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.

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!

Decluttering and organising your home: it's about more than buying cute storage boxes

Now who doesn't love boxes? I especially like the multi coloured ones that come in sets of three:

But buying boxes to put your stuff in won't solve your decluttering problem - many people move their clutter into the boxes and think that they're done. Organising and decluttering means focusing on the things that are important to you, and removing the things that no longer serve a purpose.

Before you buy any storage boxes, try asking yourself: which of my possessions have real, true meaning to me?

Do you have any storage boxes? If so, what's in yours? I cleared out one of mine out over the weekend and found a spare set of hair straighteners that I'd totally forgotten I had. I had kept them as back ups in case my main ones break down! They hadn't seen the light of day for 2 years, so they went straight out the door to charity!