Organizing Bag Giveaway!

This contest is closed and the winner has been chosen.

Are you ready to win some free Organizing Bags? If you've never used them before then it will be a great way to try them for free. If you already have some then you know how fabulous they are and you want more!

I'm going to make this really fun for me. To be entered in the contest you have to leave a comment in this post with your best guesses to the following:

1. Will our upcoming arrival be a boy or a girl?


2. What day will it be born?


3. How much will it weigh?


4. How long will it be?


5. What time will it be born?

Here is some information on my other kids to give you a head start.

1. Boy - Induced 5 days overdue. Born at 4:50 a.m. Weighed 10 pounds 8 ounces. 24 Inches long.


2. Girl - Induced 7 days early. Born at 4:18 p.m. Weighed a disappointing 9 pounds 5 ounces. 21 Inches long.


3. Girl - Natural labor 7 days overdue. Born at 12:04 p.m. Weighed 10 pounds 3 ounces. 22 Inches long.

I am due this Friday, May 9th. I have no plans of being induced this time but you never know what a crazy pregnant woman will do when she is desperate to give birth. At my last ultrasound on April 29th the baby measured 8 1/2 pounds.

I will give away a set of Organizing Bags (one of each size) to a random commenter and one set to the person who has the closest guesses. I will judge it according to the order of the questions. For instance, if we have a boy anyone who guessed girl will be out of the running even if you guessed everything else right. Then we'll go by date, weight, length and time in that order. If more than one person picks all of these exactly the same (you wouldn't do that would you?) then the first one will be the winner. Does all that make sense?

This contest is open to anyone living in the U.S. or Canada because I'm too cheap to ship anywhere else. I will pick a winner on Friday. Unless I'm in the hospital having a baby and then I won't! Please make sure I can contact you via blog or email address if you win.

If you want to order your own bags please take this opportunity to click on one of my lovely participating affiliates sites and order from them. They will have a link to my bags for you to click on and order from.

Sylvia at Mi Familia
Lucy at Ordinary Mom
Christine at Organizational Enlightenment
Thea at I'm a Drama Mama
Laura at Organizing Junkie
Corrie at Positively Organic

The Bags Are Here!

My new shipment of Organizing Bags has arrived! That means I have all the sizes in stock again so you can order away to your hearts content.

Talk About Your Purse

Welcome to our first themed Talk About Tuesday! If you are new, check out the Guidelines before posting. Thanks for joining us!

This week we are talking about our purses. We want to hear all about yours, what works for you, what doesn't and we want photos. Pretty please! If you have something else you are dying to talk about instead of your purse we will forgive you.

Are you sure you're ready for this long post? This is how I organize my purse.

First of all I don't carry a fashionable little purse. I carry a Mom bag. My Mom bag used to be the Sweet Tomato but it got old and ragged so I bought the exact same bag in dark brown so it wouldn't show dirt and would last longer. You can find it here at bagsbuy.com. Don't pay full price because if you sign up for their e-mails they will send you 10-20% off coupons every week. I love their discounts and free shipping.


Like the Sweet Tomato, my new bag goes everywhere I go. You can read more about it here.

This is the inside. I keep some tic-tacs and unmentionables in the zippered pocket. It was a pain getting my cell phone in and out of the narrow cell phone pocket so I use it for pens. I use the clip for my patented key system.

The key system includes a very high tech baby link toy, connected to a springy thingy, connected to a key ring, holding my van door opener. It's easy to find in my bag and I can easily unclip it if I'm leaving my bag behind. The coil is great for putting around my wrist so I don't lose the whole thing which I will if it isn't attached to something and I can clip the baby link to a shopping cart or pocket or such. I am personally giving you permission to copy this very complicated system for yourself. You're welcome.

This pocket holds my MP3 player as you can see. The player goes under my pillow at night and in this pocket during the day so it makes it to the gym with me.



This side used to be one big pocket. That didn't work for me so I sewed vertically along the strap lines and made three narrow pockets. One for my water bottle, one for my extra small Organizing Bag that holds my credit cards, and one for my planner.


On this side one pocket holds a little notebook where I write down ideas, one holds my weight lifting gloves, one holds my cell phone and one holds my gym card. With only one thing in each pocket it's easy to grab what I want. Everything gets put away in the same place every time.

Inside my bag I have a smaller bag to organize more Organizing Bags. How exciting is that!

If I don't want to lug the big bag around I can fill this smaller bag with what I need and take it with me. I hardly ever do though because I just can't part with my Mom Bag.

The pink bag holds a bag for receipts, a bag for tissues and one for my camera which of course I had to take a picture of without the camera in it. You understand.

Another bag holds a little container of Play-Doh lotion. It's really just lotion in a tiny Play-Dough container but people seem to get excited about my Play-Dough lotion. There's an idea for you Play-Dough marketing people. It also holds a cute little leather measuring tape that I bought at Target several years ago, a comb and elastics for hair emergencies and a container filled with band aids, Advil, cough drops, safety pins, etc. I bought the container at The Container store. I tried to find it online for you but no luck.

One more extra small Organizing Bag with goodies in it. How cool are you when you're the only person at a Scout meeting with a pocket knife? Take that you unprepared Eagle Scouts!

See how nicely everything is contained in there? Nothing is getting smashed at the bottom of my bag. Love it.

One more thing I always have with me is a book in a medium Organizing Bag so it doesn't get wet or ruined. I keep sticky notes in the label pocket for bookmarks and marking things I want to write down later.

It all fits nicely in the Mom Bag with room to spare for snacks, a sweatshirt, library books, a knitting project (also in a bag) or anything else I want to shove in there. Pretty soon it will be holding diapers!

So now do you want to know how much this bag weighs? Today with a full water bottle and the two books that I'm reading and can't go anywhere without, it weighs 10 pounds 8 ounces which happens to be the exact weight of my first child when he was born. When this new baby is born it will be like carrying twins!

Actually I don't carry everything in the bag every where I go. I pack it up with my books, projects and what not before I leave the house but I unpack it when I get into the van. That way when the kids are in art class or we stop at a park I can read or knit while I wait. When we get home I pack it up again and take it all in the house in one trip. It's fabulous. If you are a tiny bag woman you don't know what you're missing!

Anyone who participates in TAT this week will be entered to win a free extra small Organizing Bag. You have until Wednesday to link up. Now let's see what's in your purse!

*Important - Please link to your individual Talk About Tuesday post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

Out Of My Unorganized Mind

Well, I've done it again. I've waited too long to re-order Lazy Organizing Bags and now I am out and waiting to receive a new shipment that should be here in about six weeks (hopefully sooner). I'm only out of the small bags at the moment though so you can still get all the other wonderful sizes. At least... until they are gone too. Can you ever forgive me?

I would promise to be a good girl from now on and keep everything in stock but I don't dare. All I can say is I have hired a new book keeper that is going to try to keep me organized so it won't happen again. HA!!!

If you would like to be notified when the small bags are back in stock please e-mail me at thelazyorganizer@yahoo.com. Thank you for your patience!

Click here to place an order.

Important Order Information

Please read this carefully before you place any order.

Shipping costs are approximate. If you are only ordering bags don't panic at the high shipping costs! Unless you are ordering more than $60 worth of bags your shipping probably won't be more than $8.95. I have to estimate high because of the heavy iron hooks I sell that cost more to ship. If you overpay a couple dollars I will throw in an extra bag. If it's more than that I will refund the difference. Thank you for your order!

Please make sure your shipping address is correct on your Paypal account BEFORE you place your order. I have had several people place their order and then ask me to send their order to a different address AFTER I have already shipped it. If a package gets returned to me then you will have to pay additional shipping to have it re-shipped. Sorry!

If you are having trouble getting your address changed on you Paypal account (which is a pain, I know, because I've had the same problem before) then please e-mail me BEFORE you place your order. Wait until I confirm that I have received the correct address and then place your order. I cannot be responsible for sending your package to the wrong address if I never get your email. Sometimes my e-mail will go into your junk folder so you need to check that if you're looking for a reply from me.

If you e-mail me about an order and I don't respond within 12 hours then I'm either out of town for a couple days or I didn't recieve your e-mail. Leave a comment here in this post just to be sure and I will contact you as soon as possible.

If you love your Organizing Bags and you want to tell the world how fabulous they are then you can leave a comment or a link here.

Also, if you have found my Organizing Bags through an affiliate please order from their order page. Here is a list of my affiliate pages:

http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/angelastone/index.html
http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/anniebidia/index.html
http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/beehiveacademy/index.html
http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/christinerice/index.html
http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/cornerofchaos/index.html
http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/corriewatkins/index.html
http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/icalltimes/index.html
http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/imadramamama/index.html
http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/juliegumm/index.html
http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/laurapink/index.html
http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/ordinarymom/index.html http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/organizingjunkie/index.html
http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/realneat/index.html
http://lazyorganizer.com/bags/princesasylvia/index.html

How To Start Your Own Business

Angela asked:

Have you ever written about why you started making these (Organizing Bags), how you got the idea and finally at what point did you stop making them and start ordering them?

Lazy says:

I'm sure many of you are wondering the same thing. You want to know how I started my wildly successful Organizing business so you can do the same thing right? I have literally made thousands of dollars in only six years. Now that you know the great amount of money we're talking about here I bet you can't wait to get started. Here we go...

• Have such a cluttered home and disorganized life that you think you will run screaming through the streets if you flush your keys down the toilet one more time.


• Read an on-line book review of Confessions of an Organized Homemaker by Deniece Schofield.


• Proceed to spend the rest of your life trying to get organized.


• In the mean time use plastic baggies as Deniece suggests to organize your games and puzzles.


• Watch the baggies fall apart within a few weeks.


• Duct tape the baggies back together.


• Buy more baggies and watch them fall apart.


• Decide you are going to make your own bags because you are tired of taping baggies.


• Wait till your sister is visiting so she can help you make them.


• Wonder why it is taking your sister so long to get a drink of water.


• Realize she didn't want to stay up all night sewing bags so she snuck off to bed.


• Stay up the rest of the night sewing.


• Love the bags!

I loved using them so much that I redesigned them and kept making more and more for myself. A while later I had a garage sale and sold some bags to a neighbor friend. She agreed with me that they were fabulous and said I should start selling them. I sold a few bags on E-Bay and to family and friends before I started my own website. I also taught organizing seminars and the participants always wanted bags. I didn't sell a lot but enough that I got tired of sewing them so I looked around to find someone else to do it. Imagine my surprise to find I could pay someone to make them cheaper than I could even buy the fabric myself!

About two years ago I invested $1,000 to place my first order. In the mean time I was busy designing, and building a house so I didn't worry too much about the bags. Finally in January I asked Laura to try them and write a review for me. Within weeks I was sold out!

It took me a while to decide that I wanted to keep doing this but then I finally designed and ordered new bags which came in last week. We'll see how long this order lasts but I promise it won't take me seven months to get my next order. I'm already planning some new styles and I have ideas for other organizing products as well. I also had some organizing seminars scheduled for this month but it's all on hold because I'm too sick to sew, or go anywhere at this point of my life. However, with my kids' help we are busily shipping out your bag orders so keep them coming!

I'm trying to get more professional and pretend that I have a real business. I just bought business cards and opened my own bank account. Now I only have about a hundred more things on my to-do list which should take another five years to accomplish while I'm having babies, building houses and raising chickens.

I'm sure some of you have started successful businesses and could give me lots of advice so let's hear it because I need all the help I can get!

Lazy Organizer Affiliates

Since I have had so many people asking about becoming an affiliate I have decided to do a post on it to clear up any confusion. An affiliate is someone who sells Organizing Bags for me. Here is how you know if you are right for the job.

• You understand that selling Organizing Bags will not make you rich. Unless you are some sort of crazy bag selling maniac and get them on Oprah or into the Container Store or Walmart. In that case you will transcend affiliate status and become a member of my family. Not that that is necessarily a good thing.


• You enjoy getting paychecks anywhere from $.50-$50 a month.


• You were planning on ordering the sample pack of Organizing Bags and blogging about how wonderful they are and how you don't know how you've lived all these years without them.


• You like doing favors for people you don't know.


• You want to have a super cool button to post on your blog as soon as I get someone to design me a super cool button.


• You want to be best buddies with Lara and get personal e-mails and birth announcements from her. Don't forget that best buddies bring their sick friends dinner and watch their sweet little hair cutting trouble makers for them. Hint, hint.


• You have at least three friends you can tell about them, then they tell three friends, then they tell three friends...

If you've decided that this is for you then keep reading.

• Affiliates will earn 5% of all the sales they generate.


• All you have to do is order a sample pack of bags and post a link on your blog.


• You can also get a discount on bulk orders for selling bags to friends and family.


• Decide what name you want me to use in your link. It can be your name or your blog name or anything you want. "I Want To Be Lara's Scullery Slave" hasn't been taken yet.


• E-mail me to get signed up today!

Let me know if you have any other questions or if you just have yummy food that you want to drop by.

Flickr With Me

I have new photos! See my Flickr badge over there in my sidebar? Did you know you could subscribe to my Flickr photos in your feed reader? Yes you can and I am still feeling lonely and pathetic that I only have one subscriber in Bloglines and it's me.

Won't you come join me while I take photos and then pretend I'm writing amusing captions for them? How am I going to learn the art of amusing caption writing if I don't practice?

Oh, and did you know it's dishonest to steal my photos and publish them on your website or blog without my permission? Plus it's not nice. I like to share my toys but I don't want you running home with them and never bringing them back. I'm just sayin...

I have some great photos coming up for you tomorrow. They're not so much about organizing but they are kind of. They could be about getting organized to make your sick pregnancy a little easier. Until tomorrow...

Win a Free Organize Magazine Subscription

Edited - This give away is closed and the winners have been notified. Thanks for participating!

Your Organizing Bags are finally here! Stranger picked them up for me today so my kids and I are going to be doing our best getting all your orders boxed and shipped. It's going to be a big job but hopefully we will get it all done this week.

To celebrate I have some fun things to give away this week. To start with Organize Magazine is giving two of my readers free subscriptions to their fabulous magazine! Can you stand it? All you have to do to be entered to win is leave a comment on this post telling me what kind of features you would most like to see in an organizing magazine. I will leave the comments open until Friday at noon or some such time that's close enough.
I should have done this a long time ago but I am finally getting some photos taken of my bags in all their organized glory. How am I doing this while I'm sick you ask? It's easy when you have two helpers to send scouting around the house collecting treasures to stuff them with. We're only getting started but take a look at the new Flickr badge in my sidebar to see what we did today.

Now I hope you'll have sweet organized dreams tonight knowing your bags and hopefully your Organize Magazine subscription will soon be on their way. And if you haven't ordered yours yet, (the magazine and the bags) what are you waiting for!

P.S. If you are interested in making money on your blog by becoming a Lazy Organizer affiliate, please e-mail me, lara at lazyorganizer dot com. If you get signed up in the next few days you will be able to participate in my Organizing Bag give-away that's coming up. Don't miss out because all the popular girls are doing it, don't ya know? Check them out...

I'm An Organizing Junkie
Dare To Get Organized
Tyler's Triumph
An Ordinary Mom
Desert Diva

It's About Time!

Edited to answer a few questions.

The bags are made overseas.

Click here to read all my posts including photos and ideas for using my Organizing Bags. These bags are great for kids, crafts supplies, office supplies, organizing your purse, your suitcase, your closet, and your life! Don't forget that they make great gifts. I have a friend who fills them with I don't know what (I'll have to ask her) and gives them away. No wonder she is always running out!

If you are interested in selling Organizing Bags you will have to try out all the sizes so if you want to place an order right away I suggest you purchase the sample pack at the minimum. If you want to buy more bags than that I will credit them toward your sales.

I'm excited that so many of you are interested in selling bags and also thank you for all your orders!

The bags are finally going to be on their way! I can't believe it has taken this long. I am telling you, I can not WAIT to start using them! They are new and improved and I have three additional sizes, extra small, medium and extra large. All of the small through extra large sizes have a clear pocket to insert a label. Now each of your kids can have an "on the go" project bag labeled with their name.

I just spent two days updating my site with all the bag and hook information and PayPal buttons. Hopefully I have it all set up right and the shopping cart is working as it should. It's amazing how you can have a teeny tiny website but it can consume so much of your time! Go take a look for me.

You can still find my Organizing Bags at laragallagher.com/bags/ and now my hooks are at laragallagher.com/hooks/.

Here's the sad part. The bags are going to be done next week but it's going to take six weeks to get them shipped to me by slow boat. I am willing to pay extra to have a few boxes airmailed however because I know how long you've been waiting. So I am now taking pre-orders for the bags. If you get your order in as soon as possible I will ship your bags in about 2-3 weeks. Otherwise they will ship in a couple months. Either way you will want to get your order in because who knows how long this order will last. I think I may just use up half of them myself!

Extra small Oraganizing Bag with a little wrist strap - great for a change purse, credit cards, mini first aid kit and all the tiny things in your life.

Small Organizing Bag with a clear pocket to insert a label. It's the same old dependable size that is so convenient for everything from facial tissues, to games, puzzles, and receipts.

Medium Organizing Bag - This is my all time favorite new size. It's perfect for protecting a library book from getting dirty and squished in the bottom of your kid's backpack or it will hold a travel size box of baby wipes and three or four diapers. All you have to do is grab it out of the diaper bag and you're set to go. How cool is that? When your baby is a little older and you don't need a big diaper bag anymore she can be in charge of carrying her own diapers in this awesome bag!

Large Organizing Bag - It's just a little bit bigger than the old large bag so that a file folder or notebook will easily slide in and out. This size is great for your baby's wooden puzzles or for packing up an activity bag full of magazines, coloring books and crayons for your kids to take on the road. My kids each have their own for church and so does about half of the rest of our primary. Not really but it seems that way to some people.

Persistence came stomping in the house one day from Church yelling at me, "Are you trying to embarrass us or something??? Just about everyone in primary has one of these stupid bags! I'm never taking one to church again!!!" Was it rude of me to laugh at her misery?

Of course your child won't have that problem. Unless you start selling them that is. Which brings me to my last point. I am thinking about letting some of my readers start selling my Organizing Bags as a little home business. All you have to do is use them and everywhere you go people will ask you where they can get them for themselves. That's how I started! You could even sell them from your blog. E-mail me if you would be interested in something like that.

Extra Large Organizing Bag - This is a few inches bigger than the Large bag. For stuff that is, you know, larger.

Persistent Assistant

I had to organize this fun little puzzle the other day because there were just too many pieces.

I separated the big words from the little words to make the puzzle more manageable for Lovely. We'll save the bigger words for when she's older.

Don't you just love these quick little organizing projects?

My little helper and I have worked so hard the last couple of days. She has been persistent in her attempts to escape my organizing clutches but she was never able to get very far since she doesn't have a driver's license and her bike has a flat tire.

Our mission is to clean and organize every room in the house and today we worked in my studio. It took us two hours just to finish one corner! It was the corner full of the kid's art supplies and sewing projects and it was a mess.

I'm breathing a sigh of relief as I work in here now. With the worst part behind us we should be able to finish the rest of the room next week but we have to hurry because Persistence cannot wait to get started in the pantry to find out what that funny smell is. You know how seven year olds can be. One minute they're crying because you gave them the wrong color plate and the next minute they're shoving you out of the way at the store so they can get the groceries unloaded and paid for, "Just stand over there out of the way please."

Ok but will you buy me a treat if I'm good?

Organizing Bags

It's official. I am out of the Large Organizing Bags! Yay! When I ordered one thousand bags I didn't think I would sell even half of them. The day I picked them up the man helping me asked how long they would last me until I needed to re-order and I said FOREVER!

Well, thanks to you they are all gone and I just dropped off samples tonight to get prices for five new styles. I can't wait to get them so you can start using them!!! It may take 4 months before they arrive but at least now I'm working on getting them here. For a while I wasn't sure if I was going to keep doing this but I decided to go for it and I think it will be fun!

Just call me the Bag Lady, my sister did when we met with the kids over the weekend. I didn't know what she was talking about until I turned around and sure enough...

The orange one in back is the Sweet Tomato of course. The black one is my computer bag. The purple one was for clothes, the red one for toiletries, a brown one for sewing projects to work on while we watched Conference and another brown one for books even though I knew I wouldn't get to read any of them. Heaven forbid I go anywhere without my books!

That was just one night out of town. You should have seen us when we went to California for two weeks!

No Really, The Winner Is...

Finally! I have been trying to post this all day but Blogger was not cooperating! The suspense was killing me! Who would be the winner? Would Lovely cut a hole in her sweater before it was all over? Why was she playing with the scissors of death anyway? These were all questions that I needed answered and now we know!



Michelle! Congratulations Michelle! Send me your address and your new Organizing Bags will be on their way shortly.

And I'm just kidding Kahri! You are not a loser. None of you are! You are all winners for participating. Thank you everyone for entering my little contest and for inspiring me with your Smart Habit Saturday posts every week. I may not have time to comment on each one but I read them all. I am working on so many of your habits that I never officially declared as my own. I am happy that SHS has helped so many of us reach our goals for ourselves. It has really changed my life as I know it has for so many of you! I hope you'll stick with me throughout this entire year. I can't wait to publish my 2008 New Year's post and see what I've accomplished after 52 weeks of habits. I think by then all of us will be able to conquer our little corner of the world! Its going to be amazing!

Please Accept My Humblest Apologies

*Update

If you are waiting for Organizing Bags and you want to be notified when they are available please e-mail me and I will keep you updated. I am still several months away from having them in stock.

I am so sorry but I am now out of the Small and Large Organizing Bags. I just had no idea that all of you were going to get so crazy with your organizing and they would fly out of here as fast as they did. I promise to do my best to get more as soon as possible.

If any of you have ordered bags and you haven't yet left a comment here I would really appreciate it if you would take the time to post one. Let everyone know just what they're missing!

Thanks to all of you for your orders and comments here at The Lazy Organizer. You make doing this so fun and worthwhile!

Playing With Fire

I just spent the afternoon *designing some new Organizing Bags and I thought of a WFMW tip that some of you might not know about.

Usually the seams in gym bags and backpacks are left unfinished (that means they are left with the raw cut edge) and they can start unraveling with washing or wear. Especially if it is thin fabric.

If that starts happening, all you have to do is scorch the edges of the fabric (especially the cut end of zippers) with a lighter to melt them slightly and they will never unravel again.


I risked my life to take this photo for you. I had to hold the lighter with my left hand while holding the camera and taking the picture with my right hand and hope I didn't burn up the bag or the entire house in the process. If I was a little smarter I might have figured out how to set the camera down while taking the picture. Next time.

Look for organizing tips in my sidebar.

*You can find my original Organizing Bags at laragallagher.com/bags/.

Zip It

You can find my original Organizing Bags at laragallagher.com/bags/.

* I would really like your help with something so I'm thinking about having a fun little contest. Start thinking of ways you could use each of these bags and what you would put in them. I'll give more details later.


I've known for several weeks now that I am running out of bags. I need to order more but the perfectionist in me wants to put it off for as long as possible. I want to design the "perfect" bags and since that can never happen then I might as well not even try. Kind of like how my house will never be perfectly clean so I'd better sit down and eat a bag of Cheetos instead. Being a lazy perfectionist is a very fattening combination.

I finally got tired seeing "design bags" on my to-do list so today was the day. It was a very dangerous job but I had a lot more fun than I thought I would. I got to use my very cool super charged industrial sewing machine that sews through zippers and can break your finger off if you're not careful. Ask me how I know.

I played with fire

and I got to scavenge the house looking for items to fill up my new bags. So fun!!!

Lovely had just as much fun dumping them out again. And filling them up, and dumping them out until she moved on to the next bag. That's how it is when you're almost two and in spite of your family refusing to ever teach you how to un-zip a zipper, you figure it out all on your own. You spend many happy hours getting into every single treasure that you have seen locked up in those mysterious bags these last two years. Your family spends many hours crying over this new development.

This is almost as sad as the fact that you are no longer taking four hour naps. We really miss all those hours of sitting around waiting till you woke up so we could see your sweet smiling face again. Fortunately two hours of rolling around in your crib is still plenty of time to get that nappy hairdo that we all find so attractive.

I made my large Organizing bag just a little bit larger so that a file folder will more easily slide in and out, 11 1/2" X 13 1/2".

I made an extra large sized bag for bigger projects and toys, 12 1/2" X 16".

I made my small Organizing Bag larger to fit a box of travel wipes and 3 diapers and I added a handle, 11 1/2" X 7". Isn't that the cutest little diaper bag? (Don't worry; I will still keep the original small bag as well. I love that size!)


Then I decided it still wasn't big enough so I made it even wider, 11 1/2" X 8 1/2". Now it's also the perfect size to fit a couple of the kid's chapter books. I have them keep their books in an Organizing Bag inside their backpacks so the books don't get smashed and bent or wet from their water bottles. These bags are pretty water resistant.


I took a small Organizing bag and made it even smaller, 5" X 6 1/2".


Then who could resist the tiniest bag of all with a little wrist strap to keep their peas in? You never know when you are going to need a snack so why not keep one handy at all times?


If you are really boring you could just keep your credit cards or pocket change in it, 4" X 5".

Oops, I almost forgot the giant daddy baggie, 16" X 24". You could stuff your pillow in there to take to camp if you wanted to.

I still have a few more bags I want to get to this week. I'll let you know how they turn out. Do your have any ideas for me?

Organized Girls Closet

Were you just dying to find out what exciting thing I was working on last week? I knew it! I needed to get started on another project so I picked the girl's closet. I didn't feel like tackling the entire closet all at once so I began with one wall and lots of my favorite things (hooks) that work with my other favorite things (Organizing Bags).


The entire project took less than three hours. I cut and hung and caulked the boards one night, the next morning I applied two coats of paint and that afternoon I installed the hooks. I put one row down low. Another row up a little higher where Persistence can reach but Lovely can't and then a third row way up there for long term storage. It's still waiting for some hooks.


I added some cork board to hang jewelry on and we made labels so the girls would have a spot for everything.

While I was at it I put up two rows of hooks in our bathroom so we finally have a place to hang our towels by the shower. Ahhh, the small luxuries of life!

See those chrome hooks? Everyone grab your wallets and run to Target because I bought them in the dollar section at four for $2.50. That is cheap!!! Ok, they look a little cheap but they are great if you don't want to spend a lot. I wish I had found them before I put the hooks in Persistence's closet. I paid $2 each for those hooks. I'm going back to Target tomorrow to buy up their entire stock so you had better beat me to it if you want any!

The funnest part of the project was when someone left the bathroom door open and this little twerp found the paint bucket. After dipping my tools and her body in the bucket and flinging paint all over the bathroom, she wandered down the hall to show me how much fun she was having. Do you think it is possible for a one year old covered in paint to walk across the house without touching every single thing she passes? The answer is no.

Your Organizing Bag Ideas

I’m setting up this post to be a place where all you Organizers can share your own ideas for using the Lazy Organizing Bags. (If you don't know what a Lazy Organizing Bag is, click on the link to find out all about them!) You can post your ideas here in the comments or you can leave a link to a post on your own blog where you have written about using the bags. (I'm flattering myself that someone will actually blog about my bags!) I hope you’ll include photos!

You’re welcome to just let me know how you like your bags or if you have ideas for new styles. Thanks for participating. I can’t wait to hear what you come up with!

*Please link directly to the post about using your Organizing Bags, not to your blog's home page, so it will be easier for us to find the right post.

Picnic Organizer

I got to use my Lazy Picnic Organizer today when we went on a field trip to the Tracy Aviary. When we got home I re-packed it and put it away for next time. The grocery bags are for garbage. If you tie one around your baby's neck by the handles it makes a disposable bib!

Paper plates
Paper trays
Napkins
Spoons
Forks
Knives
Baby Wipes
Plastic Grocery Bags

What else could you put in a picnic organizer?

You can buy my Lazy Organizing Bags here.