Free Camping Checklist & Menu

I hope everyone had a great Father's Day weekend! Tomorrow is my birthday, so my husband and I celebrated early with a three day camping trip. The smell of a roaring fire, birds chirping and smores..I love camping! I created a checklist to avoid having to come back home for forgotten items. I also made a printable to help organize meals and groceries needed. Happy camping! 

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Free Printable: Thrift Store Shopping List

In my last post I shared my Room Design & Organizing Plan with you, since then I have found a few terrific items at my local thrift store that will look great in my living room!  With the economy the way it is, buying used is a great way to save money! I love shopping at thrift stores for awesome finds that I normally wouldn't be able to afford. 

When shopping secondhand it is best to go with a plan and know what you are looking for ahead of time. If you find that special item you have been searching for, you need to first make sure it will fit in the space and through your front door. Having a detailed shopping list with dimensions will insure that your new purchase does not inevitably get stuck in your home’s stairwell. I keep a list in my wallet, that way I have all of my dimensions with me whenever I make an unexpected stop at a thrift store or yard sale. I also keep a small zippered pouch in my car that holds all of my thrifting musts:  tape measure, small magnifying glass and hand sanitizer. If I’m trying to coordinate with something I already have, I take photos with my smartphone of the fabric and colors I need to match. You can really find some amazing treasures if you go with a goal in mind. Let's Thrift!

Is there anything else that you bring to a thrift store or yard sale?

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Printable Room Design & Organizing Planner

Now that I'm back from vacation, I'm able to focus on sprucing up my apartment. I’m tired of feeling like I live in a cluttered fish bowl, so I’m taking control and overhauling my entire apartment one room at a time. Tackling a home organization project can be overwhelming; especially if you’re also redecorating at the same time, so I made a simple planner to help me in the process. I wanted it to be easy to use and include features that I seldom see in other planners, such as projects at a glance, room budget and furniture decisions. Happy organizing! 

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 Here is an example using my living room plan:

Free Birthday & Anniversary Reminder

I have over 1,000 greeting cards in a well organized box sitting right next to my desk, but I rarely use them. I used to send out cards almost every month, but with life being so busy lately I've sadly stopped. Enough with the excuses, I need to make time to reach out to my friends and family! I channeled my inner Martha and made these birthday & anniversary reminders to help me get back on track. To save time, I’m thinking of going through these printables at the end of each month and send all of the cards for the following month at once. Better to be early than late, right?

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Free Moving Kit

Moving can be nerve-racking whether you are moving down the street or across the country. I have moved from California to Oregon to Texas and back to Oregon, so I know firsthand that there are about a million things that can go wrong during a move.  A moving binder is a great way to keep all of your information in one place including moving estimates, receipts, box inventory lists and labels. The binder keeps everything organized, which makes for a smoother move. If a move is in your future, this moving kit has everything you need to keep organized! Each room or area of your home is given a color, which coordinates with the box labels.  I've included doorknob hangers to help quickly identify which room each box belongs in. Happy moving!

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Free Grocery Shopping List

When I first started couponing I made the naive assumption that I could save loads by only buying  items that could be stacked with store and manufacturer coupons and “living” off my stockpile like they show on TV. Boy was I wrong!! You might be able to do that if you live in a big city with lots of grocery stores close by, but I live in a small Coastal community that only has 3 grocery stores so it’s near impossible for me to “live” solely on sale items. So in order for me to save on groceries I need to be aware of what I have on hand, what I need for this week’s meals and what I’m running low on. I rely on my shopping list to see what I need to buy this week regardless of being on sale and what I should keep an eye out for when it goes on sale. If an item isn't on sale that week I use a  manufacturer's coupon at the store I know has the lowest price for that item, but I always compare the after coupon price with the store brand price because that still tends to be the best deal. Happy saving :)

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Free Valentine Baking & Canning Labels

I love giving and receiving homemade gifts, especially edible ones! As a pre-Valentine's Day gift I made little individual carrot cakes; for my husband’s lunch box, using mason jars. He is a happy hubby and so are his co-workers when he decides to share :)

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* Print labels on sticker paper or full sheet label paper.

FREE Printable Freezer Labels

A freezer inventory is little to no help if you can't identify what’s in your freezer bags. Without labeling each bag I would probably pull out pork sausage instead of ground beef for tomorrow night’s burgers lol. Freezer labels help me keep track of what’s in each bag. No more mystery meat!

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* Print labels on sticker paper or full sheet label paper. I've never had the ink run much, but if you’re concerned about that happening you can always cover the labels with clear contact paper before cutting them out. 

Free Pantry & Freezer Inventory List

In my last post I talked about menu planning and a big part of that is tracking what you have on hand. I don’t know how many times I've started to make dinner only to realize that I was out of an ingredient. I've looked at expensive inventory tracking software, but these printables seem to be the simplest solution since my pantry and freezer are made up of items that I use frequently. Having a laminated inventory list; hanging on my freezer that I can quickly mark off with a wet-erase marker, makes planning my weekly menus a lot easier. 

                              

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Free Weekly & Monthly Menu Planner

What’s for dinner? This is a never ending question in my house. My main goal for 2012 is setting up a menu plan and saving a little money in the process. First things first, I had to figure out if I wanted a monthly, weekly or rotating menu. I personally really like the weekly menu, because I can plan based on store sales and coupon savings. I made theses menus to place on my fridge so I never again have to hear "honey what's for dinner?"

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Readers, how about you? Do you menu plan? If so, what's your plan like?

Free Fillable Cleaning Checklist

Anytime I can combine scrapbooking with organizing, I’m a happy girl! I recently finished my Household Binder Cover and I love how it turned out.  Now that the cover is complete it’s time to fill the binder with organizing goodies! First up is a cleaning checklist. I will admit I have been a little lax around here since the Holidays, but now it’s time to clean house! I made these checklists to help keep me on track and also stop me from accidently repeating certain chores and skipping over others. There are many more printables to come!

I like having options, so there are 3 versions of this cleaning checklist to choose from:

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*Every Household Binder printable includes corresponding symbols and colors that work with the home filing system. 

Free DVD/Blu-Ray Organizing Labels

My husband and I love movies, maybe a little too much. Our growing movie collection consists of over 300 titles! I have tried everything to keep our collection organized over the years. I first attempted to save space by taking every movie out of their case and placing them into an automatic disc retrieval system. Although it looked great, I had to virtually start over each time I wanted to add a new disc. Next I moved to a binder system, but I had the same issue whenever I expanded my collection. The other problem was getting my husband to put the disc back where it belonged, rather than stacking it on top of the Blu-ray player! Men! I ultimately gave up and put each movie back in its original case and placed them all on a shelf. I decided not to worry so much about alphabetizing all 300+ movies, but rather grouping them by genres. I made color coded labels to go around the bottom of each case, which makes putting movies away a breeze! I knew my year working for a movie rental chain would pay off someday :) Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best, at least for our family. There is one other option that I found while exploring my favorite organizing store, you can read all about it here. It looks easy to add on to, but that still leaves the problem of my husband not putting the discs away because he “doesn’t know where they belong”. Maybe if I color coded the disc sleeves he would actually put them away? lol  I may try this eventually when I have an extra $100 just laying around. 

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* Print on any self-adhesive full sheet label paper. If you don't want to cut each sticker out with scissors, simply grab your trusty X-ACTO knife and lightly go over each line, that way you can peel off each label quickly. I ran a strip of invisible tape over the top of each label to keep messy popcorn fingers from smudging them, but you can skip this step if you like. 

Free Valentines + Cupcake Toppers & Wrappers

Valentine's Day is a big holiday for my husband and I, because it also happens to be our anniversary! This year we will be celebrating our 9th anniversary! I know my husband appreciates only having to buy roses once a year. I’m no graphic designer, but I thought in honor of Valentine's Day I would create my first valentines. Enjoy! 

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These valentines are super easy. No cutting required! Use any 10 card sheet of 2" x 3 1/2" business cards.

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To make cupcake wrappers:
Bake cupcakes in standard cups. Cut out each pattern section. Then using  a glue stick, add glue to one end of the wrapper and wrap around the cupcake to seal.

Free: Christmas Décor Inventory & Ornament Journal

This Christmas my husband and I finally replaced our old tree, which prompted us to also update our color scheme. Just what I needed, more ornaments to put away lol. I'm bound and determined to organize all of my Holiday decorations, so I came up with an inventory to help me keep track what's exactly in my 10 plus boxes. I've labeled my boxes from 1-10, but if you have an upward of 50 boxes you may want to label them by room. Example: if a box is filled with ornaments for your tree that's placed in the living room, you may want to label it LR-1. Happy organizing!

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2 Free Printables: Christmas Memories & Gifts Received

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas with your families! When Christmas has come and gone, I always take a moment; away from sorting gifts and writing thank you notes, to reflect on Christmas memories both old and new.

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