Tuesday, August 14, 2012

There She Goes...

It all started with a Pin. You know what I mean, those innocuous little pictures on that one website. That one that sucks you in for hours of browsing eye candy and dream homes. The one that makes you imagine that maybe, just maybe, you could be the Super Woman version of Martha Stewart.

Yeah, that one.

I saw a Pin of a woman with a minivan, whose trunk is incredibly organized, and very prepared for any emergency. While I don't drive a minivan, I have been carrying around loads of extra junk in my trunk (ha!) for months. TIME TO GO!! So, after reading about her system, I looked at my tiny hatchback trunk, and knew that I couldn't use a shower caddy to organize my trunk, but that I -could- piggyback off her idea to make one of my own.

So, to the dollar store I went, and nabbed four shallow plastic baskets, and a set of bungee cords. Total of $5 spent. I headed home, sent kidlet inside for a snack and rest, and sorted through my trunk. I was super gung-ho and completely forgot to take a before picture, sorry!

After getting rid of a lot of garbage (who put that there??!), too small kidlet items, and random things that needed to go inside, I'd pared it down to several essentials:

  • Scarves, hats and gloves
  • books
  • concert blanket
  • sun shade
  • tire chains
Seeing as I only have the one kiddo, it might seem odd to carry around winter accessories. However, our city has a large homeless population, and I prefer to have these on hand, as we often see people on the corner right by our car. When we have two of us, sometimes we're able to hand out hot water for instant coffee or tea, but in any case, I prefer to have something on hand that can help. As it's summer, and still unbearably warm even at night, these are living the trunk for now.

The books were given to me by my best friend, and our bookshelf at home is overflowing. So my trunk is my mobile library, and as I typically only read a book once, I'm donating them to my actual local library when I'm done! So, soon my trunk will be even lighter, when the 6 or so books are gone.

The concert blanket is used regularly, and lives in the car, along with the chains and sun shade, for the ever changing weather of the Pacific Northwest!



Concert blanket, scarves, hats, books, chains. Sun shade is on top of the trunk cover thing.

What you can't see here, is that the bungee cords are hooked to a steel loop on each side of the trunk, and daisy chain hooked to each other through the webbing of the baskets. These babies aren't going ANYWHERE



I'm really proud of myself for rigging this one up, those chains are heavy and I had to find a way to keep them from sliding around and beating up my nice baskets. 

As good as cleaning my trunk felt, I knew that wasn't enough. Oh no, that was just the tip of the iceberg!! After an impromptu craft store "date" with a friend of mine, I came home with scrap paper, a small frame, and good intentions. Thanks, once again, to a Pin...I made myself a nice bright post-it holder for my desk!



That spot of yellow just wasn't enough. Much of my office is gray, and I really like the gray and yellow trend in color combinations I've been seeing. So, basically all I have to do is add yellow to my office, and it's trendy and bright! To the supply cabinet, where I lucked out and found sunny yellow paper. One sheet later and...

New filing cabinet labels!

Fancy collage...woooooo!


I'm changing things up in my life, and it feels good. Cleaning out, streamlining, and revamping things - it's like spring cleaning, but I'm never on time. So, it's quite fitting.




Happy days, folks!



12 comments:

  1. {Melinda} This idea is brilliance! I am organizationally-challenged, so I jump on any system that makes containing my clutter. Beginning of the school year is a great time to do these kind of projects.

    Thanks for this!

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    1. Thanks Melinda! I love small projects like these, they let me get my "fix" the same day :)

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  2. I love this post. Fun and organized! Yeah! That is inspiring!

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  3. Visiting from SITS!

    I love the Post-It note holder... so simple, yet so clever!

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    1. Thanks Shannon! As noted, I saw one on Pinterest and I loved the idea. It's still such a little sunshine-y spot on my desk, it makes me smile :)

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  4. Great idea! My trunk needs a little organizing...

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    1. I had a blast organizing my trunk - it was shocking to see the stuff I'd been carrying around back there!

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  5. Replies
    1. Doing it in little chunks seems to be what works for me - bite sized projects add up to lots of organization!

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  6. Wow very organized!
    adoptionpi.blogspot.com

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