I used a picture frame to organize my office supplies instead. It works pretty well, doesn’t it? I wanted a red tray, but office trays at the store I went to came in black or gray. BORING. When I came upon a shelf full of picture frames, the options became just a little more fun.

You can use picture frames as trays for other things too, like your accessories (bracelets, earrings, rings, etc.), personal care stuff (facial creams, toners, anti-perspirants, etc.), crafts (spools, buttons, stickers, etc.). The fun thing is you not only get to organize your things a bit more, you can also personalize the frame. For example, I’m thinking of a vintage-type, distressed gold frame for my accessories. Or get a plain wooden frame and decorate it with trinkets for your crafts tray.

If you have old picture frames lying around the house, give them a second life by using them as trays. You maximize their usage and organize your things a wee bit more!

Image credit: Swiffer

It’s like a broom and a mop in one. When I use my broom, I find that the dust flies around with each sweeping. It gets pretty annoying. But after using this Swiffer Sweeper, I find that I don’t have that problem. Plus it gathers more dust than a broom.

Image credit: Buy.com

And for dust on surfaces, I love the Swiffer Duster. It’s got “fluffy fibers” that trap dust instead of just pushing it around. Same problem I had with the broom. So the Swiffer products dust AND trap the dirt.

For refills of these two products, I’ve seen S&R (The Fort branch) carry Swiffer Sweeper refills. The Duster refills I get from relatives who come from the U.S. I haven’t seen any duster refills here yet. If you know where I can get some in Manila, I hope you could let me know!

For more information on Swiffer products, you can go to their website.

There you go! Two of my favorite cleaning gadgets. And since H has taken over my share of Swiffering at home, he’s become a huge convert too.

Before going to bed, I always struggle with doing the dishes. The procrastinating me wants to put it off for the morning, the neat freak wants to clean the dishes and sink right away. What usually wins is neat freak me. Not only is it more hygienic, but waking up to a clean, shiny sink is a cheery way to kick off the day.

It’s simple anyway. Wash and dry your dishes. Fill the sink with hot water and pour a cup of bleach in it. After an hour, drain the sink. Rinse well. Scrub with your favorite detergent. Don’t mix bleach and cleanser — that’s poisonous! Rinse well. Then make your sink shine with a window or mirror cleaner. Ta-da! Clean and shiny. I got these tips from FlyLady. I super love her cleaning and decluttering tips.

The last thing you want to welcome your day with is a household chore, right? Uh-uh! So wash those dishes before sleeping. Shine that sink too. A little grumbling in the evening is better than a lot of grumbling come breakfast time, especially when you’re caught in the morning rush.

Sink image by SheCat

Best for:
1. Quick fixes.
2. Those who can’t sew to save their lives.

There was a hole in one of my favorite shirts. Damn. I was in a rush and did not have time nor the patience to darn the darn hole. My Mom had bought this for me a few months ago, and it seemed like the perfect moment to try it out. It worked beautifully.

Think Super Glue for fabrics. That’s Sew No More. My Mom has used it to fix the hem of her pants, I’ve used it for that hole in my shirt. Just dab some of the liquid on the areas you want to fix, leave to dry for a minute, stick ‘em together and poof! Hole no more.

We got this from Ace Hardware for P179.75. Keep Sew No More in your supplies basket so when quick fixes need attention, you’ll panic no more.

There are a lot of online services that track the blogs you’re interested in such as Kinja, Google Reader and Bloglines. They’re quite simple to use — just identify which blogs you want to follow and their corresponding feeds (RSS? ATOM?). Subscribe to their feeds and your aggregator will check those for updates. (If you’d like to know more about how this works, Steph of Back in skinny jeans explains this really well in this entry.)

In a nutshell, when your favorite blog reads publish a new entry, you’ll know right away! No need to go back to your bookmarks and manually check each blog. That’s so time-consuming! Thank goodness for feeds.

I follow a mix of blogs with the following themes — beauty & fashion, entertainment, poetry, design, food, personal, productivity, travel and Twilight-related. I used to have them in one huge clump – e.g. gossip blogs mixed with food. This worked fine with me at first, but when I needed to read a blog with a specific theme, I’d have to sift through all the updated feeds to get to the blog with the theme I wanted. Again, I wanted to manage my bloghopping time better.

Hence, folders. Folders labeled according to the themes I love. When there’s an update under Personal, I head on over to its folder and check out the blogs with new updates.

Here’s how the Personal Blogs folder branches out. The numbers in bold indicate the number of updated entries each blog has that I have yet to read. As you can see, I am way behind on my bloghopping.

So this is how I organize my blog reads. I do this because it helps me manage my time better, and when hit with a specific mood, I can go straight to the folder that matches my mood. All I want to do is read on new news about The Office, Ugly Betty or TMZ? I head on over to the Entertainment folder.

It’s pretty simple and straightforward. And yes, a tad O.C. I know, but giving my bloghopping some structure works for me.

How do you manage your blog reads? Do you organize it in anyway or are all the blogs in one blog roll? What works for you?

I posted about my Aunt’s supplies basket several months ago, and finally I put together my own. Having a central location for supplies has been a great help at home! When H needs a pair of scissors, he no longer has to look under the magazines and books strewn all over our living room. He just heads over to our supplies basket and there he’ll see the scissors. Now if only I could get him to put things back where he gets them! At least we no longer go on scavenger hunts when it comes to supplies.

The thing with baskets is that sometimes you’ll feel the urge to just throw stuff in. I’ve fallen prey to the comfort of just tossing pens into the basket after using them. The result is a mess of supplies. A messy supplies organizer — can you smell the oxymoron there? Put care in putting back the items into the basket too.

I can’t help feeling I’m missing something though. Hmmm. Could you make suggestions on what else would be great to include in this supplies basket? I’d appreciate it!

Hello! I am Timichu, Toni’s favorite figurine. I am here to share with you how Toni keeps her earrings organized. She used to keep all her dangling earrings in one box, so they’d always end up in tangles. Dangles in tangles! Ack. They gave her a headache. This is why she adores this earrings (and bracelet) organizer. Let me tell you about it some more!

This organizer is made of sturdy plastic. There are two rows of foam at the bottom, three rows for hanging, and five blunt spokes at the top, for bracelets and necklaces. Depending on each one’s length, you can fill up to 30 pairs of earrings here! But Toni hates cramped spaces, so she gives each pair of earrings a bit of breathing room too.

Just spear those hooks through that foam! See all that space? You can fill it with your stud earrings too. But Toni organizes her stud earrings another way. Maybe she’ll tell you about it sometime. And oh, I told Toni maybe she can just buy foam and put it in a picture frame. You know, take out the glass first. She says it’s a good idea! She’ll try it one of these days. But she’s afraid all the blank space might encourage her to buy more earrings.

So this is how Toni organizes her earrings. And oh, you know what the best thing is? These organizers cost only P55 each at Daiso. She went to the Daiso store in Shoppesville, Greenhills. There are LOTS of good buys there she says, but this earrings organizer was her absolute fave.

I hope this gives you some ideas on how to organize those earrings! Maybe you can share how you organize your earrings? Let us know! This is Timichu, signing off.

Use a picture frame to group trinkets together. Just lay down the frame and arrange your trinkets over it. This placeholder will help anchor your trinkets, making your collection look more clean and organized. No more bits and pieces here and there.

Ta-da! Simple organized beauty.

Aside from picture frames, you can also use any of these items to group small things together: a mirror, a placemat, a tray, a cake holder, a tiered tea sandwich holder, a basket, a doily, a fish bowl, trivets, a book, a shoebox, and heck, even a banana leaf!

What would you use to hold your trinkets together?

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Notes: This is my 6th contribution to Thursday Thirteen! Technorati tag right here.

The soles are made of a soft dusting material that can be detached for washing. Awesome invention. How I wish it were available in the Philippines. Or maybe I can just attached a feather duster under my reliable rubber slippers. What do you think?

Found via shop.com. Not a paid post.

This video reminded me to: a) buy new gloves, b) buy more paper towels and c) wipe extra carefully just in case the “Not all men have great aim” is true in my household. *L*

So now you can clean your toilet the way it was shown on the video.

Or you can also set it on fire.