As I was waiting for the paint to dry on my back door yesterday, I happened to catch a glimpse of my little shelf in the corner.

This shelf is wonderful.  It fits perfectly in the space without being in the way, and it holds lots of things that we might need in the back yard that I don’t want to store outside (since we have no roof or cover over our patio). It gets much more use over the summer as it holds a lot of pool stuff and some outdoor play items. When tidied up it looks like this.

The bottom bucket holds various back yard sports items.  We have a lot more, but these are the basics they use a lot.  The second bucket holds doggie things.  Pool towels on the shelf, and the basket above holds smaller pool equipment, my garden gloves, a pair of my sunglasses (I got tired of using my regular pair for outside, because I would always forget to put them back in my purse), and of course sunscreen and bug spray. You can see the dog food canister next to it and the smaller paw print item above – more on that in a sec.

But, since the pool is coming down as we speak (kind of – a slow process), I decided to go ahead and rearrange the items until next summer when the pool goes back up.  *A side note on the pool.  We have one of those blue metal frame pools.  It might look very redneck in our backyard, but it provides wonderful entertainment on those unbearably hot Oklahoma days, and when the summer is over, I love that I can take it down and use the whole yard for the other 9 months of the year. *

So, now the shelf looks like this.

All contents are the same (aside from the pool equipment in the small basket which will be stored away), just rearranged.  

As I was sorting through the things in the buckets, I decided on a different solution for the doggie treats – instead of in the box, buried in the dog stuff bucket.  I had some of my trusty plastic containers from walmart left over from the garage organization project, so I grabbed one.

I printed out a paw print from my computer just like I did for the food canister only smaller.  (pardon the pink look of the printout, I need printer ink)  

Traced it on the back of a piece of my chalkboard vinyl. (no I don’t plan on writing on it with chalk, but it was the color I wanted and it was in my closet – free {no spend month :)})  

Then, I cut it out and stuck in on.  

Easy peasy and oh so cute!!  Happy organizing and crafting!!

Pulled this out of the closet today to add some personal touches to some store bought items – with fabric I found in my stash of course ;).

A while back I shared with you this horrifically, embarrassing photo of the closet at the end of my hall.  I use this closet to store a variety of different things.  Mostly crafty stuff, but also wrapping stuff and of course my vacuum cleaner :).

I finally got up the nerve to clean. it. out.  Because it was ridiculous people.  I could barely open the door without fear of something tumbling out (except that I am pretty good at piling stacking things).  After an entire day, that may or may not have included a moment or two of despair and wanting to give up, this is what I now see when I open the door…

Do you hear the angels singing??  I do!!

I know it might not look like much – but let me remind you again where we started.  

So, here’s how this thing went down.  First, as with all organizing/purging projects, I emptied all of the contents from the closet…into my hallway.

Wow.  That’s a. lot. of. stuff people.  This was when I had a brief fit of despair and desperately wanted to run away screaming.  (But, I knew my hubby would not be pleased if he came home to see all of this all over the hall.)  So…I dove in.

I sat right there in the corner and sorted through it all.

I was not really interested in purchasing any new storage for this closet at this time (no spend September), so I just used what I had on hand.  Some of it I was already using in there, and some things got switched around.  When we finished our garage project, I inherited the small drawers to use in here and they are perfect for my sewing tools and notions.

When it was all clean and pretty, I again pulled out my go to chalkboard vinyl and started cutting labels.  I decided to just keep it simple and cut rectangles, since I had a variety of shapes and sizes to label.  I labeled most everything – even some of the obvious stuff ;).  

There are still a few things I would like to tweak, and I still would like to add another shelf or two up high, but for now it is definitely a breath of fresh air when I open the door.  

This was my pile for donation and trash when I was finished  🙂

Cross another project off the list!!  Blessings to you and happy organizing!!