Good organization not only keeps a playroom neat, it is an opportunity to teach your children about their letters and spelling words. Many schools now adapt the organization habit of labeling storage boxes in nursery school classrooms with a label that has a picture and the word for what is inside. So a container with crayons would have a picture of crayons and the word “Crayons.”

Adapting this labeling technique for your young child’s playroom at home not only gives you a very well organized playroom, it also encourages a child to stretch their word and lettering skills. The more exposed they are to words and letters, the more they will start to use them!

Labels are easy to make and to find. The very best labels for your nursery child’s playroom at home are ones that are both colorful and durable.

Use words that are simple and very commonly found. As your child sees the word over and over, they will begin to acclimate the word with the toy or other plaything.

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It won’t be long before March 21st is here. This means it is the perfect time to get a jump on your Spring cleaning duties. Labels help organize Spring cleaning easily and effortlessly. Try these 10 Uses for Labels for Spring cleaning, you’ll likely discover you’ve got plenty of time left over to loaf and relax and think about what you’d like to plant in your garden!

1. Winter clothes. Label all of your winter clothing boxes so you can easily pull them from your attic or storage for next year. While children will likely grow out of many of their clothing, adults know they can wear the same sweaters and coats again and again. Labeling means you save time and effort crawling around in your attic figuring out exactly which box does have your winter coat!

2. Donations for charity. Your Spring cleaning time is the ideal time to donate winter clothing and used toys to charity. Why not label your boxes and bags of donations so they are easier for the charity to sort through? You’ll save them some time and also make your own charity donation list easier to make.

3. The garage. ‘Nough said. The garage gets a real workout in the Spring thaw. Label the spaces where your tools go and even the spaces where the kids’ bikes are stored. Everything can be easily organized and there will be no more tripping over things in the garage. Using asset tags can also help.

4. Canning fruit. Just like Grandma or your favorite aunt, many families can fruit or even make their own jam in the spring. It is very important to label each of these jars so you know exactly what is in them! Your pretty label also helps you give this jar as a great gift to friends and family.

5. Kid’s room. Somehow it seems like your kid’s possessions seem to morph and mushroom all on their very own — without you doing or buying anything else! Spring cleaning is the perfect time to organize and label exactly where things go. This will help teach your kid where to put toys and clothing away. If you have a young kid it also encourages new reading and spelling skills.

6. Coat closet. “But we don’t wear coats in Spring!” you may protest. Well, you may be known to grab your rain slicker or a business dress coat before heading out to work. A well-organized coat closet means everyone finds their coats (and puts them back) so much easier.

7. The video cabinet. Every family has a video cabinet, filled with DVDs and video games everyone enjoys playing. Labeling everything can help you find this quickly. Creating sections such as “video games” or “comedies” can also mean DVDs and other vids are put back in a much more organized fashion.

8. The medicine cabinet. When you are Spring cleaning, this is the ideal time to get rid of old and expired medicine as it is unsafe to have in any home. This is also the perfect time to label what you do have, so your family can reach for what you do need. Labels placed in the medicine cabinet can remind family of basic care tips such as first aid or emergency numbers.

9. Spices and kitchenware. Every family has one of “those” kitchen cupboards that is like a junk drawer, with too many things in it and you can never find what you need. Spring cleaning is the ideal time to organize it. Use Spring cleaning as the perfect time to relabel all of your spices, as many of the labels fall off as you cook.

10. Under the kitchen sink. This is one of the best places to label while you are Spring cleaning, as most families keep their cleaning supplies here. You can label where your sponges and mop go and also where your different types of cleaning supplies go. Labels can also give family cleaning tips for different parts of the home.

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New Years Day has come and gone. Are your resolutions intact? Did you resolve to straighten out that garage? Never fear! Here are some handy organizers for that unruly garage.

Unless you’re having Closets Unlimited to the entire job, you can get great use out of the deep shelves available these days for your garage. They are available in two depths. There are even corner shelves to make the most use of those corners. The heavy duty castors are available separately.

Another handy organizer, especially for those who have a lot of small items rather that large bulky stuff to store are  filebox systems. An entire garage with assorted paraphernalia can be stored and labeled and handily accessed as the need arises. Be sure to buy labels for your boxes. These systems are very easy to put together as well.

Bike Rack

For special stuff such as golf and other sports other organizers are also available. For bikes, of course there are various systems of storage to keep them readily available and off the floor.  Handy racks are available to store a couple of huge water bottles and for the uber-organized gift-wrap organizers.

Golf club Organizer

With all such storage readily available your garage should be spruced up in no time flat!

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There are neat ways to organize all the paraphernalia found strewed all over your dresser or bathroom counter. The organizers below can whip your dressing space into shape and make dressing up a pleasure once again.

Here’s a neat way to store all your earrings. It’s a pullout that displays and stores your earrings and can be tucked away out of sight when you’re done.

Another organizer can either sit on your dressing table or be mounted on the wall.

But by far the piece de resistance is the dresser armoire for your jewelry on the wall. You can organize your jewelry, get a place to dress and clear it all off your floor and move it to the wall.

Diamond organizers are available to organize any drawer. They can easily be cut to size to fit any drawer. They are ideal for socks, panties, knee highs etc.

Another must-have organizer can get all your hair do-dads off your dresser, off your bathroom counter and out of the way either on a wall or cabinet door. All the do-dads can be displayed handily and well arranged till the next time you need them.

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No more squishing silky summer shirts between winter parka and wool slacks. Wools need to breathe. We need to make more room in your closet by stashing away your cottons and summer silks.

Not a good idea to store clothes in plastic garment bags or air-tight plastic boxes. Always discard the dry-cleaner bags as soon as you get home. Plastic keeps fabrics from breathing and can discolor and rot them. Whatever moisture remains in the fiber can help mold and mildew grow. Any gases emitted from the plastic can be absorbed by the fabric serving only to accelerate the aging process.

Empty the pockets of everything you’re putting away till spring. Launder or dry-clean everything before putting them away. This ensures that stains from sweat, perfume or spilled wine do not get set in the clothes. “Stains become a food source for carpet beetles and moths,” says Jonathan Scheer, president of J. Scheer & Co., a New York textile preservationist. “These bugs will eat through the fabric to get to the food.” That’s another reason putting away starched clothes is not a good idea. Starch will feed bugs and also weaken the fabric making it more brittle and can lead to permanent stains in humid environments.

Label storage boxes and trunks with their contents. It makes it easier all around come Spring.

Line your storage closet, trunk or drawer with cedar panels. Alternatively toss in a few cedar blocks. By sanding boards and block ever year or two you can effectively rejuvenate the cedar fragrance. The scent repels moths and discourages them from laying eggs.

Store fabric in a cool, dark and dry place. Garages, attics and unfinished basements is a poor place to store clothes.

Underutilized closets or chest of drawers in a spare room for instance is the ideal place to store your off-season clothes. You may consider offering to pay your cleaner $20 or $30 to store a season’s load of clothes for you just like expensive leathers and furs.

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There are those who collect their photos in shoe boxes (time to start labeling) and albums and those who go totally digital. They use digital cameras, store and share their photos electronically. Of course, if you’ve been collecting for over 30 years or inherited some family collections, you might have a combination of photographs in albums, photo boxes and some photographs stored digitally.

Another excellent alternative to traditional albums is scrapbooks. Scrapbooking as a hobby has become the craze for women of all ages, in all walks of life, with varying levels of skills and abilities. For those not very artistically inclined, there are various how-to sites that have easy step-by-step instructions that can walk one through this seemingly monumental task and come up with very fancy scrapbooks to make for oneself or to give away as gifts. Whatever the final outcome one desires, organization of those photos is a must. Storage could be temporary or permanent, depending on the final objective in mind.

If your photographs are tucked away in envelopes and those in turn, stacked together in shoe boxes, you may want to sort them according to your preference, either by date or events. You may have, for instance, a large number of photographs of Cousin May’s wedding, or Grandma’s 80^th birthday which was in fact a family reunion of sorts and so on. These would be wonderful choices for an album or scrapbooking project.

Go through them, envelope by envelope. Weed through them, toss out photos out of focus or overexposed. Toss out those you don’t really care for and don’t serve any other purpose either. This will pare down the amount of organizing and labeling you will eventually need to do. Store these in suitable envelopes marked according to year or event.

Depending on your current level of organization you might need to get albums, photoboxes, scrapbooking material, acid-free and PVC free envelopes, acid-free photo-safe pencil or pen (available at photo processors and art-supply stores) etc.

Albums: Choose a style of album that goes with the kind of photos you would like to put in them and that go with your décor. Then get a number of them. Albums lined up six or seven of a color or style look much better than a bunch of assorted albums stashed together. Older photographs that you’ve collected or inherited should be safely stored in acid-free, archival quality environments. Albums should be stored preferably upright on shelves away from direct sunlight or humidity. The ideal temperature for albums is 65^o to 70^o F with a 50% relative humidity level.

Photo boxes: For temporary or permanent storage, choose good looking matched boxes that can be stacked on your shelves and add to your décor. Remove the photographs from their old envelopes, separate the negatives for separate storage. Put photographs in archival quality envelopes, label them according to year or event. Label the negatives appropriately and set aside. Once you have matched stacks of photographs and negatives, the photographs can go in photo boxes and the negatives can be stored in a fire-safe box. Even if you lose all your photographs, albums etc. your precious negatives will be safe.

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Fall’s here.  It’s the ideal time to take a good look at your closet.  Is it bursting at the seams?  Could it do with a makeover?  Let’s take a page from the experts.

All essentially spring clothes can be stored away to make room for the heavier sweaters of fall.  This is a good time to inspect all your clothes.  Do you need to pare them down?

Anything that doesn’t fit right, needs severe repair, doesn’t do much for you or your figure could summarily be dismissed to the Discard pile.  Good clothes that will be used through fall can be assigned to the Keep pile.  Closet makeover experts, Jesse Garza and Joe Lupo of Visual Therapy recommend an Archive pile.  This could be your storage pile plus any outfits of merely sentimental value.  You may never wear them but can’t bring yourself to throw.  These may include things like baby clothes, your wedding dress, your grandma’s gorgeous skirts from the home country.  The Archive pile has no place in your closet.  It needs to be relegated with other stored stuff to a little used room, a cool dry place in your basement or attic.

Jesse’s philosophy is we must “learn how to let things go back out into the universe. It’s the circle of life.”  Once the piles are made come the hard decisions.  From the Discard pile is there something someone else can use, should they be donated to the needy or tossed in the nearest garbage bag.  The archival pile and how they should be stored will be discussed in a later blog.  Now we need to deal with the Keep pile.

Double rods double up space for your clothes.  If you’re not very handy with a power drill or don’t know someone who is, you can opt for inexpensive hanging rods that hook onto the existing rods in your closet.

Now for the shelves above your rods:  Hopefully you have one or two of those.  This is where you can store three handy tools to corral your favorite slips, lingerie, trinkets, handbags, wallets etc.

Clear shoe boxes are excellent for storing rolled up slips, camisoles etc.  This keeps them from taking up hanging space and slipping off the hangers as they are wont to.  Square wicker or rush baskets or trays provide great storage for handbags, clutches, your gloves, wallets etc.  Keep your dressers clear and store your trinkets and baubles in small boxes housed in a large box clearly labeled according to your preference.

Line them up on your shelves as shown and stack your favorite cashmeres in between.

Storage Boxes

Once your closet has had its makeover, it becomes very easy to keep it lean, mean and a functioning machine for you.  All the pretty corralling tools with matching hangers for your clothes will have transformed your closet.  You will want to be keep it uncluttered and ship-shape.  The closet in its new avatar will itself be the motivating factor that will make you keep it in order.

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