And the winner is....

Remember the competition for ideas to use up Connor's empty formula cans?


Well, I loved all the comments. Clearly you guys are MUCH more creative than I could ever be :)

There were truly some great suggestions - if you haven't read them, go have a read and make some notes for your spare cans.

My favourite ideas were from Danel (commenter 1) who gave me not one, but four great ideas:

I use mine as follows:
- store small toys in them.
- cut an opening in the lid and let my baby put babyfood lids through the opening.
- put anything noisy in them so that baby can shake it - loves the noise
- use an empty one as a drum - i taught my baby to hit it with his hands or a spoon to make some noise!

I may have liked them so much because they're baby uses for empty baby cans :) I get a kick out of things like that.

So Danel, look out for an email from me soon :)

I also loved the suggestions to use them for Christmas goodies so I've decided to also use some of the cans for my famous oatmeal drop cookies to give to some of my friends for Christmas. Everybody LOVES these - just try them.

These are the easiest things in the world to make and you absolutely can't go wrong with them. I promise.

I did my first batch today and 1 1/2 cans are already used :)

Thanks, everybody, for playing along.

P.S. I still haven't managed to fix this scheduling problem (yes, I've logged it on the support forums) so I'm moving to Wordpress. I think I've been very patient the last 6 months!

P.P.S. I go back to work in 2 weeks time!

Help me find a use for these and win a free ecourse

The contest is now closed. Thanks everybody for all the fabulous suggestions. I'll pick a winner in the next day or two and post the name :)

Have a lovely weekend!


This is a picture of some empty formula cans.

Somehow I can't bear to throw them away as I'm positive I can recycle them and put them to good use.

Only thing is, the babies have sapped my creativity and I'm all out of ideas.

This is where you come in - I'm looking for ways to use these cans, keeping in mind that Connor goes through one of these every 14 days. Kendra's on the tiny yellow/ orange tins in the top left of the picture so I don't mind throwing those away.

This is what I already do with some of them:

1. a wastepaper basket in the smallest bathroom in the world
2. catch water under the leaking tap

So here's how it works:

• Leave a comment with your suggestions and your email address
• Competition closes this Sat 12pm EST
• I'll pick a winner and post the person's name.
• The person chooses 1 of 3 e-courses.

Hopefully in the not-too-distant future I'll do a post showing you what I did with them.
Come on, put your thinking caps on!

3 quick ways to go green and stay organised

Today is World Environment Day and I'm going to share 3 quick ways how being organised can make you more green

1. Stop printing mindlessly
Remember the more paper you have, the more you have to organise and file it. Rather stop and think about whether you really need to have a paper printout of something before just hitting that print button.

My printer ran out of ink about two years ago which forced me to think about what I really needed to print (it seems not very much at all). It's still unplugged and I have less paper to file and think about. Win-win!

2. Declutter regularly and re-use where possible
This is a great way to keep your own things organised and help other people to not go out and buy, buy, buy.

Donate clothes and food to shelters.

Don't throw file folders out if they're in good condition - donate them to schools or re-use them in your own office.

Use the back of paper as a scrap pad jotter.

3. Only use cloth shopping bags
When you make a decision to only use material shopping bags, it automatically forces you to be more organised.

You stop just "popping in" to the shops and start mindfully shopping, which means you only go to the shops when you have your material shopping bags and your shopping list.

And you know when you use your shopping list you're a more organised and healthy shopper.

What other suggestions do you have for going green and being organised?

Some other posts you may enjoy

Going green

Recycling paper

Are you signed up for Earth Hour?

So who of you participated in the Earth Hour project?

We did.

I lit candles all around the house and we had supper and some lovely conversation by candlelight.

What did you do?

*********************************

Join me on Saturday 28th March for Earth Hour.

The idea is to switch off your lights for just one hour (and we can all do one hour, right?) at 8:30 pm, local time, no matter where in the world you are

Here's the link to sign up if you live in South Africa.

So are you in?

Make it easy to recycle paper

I've always said that if you make something too complicated, it just won't work, no matter how well-intentioned you are.

That's why it's so important to make your systems easy, especially if you live with other people and you want them to live by your organising "rules".

That's true for designing a good flow for laundry in the home and also for recycling paper in the office.

And so this was born:



I used to have one wastepaper basket but found we were less inclined to separate the paper when we cleared the trash.

Who wants to fish around amongst apple cores and other bits of fruit? Certainly not me.

This works beautifully for us.

First of all, I don't generate that much paper to start with but what I do throw away, goes straight into the paper bin. It's much easier now to take the one basket and dump it as is into the paper recycling bag.

Do you recycle paper? If yes, do you use those fancy partitioned recycling bins, or how do you make it easy for your household?

Control the paper clutter

Does this picture look familiar?

Or maybe all that paper is on your desk or kitchen counter tops?

I love my lists as much as the next paper-loving person! But all that paper piles up so quickly and judging from all the emails I get, I'm not the only one.

Guess what I do now?

I laminated my monthly and weekly lists, and I write on them with a dry erase marker so I can keep re-using them.

This tip definitely works for me.

You can use this tip for anything you use often, from travel checklists to master to-do lists to monthly event planning lists.

Read more paper-controlling ideas here.

How do you keep the paper under control?