Two minute tidy tip: use chalkboard stickers to label household items

Chalkboard stickers are great! They're reusable, and you can clean off whatever you 've written and start again - so they're really cost effective.

You'll need:

A set of chalkboard labels - I got mine for around £3 on Ebay:

 A chalkboard pen - this cost about £4 from a stationers, but normal chalk would be fine too.

 

Write out what you want the label to say - you can wipe it off with water and a cloth if you make a mistake:

 

Then attach your labels to wherever you want to stick them! I chose them to identify these boxes at the top of my wardrobe:

 

And you're done! Cost: around £7 - I already had the boxes, and they cost £2 each.

Quick fix for tidying: repurposing a kitchen item for organising jewellery

Sometimes, items can be used for a completely different purpose to the one they were designed for. I needed a tray with sections to organise my bracelets and brooches. So I bought this ceramic platter for 99p:

 It looks like this out of the packaging:

 

It looks great with jewellery in it, and it was a real bargain!

Quick fix for tidying: organising necklaces

There are a few necklaces that I often wear  that are a bit too bulky for a necklace stand. I've got an easy and cheap way of storing them away where I can access them quickly when I want to.



I used 2 adhesive hooks - these were part of a set of 20 which cost £1:

 

I positioned them inside a cupboard door, making sure to check that they were at a height where I could see each one, and easily grab the one I need. The result:

I'll be posting again later with another great use for the left over sticky hooks!

My cleaning routine: the kitchen sink

I thought I'd share my great tip for keeping my kitchen sink limescale free and sparkling clean!

I use a great white vinegar spray that I bought in a 99p Store:

I live in a heavy water area, so my taps and sink get a lot of limescale, even though I clean it thoroughly every week. I've used all the well known products with limited success, so I thought I'd try vinegar, as I read somewhere that it was great on limescale. It's the best product I've used so far, it gets rid of limescale really quickly. I cleaned my sink this morning and took some photos to show the results. I sprayed the sink and left it for 5 minutes -  here are the before and after photos I took for my weekly clean of the kitchen:

Before:

After:

 

And another after because I'm so pleased with it!

It also works really well on the bath, toilet and mirrors and is good at removing stains on clothes. Cost: 99p

Sort it Saturday: organising paperwork

Paperwork can be a struggle - we get a steady flow of bills, letters and receipts into our homes every day! it can easily become overwhelming. I find keeping it all in one place and sorted by theme helps me to keep on top of it. I've previously written about how I store receipts, and here's how I organise the other documents that I need to keep.

You'll need:

A box file (around £5 from any stationers)

 

And some plastic zip folders:

I got these folders for £1 - I really liked how I could use them to colour code them to distinguish what was what, and that each pile of paperwork would be in its own container. I then grouped them into themes  and wrote labels that could slide into the plastic pocket at the front. My labels are bank, health, key documents (passport, birth certificate) manuals.

And that's it! Cost: around £6, you don't need to use a box file though, a cardboard box would do the trick too, and would make this really low cost.

Friday photo: home design ideas

I thought I'd share a recent purchase with you (I follow the one in, one out rule when buying things for my home!) to give an example of how making your home feel welcoming doesn't necessarily need to be about buying expensive items.

I bought this 'Love' sign online for £1.99, and the vase was a gift from a relative. I've seen similar ones for sale at low prices in charity shops/thrift stores. The rose is from a rose bush that I have growing on my window sill. You could replicate it with a silk flower to be even thriftier - they can be purchased pretty cheaply. Arranged together, they help create a warm and cosy feel to my lounge.

Mini makeover: under my kitchen sink

Here's one of my mini makeover projects - I decided to revamp under my sink as the storage container I was using was a little too small and I couldn't easily see what was what. Here's what it looked like before:

I took a trip to my local shopping centre which has a low cost store that sells containers and household goods. I bought 3 small red containers and used two of them for storing the household cleaning products under the sink, and I used an adhesive hook to hang up the dustpan. It often got in the way when closing the door, so hanging it up creates a little more storage space:

 

The red baskets were a set of three for £1.99, and the adhesive hook for the dustpan was part of a set of 20, which cost £1. A great bargain!

Quick fix for tidying: organising blankets and cushions

Where to store blankets and cushions? I used to keep mine on top of my wardrobe but found that they were blocking out some of the light into the room:

I found these great folding canvas boxes that I could  use to store them away in a cupboard:

There are lots of great solutions available - this is perfect as I can pull them out if I need to and they'll be less likely to get dusty. And, they cost just £1 each - bargain!

Quick fix for tidying: organise your foil and cling film

I often struggle to tear cling film and foil neatly without pulling half of it out of the container and tearing the box - so I think this storage and cutting box is a great idea!

It's a sturdy hard plastic cover/case with a serrated edge.

It clips together at the back - unclip it and the foil or cling film slots in:

My cling film storage before:

 

After:

It also comes in green and blue, and one of the best things about is that it cost just £1!

Sort it Saturday: organising scarves

I've had a pile of scarves languishing at the back of my hall closet for ages - I'd even forgotten I'd had some of them! I recently saw an ingenious way of storing scarves so you can easily see what you have, and I'm giving it a go. I made a trip to my local 99p shop for one of the 'ingredients'.

You'll need:

A hanger:

Shower curtains with hooks:

Scarves:

Just count the scarves you have, take the same amount of shower hooks, then loop the scarves through the hooks, and attach them to the hanger. That's it!

Hanging in the closet:

I have 8 shower hooks left so can easily add more to the hanger if I need to. I also have the shower curtains left over which I plan to use as dust sheets when I paint my desk in the coming weeks.

Cost: 99p! - I already had the pink hanger, which was part of a set of 10 from Primark, and was £4.