Baskets (and an attempt at being organised)

I am not a tidy person, my husband is (as you may have guessed by his Queen of Clean nickname), but me well.....it's just not where my strengths lie.

Having said that I do love the idea of being organised and can waste much time reading books on the subject or gazing through flickr photo pools devoted to organisation.  Yes, really - they do exist.  My best friend Harry even has this cupboard that I stand and gaze at whenever I am there...trying to capture every little ordered, organised detail.  Harry if you are reading - I have to photograph that cupboard.

So anyhow, on this little journey of mine toward being organised I have sorted out this chest of baskets in my dining room.  These baskets used to store toys and stuff when the kids were babies and it just wasn't being used anymore.  I also had all the craft stuff on shelves in the playroom, which  has no table.....so any crafting requests by the kids involved much eye rolling and moving supplies from one room to the other.  In a kind of grumpy and unenthusiastic manner.

Armed with some Ikea bathroom plastic containers (super cheap and used as dividers), and a somewhat frantic 'Martha Stewart' attitude I got sorting.  If multiple photos of contents of wicker baskets bore you, I make no apologies...just hit the back button on  your browser ;-)

Sewing stuff - bias tape, thread, webbing, scissors, needles etc.

Fabric scraps

Craft punches, rubber stamps, luggage labels (great as gift tags)

More stamps, bull dog clips, foam shapes, raffia, embellishments (don't you just love that word - not that much embellishing goes on around here)

Glue, spreaders, stencils, hole punch, pipecleaners, paperchains, felt bunnies!

Table runner and placemats 

Colouring and sticker books

Wrapping paper

The more observant amongst you (who have made it to the end of these pictures, please someone?) may have noticed that there are only 8 pictures, whilst there are 9 baskets. This is because I read somewhere you should always have an empty shelf/drawer/basket....room to expand.  Worth a try I reckon.