Organisation – Page 5 – Life is a Journey

Packing Toiletries for Travel

Posted on June 12, 2012October 14, 2026 by Libby Withnall

I’m not sure why but last week I was determined to reorganise my travel toiletry bag. Are we going anywhere soon? NO. Maybe it was wishful thinking as this is the first year since 2007 that we won’t have been away in Winter :-(.

This is what normally lives in my toiletry bag. With the exception of my brush it’s travel size containers of all my normal beauty/body products.

I recently splurged and bought a new bag set from Priceline. Again, I think it was due to that wishful thinking. The bag is not as good (for me) as the one I had before but I think it will work.

Luckily everything fits.

But you actually have to pack everything on one side to close it up without everything falling out.

Would like to see exactly what I pack? This would be in the bag for a 1-4 night stay. I keep stuff for in the shower in the clear zippered pouch that you can see above.

Some sample sizes of face masks and moisturiers.

Some of the following would be removed if not needed.

I keep all sample and gift products in a drawer so I can swap out and grab as needed. It’s actually my goal at the moment to use up most of this instead of keeping for travel, as I keep getting more.

Ah, now what about makeup? I have these matching bags for makeup and the small one for jewellery.

I forgot to take a photo before putting it into the bag but it’s just the basics. The jewellery bag even fits in on top. These bags don’t stay packed as they are my everyday products.

Now what about those longer trips? I have this great big pink bag (it’s actually a dance bag) that I can put other smaller bags inside of. I used this in Alaska last year and it worked great.

There is a hook so the bag can even be hung open and things grabbed straight from it.

When I pack for Disneyworld I’ll be sure to show you this bag in action. Obviously I might need bigger bottles of product (depending on the length of the trip) and just swap out sizes as required. And add a big bottle of suncream and a selection of nail polishes. For our 6 week trip to the UK I took full size products and shared with Amy so we used it all up while we were away and didn’t have to bring it home. We then restocked with duty free :-).

Please let me know if you have any questions or any wonderful ideas for me to incorporate.

Recipe Folder Revamp

Posted on June 6, 2012October 24, 2026 by Libby Withnall

Firstly just wanted to mention the few brave bloggers who decided to undertake my June challenge of blogging every day. Please try and pop by their blogs and give them some love.

Cathy@Stillwaters

Paola at Spades and Spoons

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Todays post is all about revamping my recipe folders. It’s been a work in progress for some time and I last did a major re-sort over 2 years ago. As you can see things are looking a bit messy. And Amy is always complaining she doesn’t know where to find things.

The first step was buying some new folders and breaking things down. I now have

– one folder for main meals (which are are favourites)

– one for bread, dips, salad and soup

– one for recipes still to try

– one for baking

– and one for my whole foods class recipes.

I put dividers into the folders and sorted the baking folder by muffins, biscuits/cookies, slices, cakes.

Then it was time to make them pretty. I got some co-ordinating papers and cut them down to size.

Don’t they look great? I have done a cover like this once before but don’t be surprised if you see a lot more from now on. It was SO EASY and the plain white binders were about half the price of the pretty coloured ones I nearly bought.

Last step was labelling the folders. I don’t expect to hear any complaints from Amy now. I’m so happy with how it turned out. Pretty and functional, and best of all, so easy.

I also put together a video of the process if you’re interested.

Small Organising Projects

Posted on May 30, 2012October 24, 2026 by Libby Withnall

I have a lot of organising projects on my to-do list but many are all day jobs, some like the scrapbook room, would even take days, if not weeks. When I’m busy or just not up to tackling a big project I try to take on a small one. Yesterday I did the girls vanity. Honestly it took about 15mins. Love that I get to cross off a project as being done. I also gave their bathroom I tidy (but did not clean).

I can’t really sort through Amy’s stuff any more so I left the drawers for her to do, in additional to the basket she on top of the vanity. While tidying I put stuff for Amy and Christy to sort through into a tub.

I got rid of things I knew no-one was using and tidied up or rehomed the rest.

I try to repurpose containers so I grabbed the black beauty case that was lying empty in one cupboard and made it a place to store my lush products, which were in the purple bag.

Now I can see all my goodies.

I also keep a few lush products in this tub which lives on a shelf above the bath and I’m making it a mission to use up my stash before I buy anymore.

How do you tackle your organising projects? Do you break them up into smaller projects?

Let me know if you’d like to see more posts like this.

Project Reorganise – the wardrobe

Posted on April 20, 2012October 24, 2026 by Libby Withnall

Before Easter and our holiday I manage to find a half day to work on my walk-in-wardrobe.

I know some of you prefer photos to video so I decided to do both.

This time around I followed the online class by Aby Garvey calledOrganise Your Closet. It really is a good course if you don’t know to go about organising your wardrobe or, as I did, just want to pickup some extra ideas. One thing I did, which I never have before, is to TOTALLY empty out the wardrobe.

I sorted everything into like piles, went through and pulled items to donate, and put them back – moving some items around. I also swapped out the plastic containers for more woven ones.

And I tidied my shoes.

If you want to know more about the process I went through please watch the video.