Shopping list frame

There's less than an hour of the month left so it's probably time for me to get on with my blog post for the month...

I made a whiteboard-style frame to keep track of things I need to buy.

To make it I used a photo frame, a piece of plain white paper and a piece of patterned paper. (I got mine from my Kikki-K paper lover's book.)

I wrote the title on the computer and printed it out on a scrap piece of paper in a few different shades of blue to find the one which was the best match for my patterned paper.

Once I'd chosen my favourite colour (I went for the second one), I printed the title on a clean sheet of paper, which I then cut down to the right size along with my patterned paper down to fit into the frame as I wanted. And then it was ready for action!

Organising my bedside table

This month I have tackled my bedside table.

It started off as something of a mess...

I began by taking everything off the surface and out of the drawers and tidying away the things that belonged elsewhere. Then I gave my bedside table a quick clean and put everything back neatly - simple!

The surface started like this...

... and ended up like this...

I decided to minimise the amount of stuff I am keeping on top of my bedside table because I have plenty of room in the drawers and this way should be easier to keep tidy (fingers crossed!). So I've got my alarm clock, my phone (plus charger), my Kindle, a notebook and a framed inspirational quote to get me out of bed in the mornings (yeah right...). I thought about having somewhere to keep hair ties as I had about a million on here before I tidied it up, but I've decided it's better to keep them on my dressing table instead.

Drawer number one used to look like this...

... and now looks like this...

I went for the tissues in drawer option, which I am a big fan of. I love Kleenex Balsam tissues but the boxes are quite large and not particularly stylish so keeping them in the drawer helps the top of my bedside table to look neater and I think they are still easy to access when needed. I stacked my current box on top of my spare box and it fitted perfectly. I raided my stash of cardboard boxes for two boxes which fitted nicely into the remaining space - one for my hand warmers and one for my cosy socks. I covered the sock box in wrapping paper, which was surprisingly difficult and ended up a bit messy but I think it still makes the drawer look a little prettier. In the remaining gap I have put some hand cream, lip balm and a pen.

Drawer number two went from this...

... to this...

I fitted all my key bedside table items into the first drawer or on the top, so I didn't have anything left to keep in the second drawer. I thought that it might be a good place to keep my medicines/first aid items so I moved those into there. As you can see, there is plenty of room for my medical collection to grow or for something else which needs a home.

My bedroom is looking much smarter now!

My new planner

This is my new planner.

It is a ringbinder-style planner from Kikki K and when you open it up it looks like this.

On the left hand side are:

• Small notepads (handy for small notes)
• Small pockets (handy for stickers)
• Large pocket (handy for papers which don't have a home)

At the front of the ringbound section I keep my to do list for the current day so that it is easy to access (and harder to ignore!).

It came with seven dividers and I have labelled six of them as follows:

1. Daily - for planning a day at a time

2. Weekly - for planning a week at a time

3. To do - for keeping track of my to dos

4. Goals - for setting and tracking goals

5. Blog - for notes about this blog

6. Notes - for notes about anything else

An organised meal list

I have been using a to do list app to make my meal planning life a little easier.

In the app (I use Do!) I have my favourite meals listed as tasks with the due date set as the day I last had that meal. The list is sorted by due date so that the meals at the top are the ones which I haven't had for the longest time.

I really like this approach because I can get inspiration from the list when meal planning, and it helps me to mix up my meals instead of having the same thing all the time. And it's really easy to update the app every day after I've had my tea!

Organising my ribbon collection

This is how I organised my ribbons, which were living in a jumbled mess.

I started with this box, which I had left over from some mugs I was given as a present.

My plan was to wrap my ribbons around pieces of cardboard and file them in the box. I started by drawing round the end of the box to get a guide for the size of the pieces of cardboard.

I cut out the piece of cardboard and trimmed it until I was happy with the size of it. I then used that piece as a template to cut out lots more pieces of card.

Then I wrapped my pieces of ribbon around the pieces of cardboard and secured them with a pin.

Then I put them in the box, in colour order of course!

Ta dah!