Organizer's Heaven

I deserve a spot in Real Simple on the page about what new great uses there are for everyday household items. That's right, I had what I call a stroke of brilliance last week when I decided to use an acordian check file to organize my recipes.

You know how you get recipes from people that are just written on scraps of paper and then they end up in a pile or box of some kind in your kitchen? Well that was happening to me. I was actually keeping them in the pocket of a binder, but there was no way to organize them. To make matters worse, I had a stack of 11 Everyday with Rachael Ray magazines taking up more counter space. I kept these issues even though I didn't love all the recipes in every issue. With my growing collection of recipes, it was time for an organization intervention.

The acordian check file has turned out to be the perfect solution. I'm able to make each section a separate food category and just slide the paper scraps scrawled with recipes right in! Also, I spent an entire evening going through each Rachael Ray magazine and cutting out recipes I wanted to keep. I know that now that my system is in place, it will be easy to do this each month when the new issue comes in. And as a bonus, I've cleared up some counter space! To say the least, I am elated by this project: