Organizers are always talking about containers–clear containers, odd-shaped containers, heavy-duty containers. For instance, I always recommend Rubbermaid containers to my client–they’re tough and I’ve found that the lids always snap well to the bottoms. I have my preferences for shoe, paper, and food storage, too.

But what about the sentimental items in our lives? Ticket stubs, “Make Love, Not War’ buttons, a mix tape from your teenage years and the like need a place to live. The container doesn’t have to be fancy–it just has to keep your beloved items safe and all together in one spot.

Have you ever checked out the website, SpoonSisters.com? They offer unique items at different price points–at least half of them will make you chuckle when you see them.

I was looking for a cute baby gift when I stumbled upon this item. I thought it would be perfect for people who are decluttering but wish to keep some sentimental items. And yes, when I saw it, it made me chuckle. The title says it best…

It measures 7 1/4″ long x 5 1/2″ deep x 3 1/2″ high. Here’s a view of the inside:

It’s cute. It’s kitchy. And I thought it was pretty cool. Those three adjectives make this Random Crap Box a winner in my book!

What container are you currently using to hold sentimental items?

This past month was the first time in almost three years that I took a break from social media. No blog posts for a month and only one or two Facebook shares. No original content was created for anyone in the month of June. Instead, I focused on family events and took a trip with my hubby and kids. My head is more clear now and I’m ready to blog again!

Before I started my social media ‘break’, I submitted a post to the ‘Your Organizing Business’ Blog Carnival. The last one I participated in was about helping families get organized. This one focused on Product Reviews of Organizing Products.

The product review I submitted was about the wonders of cable turtles. Our homes and offices would be a web of wires if not for this great product!

If you’re wondering what organizing products might work for you in your home or office, this is the place to check them out. Twenty three professional organizers have road-tested these products for you. I’m still only halfway through the list!

When you find a product from the list you think might help organize your space or time, let me know about it. I’d love to hear about your newest discovery! Meanwhile, I’ll be trolling the list looking for some cool products to try…

Long commute?
Live far from your family?
Got kids?

Then you probably spend a lot of time in your car.

Our cars are like a home-away-from-home. Sometimes we eat in our car. Sometimes we sleep in our car. We have TV screens and stereos and storage spaces in our cars. Yup–sounds like home to me…

So, if it’s important to keep our homes organized, it is equally important to keep our home-away-from-home organized, too.

I drive a big SUV and if I didn’t organize it, it would resemble a dumping ground on wheels. I have to organize my belongings, stuff for my kids, supplies for my business and supplies for the car just like I would organize any space in my home. When you’re ‘on-the-go’ you have to be able to find what you need quickly.

Your first step towards organizing your car is to sort and purge the items currently living in it. Once you know what is staying you’ll need a few organizing products to help you keep your home-away-from- home neat and tidy and of course–organized.

Here are a few products I use in my own car and a few that might be useful in special situations:

Trash receptacle – If you don’t want your car looking like the city dump. I highly recommend purchasing a trash receptacle for your car. This is the one I have by Case Logic and it works well for me. Unfortunately, it’s so old, the company doesn’t make it anymore:

I keep it thrown over my gear stick and hanging into the passenger side. It’s easy to stuff the garbage into the top and the velcro bottom opens easily to release the trash. I own this in tan to match my old car’s interior but when it has seen better days (the time is coming soon!), I’m getting one like this:

Auto Trash Bag by The Mod Mobile

There are so many fun, colorful and cool designs, I’m not sure which I would pick! Check all of them out on Allyson Hill’s The Mod Mobile Etsy site.

Visor CD Organizer – Downloading songs to my iPhone is on my long list of ‘Things I’d Like to Do Someday.’ So in the meantime, I’ve purchased a CD organizer for my visor–also from CaseLogic. My music, kiddie music–it’s all stored neatly and at arm’s reach.

Collapsible Crate – I got mine at a discount home store a bunch of years ago but you can find them at some office supply stores and The Container Store.

Photo Courtesy of Office Max

This is what is in mine: box of manila folders for organizing jobs, plastic bags, extra umbrella, and the ‘restaurant’ bag I’ll be discussing next. Other items that can fill the crate are groceries, car accessories, and random items that might otherwise float around your trunk or back of car.

“Restaurant” Bag – I got a drawstring backpack as a promotion from a store I was making a large purchase at a few years ago. When I saw it, I knew what it would be perfect for–a ‘restaurant bag.’ I call it a ‘restaurant bag’ because it is filled with items to keep my kids occupied when we go out to eat. I keep it stocked with paper, crayons, stickers, and a package of wipes. This is kept in the crate so I’ll always know where to find it when we pull into the restaurant parking lot.

Other Organizing Products for Your Car:

The people from Tote Buddy were at the NAPO Conference 2012 EXPO with all of their beautiful designs. It would make a great gift for someone who prefers to use recycle bags when they go shopping.

Organizer for Kids: Kids come with a lot of STUFF and they like to bring some of that STUFF with them when they go in the car. To prevent all that STUFF from being all over your car, consider an organizing product that hangs over the driver/passenger seat and faces the child. Many styles have room for crayons, hand-held games, books, DVDs and other STUFF kids like to have with them in the car.

Over-the-seat Car Organizer by Lillian Vernon

Desk: Do you or someone you know work out of their car? This product is a very good solution for those with mobile office needs. The Car Go Desk secures in the passenger seat with a seat belt and offers space for files, mobile equipment and peripherals.

cargodesk.biz

OK–next time you get into your car, take a good look inside. Would any of these products make your car more organized? Do you currently use any of these products? Tell me–I’d love to know!

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If you’ve been reading my posts for the past few months, you already know that every Friday I post an organizing tip to my Organized Artistry Facebook Page. Each month has it’s own theme–December’s theme is Time Management.

While creating content for this theme, I came up with a bunch of products that help manage or save a person’s time. Typical products like calendars and kitchen timers came to mind but as the night wore on, I got punchy and came up with a few ‘unorthodox’ time management products. The one I’ll be talking about today is one I use at least 5x a week. Gentlemen–you may want to get up for a few minutes and have your wife/mother/girlfriend/friend read on ’cause we’ll be talkin’ about makeup.

Makeup? Yes, the stuff ladies wear on their faces.

Makeup as a time management tool? Yes–I’ll make you a believer by the end of this post…

I promised myself (and my husband) that when we had kids, I would make the time to, as my mother likes to say, ‘put on a face’ in the morning. We now have two small children so my makeup routine has to be quick and simple.

I have this eyeliner I love–the color, the texture, but it seemed as if I had to sharpen it every 2-3 days. That’s fine if you have the time in the morning but lately, I just don’t.

I stopped into my local Sephora to see if they had another eyeliner in that color that I wouldn’t have to sharpen so often. They did!

The Sephora consultant showed me how I didn’t need a sharpener at all with this eyeliner. All I had to do was give it a twist and more eyeliner would reappear. Now it takes me about 1-2 seconds to get my eyeliner ready for use as opposed to the few minutes it took with the other pencil. Perfect for the mom on the go!

They come in a multitude of colors–I use Brown #08 for everyday usage.

The only ‘con’ about this eyeliner is that you don’t know you’re at the end of the eyeliner until you try to turn the base and it stops turning. I live near a Sephora but I can’t always get there so I use another time-management strategy–I buy multiple products–usually 2-3 at a time. This saves me from having to make a last minute trip to the mall which I rarely have time to do.

Bye-bye eyeliner sharpener! Hello, retractable (and time-saving) eyeliner!

If you have a kid who likes playing with LEGO but can’t seem to keep it off the floor and other horizontal surfaces–help is here! 

Since I started organizing in 2002, there have been a few magazines dedicated to organizing and it’s profession. The first one was called Balance. The second one was called Organize–lucky me had the privilege of being involved with it at its inception as the author of the ‘Organizing on a Shoestring’ column.

Now, a new magazine has been created for Professional Organizers and anyone interested in getting and staying organized. It’s called:

Getting Organized Magazine is the brain-child of Stacey Anderson, a Professional Organizer in the State of Washington. According to her blog, Stacey says, “This is a magazine that will cover everything organizing: home, work, technology, paper, time management, ADD/ADHD, book reviews and much more.”

Go check out the website! It features articles, tips, videos, experts, events, and resources.

For a sneak peek of the first issue coming out in January 2012, click here.

If you’d like to follow the magazine on Facebook, click here.

There are two ways to subscribe–by print (arriving in your mailbox) or by electronic/digital file (arriving in your inbox). I’m not sure which I’ll choose but as soon as I decide, I’ll be signing up for my subscription to Getting Organized Magazine…

I just received The Container Store‘s Happy Organized Home Sale catalog. Lotsa great organizing products–and at affordable prices, too.

But, I HAD to share what I think is one of the most creative transformations of an already existing product…

Have you seen those jewelry organizers you hang in your closet? Some of them look like this:

Jewelry organizers like this one are functional and utilitarian. But look what else you could have hanging in your closet to organize your beads and baubles:

I took one look at this and thought, ‘COOL!’ Besides the fact that it holds a boat-load of jewelry, it looks like a dress in your closet! Made by Umbra exclusively for The Container Store, the ‘Couture Hanging Jewelry Organizer’ is made from cotton canvas and features 39 pockets and 24 hook and loop closures.

So if you need a new way to organize your jewels and have some room in your closet, check out The Little Black Dress. Umbra definitely knows style…

I’m lucky to live so close to The Container Store! Even if I don’t need anything specific, I’ll drop by, walk up and down the aisles and check out some new products now and then.

A short while ago, I was in the ‘kitchen’ aisle and came upon a product that I thought was not only cool but it could also help me with my own organization problem–my refrigerator.

Food was getting lost in my fridge. Food was going bad in my fridge. I didn’t want to open my fridge!

OK–it wasn’t that bad but I was having ‘bread issues.’ Loaves, buns, pita, wraps, and mini-bagels were getting lost and smushed in my fridge.

And then I met my new best friend–The Fridge Binz Tray. These heavy-duty plastic trays help to organize food items and create additional storage space. They come in different shapes and sizes but this one suited my needs best:

I looked at the tray in The Container Store and whispered to it, “Come home with me…”

I brought it home and it has become one of my favorite and most useful household organizing product. Here it is in my fridge:

All the bread products are in one place! When I want some, I pull it out by the handle:

Voila! Bread products slide out. Bread products slide back in. Nothing lost. Nothing smushed. Nothing wasted.

Take a look in your fridge. Could you use a Fridge Bin?

Wires, wires, wires! They can be a mess!

How do you keep from tripping over, getting tangled in and hiding all those wires you have?

Use cable turtles.

What is a cable turtle you may ask? A cable turtle is a storage solution designed to hold and hide excess wire/cord/cable. It keeps an area tidy and free from the usual tangled mess that comes with today’s technology.

I’ve worked with many female clients over the years who love bags–handbags, shopping bags, all kinds of bags. I, myself have a small collection of cool shopping bags from my past. Introducing a new kind of bag for you to love…the Tili Bag.

It’s not a purse–it’s a ziploc bag, as Emeril would say, “kicked up a notch.’ Who wouldn’t want to whip one of these out of a diaper bag, backpack, suitcase or pocketbook?

Ziploc-like bags are one of my favorite organizing products–inexpensive, readily available and now chic, too! Hooray!

To find out more go to Tili.com. Bag ladies–organize with style!