Organizing My Junk Drawer

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esterday I said I didn't think it was that bad, well it was worse than I thought!

A while back there was a project of sorts about truth in blogging started by Sweetney I believe. People were posting pictures of themselves first thing in the morning, just out of bed, before make up or showers or any primping at all. For a blog like mine, as we discuss and share homemaking and organizing and decorating this is my little bit of truth in blogging. I've never pretended to be perfect though. On my about page, I'm perfectly honest, "I'm not quite there, but I want to get there and I'll share the journey with you." So, here we go:

Before, after I lifted the top layer of papers, which consisted of recipes, so you could see the meat of it all:

Everything that did not belong and had to be put away elsewhere in the house:

That's a lot, I was surprised to see that much stuff was misplaced. Plus, I'll be needing those garden trimmers soon, so this was good timing.

A clean empty drawer, notice the bottom is lined with shelf liner. I do this so it's easy to wipe down and the drawer doesn't get ruined if a pen leaks or explodes. All of my drawers are lined with shelf liner or drawer liner. When clothes are involved it helps prevent snags, for those drawers I use lightly lavendar scented paper drawer liner. You can see that paper under the bits in my vanity drawer. I just adore it! I bought two boxes with a $50 gift certificate to Crabtree & Evelyn I had gotten for Christmas two years ago from my grandmother. After I cut the sheets to size I cut the remaining edges into squares and tucked them into purses and shoes and anywhere that could use a little touch of freshness.


I mentioned having an extra flatware tray that I use for that drawer, but I wanted to share what I would do if I didn't have that tray. So, if I just wanted temporary containers while I was working out what I would need in the drawer long term, this is what I would do. The small glasses are a little bigger than shot glass size and one is cracked, so we don't usually use them as a set, so this is perfect. The long narrow boxes are cut from cereal boxes, two tops and two bottoms. You can't quite see it, but down the far right side I have a pair of scissors and a ruler, they don't fit in the box. So, for permanent solutions I know I would need at least one longer tray, or a bigger cereal box. I cut dividers for the small white tray in the lower left out of the same cereal boxes, to separate out the matches, stamps, lens wipes, gift cards and USB thumb drive. The coins are separated into four small black box tops. Eventually, a box outside of the junk drawer would be ideal for the batteries, or a set of rechargable batteries with a charger would be nice. The heart tin holds seed packets and cut flower food, this could obviously use a better solution.



Finally, this isn't what I would call permanent, since there are still areas that can improve, but this is with my flatware tray in place. You'll see it actually works quite well since there is one very long spot for my ruler and scissors. It's almost like I could have picked this out to replace the four box tops/bottoms with the additional long section need fulfilled. This is how it will stay for a little while at least.


Ok, so if you organized anything, anything at all this week and want to share your before and after, link up! Please link directly to the post and not to your home page, so we can find the appropriate post easily:



Read the whole series!
Monday: Using what you have to organize
Tuesday: My current areas organized this way
Wednesday: Pick a new area to organize - Drawers
Friday: Transitioning to permanent organizing solutions