Home & Interiors - Muji

When I was in London the other month we popped into Muji on the King's Road for a browse. This shop is right up my street and there were so many things that I would have loved to have brought home with me (unfortunately there just wasn't enough space in my suitcase).

 

I really like the idea of this aroma diffuser. You can scent your home with essential oils and it's safe for around children and pets as there are no naked flames (I've already had an accident with one of the kittens when the singed the end of their tail on one of my many candles...oops).

 

Muji Aroma Diffuser, £45

 

I also really like Muji acrylic storage drawers. I had one of these when I was a teenager that I stored my make-up in, and it did get pretty messy and scratched so it eventually went in the bin. However I quite fancy a few of these for my home office to store stationery.

 

Muji Acrylic Three Drawer Box, £17.95

 

 

Keeping with the office organisation, I also love these brown card magazine files. I did have white ones from Ikea for a while, but these are more aesthetically pleasing to me. I've got three shelves above my new Made.com desk that I still need to style and I think these would be ideal for storing important paperwork.

 

 

Muji A4 Magazine Folders, £7.95 for a pack of 5 





Lastly, I love Muji travel accessories. They just seem to have this market sussed and looks like they have everything and anything you could want for travel organisation. I have a hanging toiletries bag which is super handy (think mine is from Superdrug perhaps or maybe Sainsburys), but this box one at Muji looks even more ideal as it has more storage for dinky skincare bottles.

Muji Hanging Box Case, Large, £12.95

 

Do you own any items from Muji?

What else would you recommend I check out?

{Getting Organised - Toys!}

One of the major issues at my new house is lack of space / storage; with that in mind, here are my tips for getting organised with your children's toys.

I like everything to have a place, and this is especially important in my new house as space is at a premium. This goes for everything, not just the toys!

Declutter

Ditch broken toys, duplicate toys and toys that haven't been played with for a long time. I managed to clear a few boxes of baby toys before our house move and I also sold a few larger items on Gumtree.

Set the Rules

We have a defined play area. I'm lucky to have a 'grown-up' room and a 'play' room. From the moment we arrived at the new house, I've been very clear that the front room is for grown-ups and the back, more informal room, is the playroom. So far, so good and all the toys have stayed in the play room. These boundaries are so important.

The kids have soft toys and books in their bedrooms, but that is all. I don't want to encourage playing with noisy toys during or after the bedtime routine. I've learnt from mistakes made at the old house!

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Get Organised

I've categorised the toys into boxes/baskets...

In our coffee table drawers we have -
1. People - e.g. Happyland people, Fisher Price Little People & Playmobil characters
2. Animals - e.g. Schleich animals, My Little Pony
3. Musical instruments
4. Lego
5. Small cars

I've used plastic shoe boxes in the coffee table drawer to separate the categories, similar to this under bed storage drawer

In the glass display cabinet drawer we have -
6. Puzzles

And on top of the cabinet we have a basket with -
7. Barbie stuff

In the pantry/cupboard we have -
6. Big cars
7. Bigger toys - e.g. Octonauts / Happyland house
8. Games
9. Arts & Crafts - paper, crayons, pens, stickers, paints, Play Doh etc.

The big toys that we have out on show in the play room are -
10. Kitchen - wooden kitchen plus wooden shopping trolley of play food (the kitchen has a few baskets with a shopping till and tea party stuff) 

In the shed -
8. Outdoor toys (in an Ikea storage bag) - football, skittles, tennis rackets

In their bedrooms -

14. Books

15. Soft toys

I need to get clever with storage, and something similar to these fabric carriers on the bag of their bedroom doors would work quite well I think. I think I could knock this up on the sewing machine.

Involve the kids in tidy up time

I'm trying to get into good habits with regard tidying up... if we move activity from dolls to crafting, then we tidy up the dolls first. At nursery they play the Mission Impossible theme tune and the kids know it's time to tidy up. I'm thinking I might download it onto my phone!

Rotation

I used to rotate toys at the old house and would put a bag of toys into the basement out of sight for a few months. If I get enough space in the shed, then I might start this again as it did work really well.

What are your tips on getting organised with toys?

PS I have a {Get Organised} board on Pinterest other ideas :-)

{Get Organised}

It was one of my new year's resolutions to 'get organised' and I'm making good progress, but I still have a long way to go.

I'm trying to tackle different areas each week, and one of these on my list is my jewellery storage, or lack of it. I was never really a fan of wearing jewellery but I've started wearing it more frequently.

At the moment I have my jewellery in a plastic drawer in my wardrobe, but it's jam-packed and I can't access it very easily and as such I end up not wearing it. My other issue is that I need the storage to be at a toddler-free height otherwise my two little magpies would take it all!! I do have a lovely leather jewellery box that was a gift to me on my wedding day and in this I have some special pieces, but not my every day items.

I'm been scouring Pinterest for ideas and inspiration and have come up with the following:

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Bex (Olive Dragonfly) also has a similar vintage storage unit on the wall of her bedroom, but I can't find the link to it on her blog.

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I love the idea of reusing ice cube trays for separating out earrings.

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Rebecca over at Florence Finds has even shared some different craft projects for creating a gold patterned tray. 

Are you a wearer of jewellery? How do you store yours?