Christmas Notebook

Laura at I’m an Organizing Junkie is hosting a basket carnival, an event where her readers can share their favorite baskets and containers for organizing their homes. I have a few favorites of my own…

Under the window seat in the library, we have baskets of toys to occupy guests’ children. These baskets fit perfectly under the seat, are a good size for the toys, and are very sturdy. The kids turn them over and sit on them and the baskets handle it just fine. The hand holds make them easy to cart from room to room. One basket has kitchen toys, one has baby toys, and one has toddler toys. The baskets came from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We used to have six of these baskets under the window seat with toys for DD#3 when she was younger.

This basket of baby/toddler toys is in the guest room for the convenience of our company with small children. Another basket from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

Another basket in the guest room armoire holds snacks, paper plates, napkins, etc., in case company needs a bite to eat. The basket came from Wal-Mart.

This basket, which I found at The Container Store, holds DD#3’s shoes under the pew in the front hall. Makes it a lot easier to find her tennies when it’s time to head out the door.

The pantry is kept under control with the use of plastic tubs to hold like things together. The first tub on the bottom (from the back forward) holds chocolate chips, baking chocolates, and candy coating. The next tub holds nuts. And the one in the foreground holds snacks. The shelf above has a tub for beans and pasta, and a tub for napkins and plastic utensils for parties.

I love these lined baskets for the coat closet. From the left, the first one holds light bulbs, the next holds electrical things like extension cords, electric outlet adapters, etc. The top and bottom shelves at the back hold cleaning supplies. The ones on the top are seldom used things, like refill bottles, extra swiffer supplies, etc. I think I found these baskets (sold in sets of three nesting sizes) at Joann’s (a fabric store).

One of my favorites is this basket which is just the right size to sit between the front seats in our car. It holds snacks for travel, an extra bottle of water, my planner, usually the camera, a tube of hand lotion, and anything else that happens to need contained in the front seat. The handles make it very easy to carry into the house when it needs to be cleaned out and/or refilled. This basket came as a Christmas gift full of delicious fruit.

And then there’s the attic…where I have more than 100 storage tubs of Christmas decorations. We won’t go there today, but you can get a taste of it here.

Contain it, define the boundaries. 🙂 ~~Rhonda