Do you have a few things around the house that you no longer want or need, but haven't gotten around to giving away? We all do. Maybe it's time to check out Yerdle.
Yerdle is a new website that's basically an online swap meet. The big difference with Yerdle is instead of using cash to buy and sell items, you use Yerdle Dollars. After getting an account, you post a photo of the items you no longer need. You then send it off to the purchaser with a prepaid envelope provided by Yerdle. By doing this, you earn Yerdle Dollars which you can then use to purchase other items on Yerdle. Their mission is to reduce the number of new things we purchase by giving and receiving items instead. So far over 600,000 items have been given on Yertle! I love this quote from their About page "Our relationship with stuff is broken. We all feel overwhelmed by our clutter, even as we race along the treadmill of buying more stuff." I couldn't agree more! I have not used Yerdle personally, but it sounds pretty awesome! You can use the following link to get $35 in free Yerdle Dollers! If you do, I would love to hear about your experience.
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For a long time, I wasn't sure what to make of Evernote, a free note-capture software. I got an account and for years, I did nothing with it. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to use it? People raved and I just didn't get it. Then slowly, but surely, I started using it and I was hooked. Below are a few of my favorite ways to use Evernote. NOTE CAPTURE. As you may have guessed, Evernote is great at keeping track of notes. Start by taking the various notes you had been keeping in Word or on paper, and put that information into Evernote. Emergency contact lists, favorite recipes, party ideas. Whatever it may be, Evernote is a great place to hold that information. The best part? Evernote is searchable so you can find the note you need in a flash. WEB CLIPPER. Evernote has a very useful Web clipper that works directly in your browser. See an article you like or a restaurant you want to remember? Clip it and it goes directly into your notebook. TASK LISTS. Every Monday I sit down with my Evernote task list. It reminds me of all the weekly business tasks that I need to get done, both large and small. You could use it to make a grocery list or help organize a project. You can even share and collaborate on notes. With Evernote, all of your scraps, notes and ideas can be streamlined and saved into one system and found with a quick search. If you get the Evernote App, it's also on your phone and ipad! From packing lists to business plans, Evernote holds it all. Did I mention Evernote is free? Once you download it, check out their great tutorials. If you're not sure where to start, schedule a session and we can tackle it together! When helping a client get organized, we often come across things they no longer need, but they just don't know what to do with. When it is something of a crafty or unusual nature, I automatically think of donating it to SCRAP.
SCRAP is one of my all-time favorite San Francisco donation sites. For almost 40 years they have been helping teachers, artists and other crafty folks get supplies at affordable prices. Walking into their Bayview warehouse is like walking into someones very well supplied and organized garage. There are rows of fabric, buttons, frames, paper and decorations and everything is lovingly sorted. There are also dolls, artwork and other unusual treasures awaiting you. So the next time you clean out your craft closet, fabric stash or holiday decorations, take them to SCRAP and have a ball wandering through their wonderland. It's worth a trip! SCRAP 801 Toland St. (entrance on Newcomb) San Francisco, CA, 94124 415 647-1746 After months of thinking about it, I finally hung a gallery wall in my living room. When it comes to my house, I usually do things in a burst of inspiration and this was no different.
Late one night I took nearly every piece of artwork off of every wall in the house and brought it into the living room. The next morning, I played around with all the artwork and eventually came up with this configuration of graphic red and yellow tones. There are many ways to hang a gallery wall, but I like the method described in the blog StuffStephDoes. Measure & Make Your Template. First, you measure out the wall area you want to cover. Using those measurements and some brown packing paper, create a large template on the floor. Design & Outline. Place your artwork configuration on the paper and outline each piece of artwork. Mark the spot for the nail by finding the center of the top edge of the frame and measuring down to the spot where the nail would be. Nail & Hang. Tape the paper template to the wall and make sure it's level. Put a nail in each spot you designated. Tear down the template, hang your art and enjoy the results! Kids are prolific artists! The painting, the gluing, the drawing! It's wonderful to see our child engrossed in making art, but perhaps it's not so wonderful to see the dining room table covered with glitter glue.
There is a solution. Whether it's a table in the corner of the kitchen or a whole room, let them have a space to unleash their creativity. Gather & Purge. The first step is to gather all the art supplies in one place and purge, purge, purge! Keep what they need and take the rest to SCRAP. Get the Essentials. You don't need much to create an art area. I suggest a table, a few chairs, pen/pencil holders, and a place to hold supplies like paper, coloring books and stickers. Get some inspiration from my Kid Art Areas Pinterest board. Create a Gallery. Kids love to see their work displayed! The fridge is fine, but two of my favorite ways of displaying art is on a clothesline and in hinged frames. Have fun making art together! Much of what I do as an organizer is help people to part with the things that they no longer love, need or want. Many people view these things as trash, but not me. Keeping things out of the landfill and moving them on to their new home, is one of the foundations of my business.
This core principle is also applied... to my kitchen! Composting is nature's original form of recycling. San Francisco has had curbside composting for over 15 years and at some point it becomes second nature. A few years ago I decided to take my home composting up a notch and purchased a Worm Factory 360. The Worm Factory is a compact, super-easy vermicomposting bin. Yes worms! It still thrills me that I can toss a bunch of wilted greens, veggie scraps, egg crates and coffee grounds in and a few months those little guys have turned it all into rich organic fertilizer for my plants. Trash into treasure! Think how much we could keep out of the landfill if every city had curbside composting? If you want to learn more check out the Global Compost Project web site. So many of my clients have beautiful jewelry they would love to wear, but don't because it's in a tangled mess. If this sounds like you, here are some steps you can take to remedy the situation.
1) Purge. Take everything out and assess. Ten pairs of hoop earrings? Broken necklaces? Clear out everything you don't love and donate or sell it. 2) Store. Next, look at my Pinterest board about Jewelry Organizing to give you some ideas about storing your favorites. Could you use drawer inserts, or a tree stand? Pick one or two and go for it. Maybe now that all the excess is gone, the storage you have works perfectly! 3) Organize. This is the fun part! Organize all of your favorites into your new system. Remember to maintain the system by putting things back after you wear them. Be prepared to feel fabulous! |
AuthorErin Becker is a Swimming in paper?
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