turns out I can't work, then I can go through them again. As for the rest, I tried on a lot of my wardrobe. If it didn't fit or I didn't like the fit, it went away, easy as that.

I had a lot of duplicates or extremely similar items. Somehow I acquired over 10 blankets (including 2 snuggies). He also has his blankets he likes. As we live in NH and the winters can get cold, and we don't have a generator, we do need a few more blankets than the average household, but more than 10 is a bit excessive. I got rid of 6 of them (including the 2 snuggles).

After all was said and done, I had 3 big garbage bags full, 2 medium garbage bags, and a small bag of winter accessories to donate. I also had 2 out of 3 underbed plastic storage bins completely empty, as well as a large stack of shoebox sized plastic storage empty. Freedom!

I used to keep many seasonal clothes under the bed as there was no longer room in my dresser drawers, but between getting rid of items I never wore or didn't like, I was able to put all except my middle of summer clothes in the drawers!

As part of the Konmari method mentioned in a previous post, folding is an important part of the organizational process. Now, when I open my drawers, I can see everything I have in that drawer at a glance. It's great! I know exactly what I have and I won't just grab one of the same couple of shirts from the top of the pile.

Let's hope that I can keep it this way!

Spring Cleaning Purge #1: Health and Beauty Products

I have been on a weird, pre-spring cleaning rampage in my house lately. Even though we only moved in a year ago, I still had too much stuff laying around. One of my major areas to tackle was the bathroom. Over the years I have amassed a huge number of travel sized, sample sized products. I pared them down when I moved, but still kept a large number, thinking well if we ever have guests over unexpectedly, I will be prepared. Yeah, ok. I think his son has been over once at Christmastime. I am just not the entertaining sort.

So with all this free time on my hands, it was time to purge. I took everything out of both bathrooms and placed it in a huge mess on the bedroom floor. I also dug out all of my old Ipsy pouches. Scary mess huh?

When I first sat down to start I was like "What the heck, where do I even begin?" I started with my makeup (which you can't see in this pic, it's to the side in front of the cute grey kitty on a mission) I have a 8 drawer plastic organizer and a drawer in the bathroom that was full of makeup. If you know me in real life, you would be like WTF? as I am rarely seen wearing makeup. Don't ask. It was a phase.



Between coupon savings, my subscription to Ipsy (which btw is an awesome monthly makeup subscription box if you are looking for one!), and winning contests I had quite a bit of new, unopened unused makeup. Now what to do with it all? I dug through, saving items I had used or enjoy using. Everything else...gone. What to do with it? I didn't really feel right about selling it, so I thought I should donate it to a women's shelter! These women have often been through a lot, and a little makeup may help brighten their day.

I went through all my travel size shampoo, deodorant, lotions etc which once again were nearly all free samples. I kept a few as my boyfriend and I are hopefully going on a motorcycle trip this summer, but the rest are going. Once again, I felt a women's shelter would be a perfect place to donate these too. I used my old Ipsy pouches to make up little kits with shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and body wash. All the extras will be donated as well.

As for the dreaded time of the month products, I had a huge supply of tampons (which I never use) that were all free samples. Once again, great thing to donate!

How did I get so many free samples? I will go into detail on another post (and link it here) but a quick summary is websites that specialize in samples, Facebook, and on-product packaging promotions.