How to Speed Up Laundry, the World's Most Boring Chore. Does everybody separate their whites and colours? We wash everything together (two people, once a week at the laundromat, larger machine if doing sheets, etc) in cold water. My clothes are clean. My whites are still white. "Tough" material and clothes we don't care about much, like t-shirts, underpants, socks, towels, go in the dryer after the wash. Everything else (tech material, jeans, other 'nice' materials and more expensive clothes) go home to hang dry. Tip: always stick your head inside the machine or give the drum a quick roll around to make sure nothing's stuck on the inside after you're done. Pro-tip: on windy days, throw the largest item of clothing over the laundry basket and tuck the corners in to make sure things don't fly away while you're walking down the street to the 'mat.
DIY: Paint Stick Sunburst Mirror. My friends, if there ever was a bandwagon, this carefree DIYer is jumping right on it. For months, I’ve seen fabulous versions of the sunburst mirror pop up all over the blogosphere. And for weeks now, with every stop in the paint department, I couldn’t help but notice how those paint stir sticks might just make a very cool version of this decorative favorite. I couldn’t figure out how to stack them nicely enough around the center to make it worth my effort, but that little road bump didn’t stop me from snagging more than my fair share of free stir sticks at a time, like 8 or 10, over the course of a month. When I read how Danielle used an embroidery hoop, that convinced me to make my own version too!
Those free stir sticks led to this latest creation: How to Make a (Paint Stir Stick) Sunburst Mirror Paint your embroidery hoop. Some paint stir sticks have a small curve in them, so I simply trimmed mine with my compound miter saw. (quick Photoshop examples) IHeart Organizing. IHeart Organizing. 7 Secrets of the Super Organized. A few years ago, my life was a mess. So was my house, my desk, my mind. Then I learned, one by one, a few habits that got me completely organized. Am I perfect? Of course not, and I don’t aim to be. But I know where everything is, I know what I need to do today, I don’t forget things most of the time, and my house is uncluttered and relatively clean (well, as clean as you can get when you have toddlers and big kids running around).
So what’s the secret? Are these obvious principles? If your life is a mess, like mine was, I don’t recommend trying to get organized all in one shot. So here are the 7 habits: Reduce before organizing. If you take your closet full of 100 things and throw out all but the 10 things you love and use, now you don’t need a fancy closet organizer. How to reduce: take everything out of a closet or drawer or other container (including your schedule), clean it out, and only put back those items you truly love and really use on a regular basis.