favorite wrapping paper & organizing woes

I hope your holidays were lovely. We traveled. It was nice to already have all the presents wrapped and not to have to make Christmas dinner. And it was good to see lots of family. It was also good to come home, though. I always appreciate my home more after I've been away.

I went shopping at hobby lobby a couple days after we got back from our trip. Because I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket. And I knew just what to get. My most favorite wrapping paper ever is the heavy duty stuff from hobby lobby. It's nice and thick and comes in super cute patterns. The past few years I have stuck with red and white patterns. And then the 10 million gifts under my tree (for my eight children) look fabulous and coordinated. The best part is, I buy this great paper the week after Christmas, and I get great paper for next year for less than $2 a roll. But many of their patterns could be used for birthdays, baby showers, etc. that's why I bought the black and white paper this year.  **Large family tip: raise your tree (with a big box) to make more room for presents under the tree. 

I'm ready to get organized for the new year. I set my goals for this year, one of which is to do more with less. Which means having less stuff, but better utilizing what I do have. Like downsizing on my crafts and wrapping supplies. I am seriously a boarder line hoarder. 

We'll call this a before picture (no natural light whatsoever in here, hence the yellow). Obviously I have my work cut out for me. ;) I'm about  2/3 done with the great craft closet clean out of 2014-15. I got all the kids toys cleaned out and put in the closet. But cleaning out my craft supplies and organizing them on the shelves has proved problematic. Mostly because I'll have to pull everything down again before I can organize it all. 

In other non-organized news, my large project pile on my desk is threatening to take over the playroom. Not to mention that trash pile chair I've been meaning to slipcover for about the last five years or so. I'm slow. That's how the decor projects roll around here. You'd probably think it was worse if you could tell that it is a ripped came back chair that I glued back together and covered with an old torn up sheet. It has been so long that it has been decorated with marker by three different children. Maybe the poor chair should move up the project list finally. 

I'll end this rambling to say, hopefully this year there will be a lot more creating and cleaning this year. Since last year was all about creating a cute little boy. ;)