Home Organization

I've been on an organization kick lately so I'd love to share and get ideas. Here's what I've used so far.

The Expedit from IKEA with canvas bins.


























An old microwave stand in the closet for extra shelves. (This is not picture-worthy, but let me just say how much I love putting something seemingly useless to good use!)

A puzzle rack.
And a hanging shoe rack.

All of these items I have used for toy storage, and all but two were about to be thrown away when I realized they worked better for me as something other than their intended uses. I just have to say, there must be a reason every classroom has cubbies, they just go hand-in-hand with kids.

My two questions are:

What have you used a shoe rack for (or seen it used for), other than shoes?

What do you use/reuse (creatively or not) for organizing your "stuff"?
I'm still looking for ways to organize my sewing stuff - thread, leftover fabric, patterns, rotary board and ruler, manuals, serger equipment, etc. I'd especially love to get ideas for those!

Decorating Idea

Most of the decorations I have were given to me by my wonderful mother and mother-in-law. I am grateful to say they have excellent taste, otherwise (not to be rude), they would not be adorning my walls. Here is something I put together recently which I felt quite proud about, not only because I think it looks nice, but the expense was in the single digits for the entire thing (mostly because I was given the curtain rod and blocks), and you just can't beat that.

I realize I didn't do it perfectly, nor did I take a very cutesy picture, but you get the idea. Because I'm not feeling like writing out instructions, I found some places that do. They're obviously not exactly the same as I did mine, (I didn't attach my blocks to the wall, and I used fabric on my foam board instead of scrapbook paper) but if you do it at home, you'll adapt it how you like it too.

For the curtain rod letter blocks look here.
For the foam board picture collage look here.