Happy Monday, guys.  I kicked my week off in true Eckersley style by waking up late and dropping my kids at the school doors well after the tardy bell.  At least is was for a good cause (and by good I mean completely self-serving).  I was up late into the night working on an all new version MeckMom.com.  I can’t wait to show it to you.  My handsome husband and I are still working out the kinks but it should be up soon.  It better be, I’m not sure how many more tardies my kids can take.

So it’s that time again.  Time for a recap of a few fabulous ideas from around the web. All of these sites were featured on my Facebook fan page in the last week so, if you haven’t had a chance, you should check them out. If you liked them as much as I did, take a minute and let the content authors know. Bloggers love comments; so share the love when you stop by their sites.

Birthday Girl

I love the vintage cowboy look of this birthday party idea. Wouldn’t it be perfect for school fundraiser or a Primary pioneer day activity?

Dittle Dattle

Everyone needs closet organization – teenage boys are no exception. Check out this cool DIY closet tutorial. I thought the mirror was a particularly smart touch.

I Heart Organizing

I’m a sucker for a great organizing make-over. The laundry nook-turned-office area at the end of this post really wowed me.

Another Lunch

The incredibly cute, cold lunches on this site put my kids’ lunches to shame. Who could resist nibbling on that chubby cheese chicken?

Remember, if you’d like instant access to the links I love and a few other tips and tricks, you can sign up to be a follower on Facebook by clicking the Facebook icon at the top of the page, joining the like group at the bottom of my sidebar or by following this link and then clicking the ‘like’ button.

Today’s tip comes from many years of late-to-church experience.  If your family has a tendency to slide into the back row 10 minutes after the meeting starts – you may want to read on.

We have nine o’clock church each Sunday morning.  Now, if I were one of those Moms that spent Saturday night ironing white shirts and setting out shoes, that nine a.m. deadline probably wouldn’t be an issue for me.  But I’m not.  I love to squander my Saturday nights doing non-productive things like enjoying a late-night movies with my handsome husband.  The obvious result is a very sleepy Sunday morning where I hit the snooze button as many time as possible before crawling out of bed.  Consequently, I’ve had to come up with a few solutions to help my kids with get dressed for church in a hurry.  This one of my favorites…

I love to use these cheap pants hangers to hold church clothes.  Rather than keep all the elements of a church outfit in different places, I keep all the pieces together on one hanger.  In this case it’s my Son’s hanger – the clips hold his pants and shirt and the hook secures the belt and tie.  When Sunday morning rolls around he just grabs the entire hanger from the closet.  After church, he just snaps the clean stuff back on the hanger and tosses the rest in the dirty clothes (after I nag him a bit, of course).  I don’t have a picture but we use the same trick for the girls’ church outfits as well.

Trust me, if you’ve ever wasted time hunting down a clean pair of tights or searching for a belt under your son’s bed you should definitely give this easy trick a try.  Just thought I’d pass it on.

Here’s the link to Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 3

Laundry Tackling Tip 4: Hang Out Outside the Closet

I used to dread hanging clothes.  It seemed to take forever and I didn’t like being cooped up in the closet.  As I mentioned before I like to watch Hulu on my laptop while I do laundry.  A few months ago it occurred to me that I could do most of the work outside the closet if I simply brought the hangers to the clothes rather than the other way around.

Now while I sort ‘Parent’ clothes I make a stack of shirts that need to be hung.  Then, I go to the closet, grab a bunch of empty hangers and bring them to the bed.  I slide the hangers into the shirts one at a time and stack them into ‘his’ and ‘hers’ piles.  When I’m through making piles I grab the entire stack of hangers and hook it on the closet rod.  Thankfully, Hulu’s commercial breaks are about 15 seconds which is about how much time it takes me to get from the bed to the closet and back.  Isn’t that handy?  Thank you Hulu for being so considerate of my laundry needs – now I never miss a moment of Modern Family or Lost.

Here’s one more cool laundry link for you.  Meredith over at the lovely site Penelope Loves Lists recommends ignoring your laundry all together as an organization strategy.  Check out her interesting approach here.   Just thought I’d pass it on.

Here are the links to the rest of the series…

Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 1: Set a Schedule and Stick To It

Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 2: Get the Right Equipment

Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 3: Incentivize to Minimize

Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 5: What You Give is What You Get

I’d pretty much resigned myself to living with my husband’s hoarding habits when I got a great email from a clutter-busting company called Campus Quilts (perhaps you heard about them on the Today show or Rachel Ray). They’ve come up with a great solution for t-shirt stockpilers like my husband.

In a nutshell, the experts at Campus Quilt Co. specialize in taking your treasured t-shirts and transforming them into fun, functional, and durable memory quilts. They sent me a quilt kit to sample and I must say I’m really impressed with their process. The kit contained detailed instructions so I can get the exact colors and layout I want, as well as all the materials I will need to ship my shirts back to their facility (the shipping was even pre-paid for me). Their turn-around is generally only two to three weeks, so my Ohio State T-shirt memory quilt should arrive just in time for football season – go Buckeyes!

The whole solution is such a win-win for me. He gets to hang on to his favorite shirts from his alma mater and I get to free up a bunch of space in our closet. It’s too bad they can’t make quilts out of old engineering text books. I could really use the extra space in my basement.  Oh well, I guess you can’t win them all.

So here’s the great news, Campus Quilt Company has generously offered to give away a Quilt Kit and a $150 gift card to one lucky MeckMom reader. The winner will receive a $150 gift card and a quilt kit with order form, layout guide, fabric swatch card, bag to mail the clothing, and a pre-paid UPS mailing label. You’ll get to choose your own layout, quilt details, and colors. They’ll even email you multiple times throughout the process to let you know the status of your order and to give you peace of mind that your treasured t’s are in good hands.

A memory quilt like this would make a great Christmas gift! In fact, you should hop on over to their site to check out their sample quilts and read their customer testimonials. They’re customer service ratings are really impressive. Here are a two sample quilts from their site to give you a few ideas on how you could put the gift card to good use.

To enter to win, you simply have to leave a comment on this post with your favorite clutter busting tip. It doesn’t have to be related to closets. It could be on any clutter-related area. The giveaway will be open all week and the winner will be chosen at random next Tuesday (Sept 8th) at midnight CST. I’ll contact the winner via email and post the winner’s comment name here. Good luck, everyone! I can’t wait to read all your clutter-busting solutions. As always, for those of you who comment, thanks for passing it on.

*This giveaway is now closed.

And the winner (chosen randomly by the iPhone app iChoose) is…Commenter #8, Mindy.  Congratulations!  I hope you enjoy your gift card.  I’ll be contacting you via email tonight.  If I don’t receive a response within 72 hours another winner will be chosen.  Thanks for playing, everyone!

When it comes to Christmas, most professional organizers recommend setting up a wrapping station – some little corner of your house that can be devoted to ribbons, bows, and everything that comes with them.  I have two basic problems with this plan.  First, I don’t really have a corner of my house that can be devoted to wrapping stuff.  Secondly, if I did, it would have to be under lock and key so my kids wouldn’t be able to unwind the colorful spools of ribbon and mess with the much-too-tempting rolls of scotch tape.

So, since creating a lockable wrapping station was out, I opted for a more portable option.  I found this organizer a few years ago at Bed, Bath & Beyond for around $20.  I love it for lots of reasons.  For starters, it has loads of pockets.  In addition to the obvious spots for wrapping paper and bows, it also has dedicated spots for tape, scissors, gift tags, gift bags, and tissue paper.  I also love it for its portability.   When my wrapping-paper-loving kids are around, I can hide it under the couch, tuck it under my bed, or hang it in a closet.  Then, when bedtime hits and the coast is clear, I can pull it out and wrap at the kitchen table, on my bed, or on the living room floor in front of the TV.

If your budget has a little wiggle room, I recommend getting two of these handy caddies.  Buy one for your Christmas wrapping supplies and another to house all your non-Christmas stuff.  That way you can stock up on clearance wrapping supplies at the end of season and store the whole organizer with your Christmas stuff.  Come next year, you’ll be ready to roll…literally.

If you can’t find this at your local Bed & Bath store, you can also find it online at sites like Organize.com.  Just thought I’d pass it on.

First, I bought an inexpensive drawstring mesh laundry sack for each of my kids.  I found them in the laundry aisle of WalMart for around $2.  Next, I used a sharpie to label the loop at the top with the size and season (ie Girl sz 5/6 Spg/Sum).  At our house the bags are stashed in their closets right next to their drawers so they’re easily accessible.  If your kid’s closet is short on space, you could hide them under the bed or hang them on the back of the closet door.

When laundry day rolls around I divide the kids clothes into their baskets and then pull out any clothes that are out of season and put them in a separate pile.  The kids put their regular clothes in their drawers and then add the out of season pile to their mesh bag.    Once the weather has permanently changed (and the chances for short sleeve weather are slim to none) I take the entire bag down to the basement and store it in a labeled Rubbermaid container.

The really nice part about this solution is that it’s totally kid friendly.  If we have really warm day, it’s easy for the kids to pull open the drawstring and dig around in their bags for a pair of shorts.  Likewise, it’s even easier for them to put the shorts back in the sack the following week.  It also makes finding clothes for younger siblings tons easier.  Since the bags are labeled with size and season, when my younger daughter grows into my older daughter’s size all I have to do is find the right size bin, choose the right season, and bring the entire bag of clothes upstairs.

Granted, it’s not the prettiest solution.  If you’re the kind of person that hates looking at a sack of unfolded clothes this may not work for you.  If you’re like me, however, and you don’t care how your kids closet looks as long as it’s functional – this solution might be just the right fit.  Just thought I’d pass it on.

Coat closets are what I like to call prime organizing real estate.  They’re in a very accessible location, easy to customize, and have a door (so they’re don’t have to look neat and tidy all the time).  Rather than waste that optimal storage space on hanging coats that we only pull out for a few months of the year, I decided to convert it to a cubby closet for my kids.

I purchased this simple wire shelving system from Target for $15 (you can find it by all their dorm supplies).  The pieces snap together so it’s easy to customize it to various configurations.  However, I recommend you spare your fingers a little work and use a small hammer to tap the joints together.

I created 6 vertical cubbies but you could adjust it to 4 cubbies and 2 baskets if you needed a place for storing things like sports gear or jackets.  It’s surprisingly sturdy once it’s all assembled.  I know this because my son – the climber – managed to scale it and teeter on the top in hopes of retrieving the gummy worms from my church box on the top shelf. I had the kids set their school stuff on the shelves, but if you need more hanging space for small items you could add a few s-hooks/repelling clips to the cubby sides or line the bottom of the cubbies with foam-core posterboard.

It’s a fast, cheapand easy fix that makes a big difference.  Just thought I’d pass it on.  By the way, if you’re willing to spend a little more time and have a few power tools on hand, you might want to check out this clever coat closet solution on the Lazy Organizer’s blog.  You’ll want to dig around her archives while your there, she’s got loads of great ideas.

In our old house, these inexpensive stackable shelves used to stack vertically and house my son’s books in his closet. In our new house, I gave them a new purpose by laying them horizontally across the top shelf in my daughters’ closet. The cubbies provide convenient toy storage for the rarely used items and allow me to take advantage of the loads of available space above the hanging bar. This same technique would be great for a hall closet, mudroom, or laundry room. Just thought I’d pass it on.

I purchased my shelves at WalMart for just under $10 each. I couldn’t find them on their website, but I found a similar product at Target.com. Here’s the link so you can check out what you’re looking for before you head to the store.

I have 5 plastic drawers in each kid’s stack. I’ll list them from the top down.

· Shoes & Accessories
This one holds all those miscellaneous items like belts, slippers, hats & cover-ups. It also holds any shoes they don’t wear regularly. The shoes my kids wear on a daily basis (generally 1 or 2 pairs of casual and 1 pair of church) are kept in a big basket by the door.
· Underwear
This one is divided with foam core dividers (see previous post) into three sections. The first section holds undershirts and swimming suits. The middle section holds underwear. The last section holds socks and tights.
· Shirts
· Pants
· Pajamas

Dress shirts, jackets, and dresses hang on the rod above. My kids have fairly wide closets so I’m able to put two stacks facing each other in a closet with just enough room between for the drawers to open. However, when we had an apartment with smaller closets, I slid these under the beds and stacked one next to the crib.

As for the labels, I printed them on full-sheet sticker paper (I like Avery). I use laminating film (the cheap kind you buy in a roll) to cover and protect the label edges. I usually cut it about 1″ larger than the label on all sides.

These drawers offer one more bonus in my house. There’s about 8 inches of clearance between the back of the drawers and the side of the closet. I use that space as temporary storage for all the outdated clothes. Whenever I’m putting away laundry and come across something that doesn’t fit or is no longer in season, I just toss it back behind the stack.
Once a quarter or so I pull the drawers out and retrieve all the old clothes. I pack them by size into big tubs, label them, and stash them in the basement.

If you’re one of those people that can’t sleep at night because there’s a pile of unfolded clothes lurking behind your dressers, then this part of the system won’t work for you. But it works great for me . Just thought I’d pass it on.