Papers and Vinyls

Papers

I finally conqered the paper trail in my house! It's time to do our taxes and for the last while we've been trying to locate our tax info. We knew it was in a box in a bigger box someplace in our house. It used to have a permanent home but the move changed that. Finding the tax info gave me the motivation I needed to finally tackle all our papers, finding places for them to be home. I knew I'd be using my new cardboard box system for filing. 

I'm still on the hunt for the perfect wrapping paper to wrap these in. 

I'm hoping for grey and white paper, either chevron striped or polka dot.

Documents and paper will also be living in my turquoise filing bin, top right corner.

To start I gathered all my paper and stationary and sat down with it on the floor.

I went through every piece of mail, paper and document - if I didn't need to keep it I put it in the paper recycling bag. If I needed or wanted to keep it, I put it into a pile. The piles grew as I sorted - medical, insurance, "to deal with", family, homestay, etc. The pink sleeve is our new tax info sleeve, the white box below it was the old one. 

Then I used file folders to sort and contain each type of document....and voila! All organized. I was amazed at how quickly it went - it took me less than an hour. If I can be disciplined and do this once a week for 5 minutes, I should have no problems. 

I also put my stationary in one of the hanging file folders - labels/stickers in one and envelopes in another. 

Vinyls

A while back I ordered about 20 different colors of vinyl on "Pick Your Plum." It was a great deal and I knew I'd find many uses for it. Especially because it was stick on vinyl, and not iron on. 

I didn't have much time yesterday but I was ITCHING to vinyl something. 

Then I remembered that Paul has taken to using a mason jar for everything. It's a jar we got from Bev's wedding in September with a nice wide mouth. He uses it for beverages and guards it jealously. Sometimes we've had some conflict, because it looks quite similar to the rest of the mason jars and I'll accidentally use it to hold mini eggs or flowers or something very girly. Then Paul goes to have a drink and realizes he'll have to use a regular glass and it's just very disappointing. 

We've been trying to figure out how to label it so this stops happening. I tried a permanent paint pen and that didn't work - it rubbed right off. We knew that a chalkboard label wouldn't work - chalk rubs off to easily and this gets washed by hand regularly. And has condensation outside from having cold liquids in it. 

I was telling Paul about my new vinyl arrival and he suggested I make him a label. I was so excited - I knew what I'd do - cool letters, or a cool symbol. Something cute and awesome. 

But no. Paul said...his initials in the plainest lettering possible. 

I guess the silver lining is that he wanted to use the turquoisey-blue since it would be easiest to see. So at least the color was cheery. 

I free handed cutting it out using scissors and then pulled the backing off. It took me MAYBE all of 3 minutes and it pops a big punch!

I also cut out a small J for his middle initial to put under the P. It looked sooooo cute. But that was the problem, too cute. Paul hated it. So we'll stick with plain and simple. At least my husband knows what he likes, right?