2019 Consumable Gift Guide...for Kids

The holiday season is quickly approaching (and I’m sure a birthday party or five). You might find yourself asking the age-old question...what am I going to do about gifts?!

Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt “stuck” when it comes to gift buying (ME!).

I’m a huge proponent of consumable and experiential gifts (check out the 2017 and 2018 guides here) and wanted to make sure that we addressed the littlest gift recipients in our lives with this year’s installment.

$ - FREE OR LESS THAN $10

Kids love one-on-one time with you (especially if you have more than one child). Give your kiddo a budget and let them pick how you will spend it - the only caveat being that you have to DO something (rather than BUYING something). A suggestion, the Nutcracker Tea Party at Tina’s Traditional Tea Room in Carmel coming up on December 8.
If you’ve got time to get creative, plan a scavenger hunt or adventure day. Maybe you pull out a good old fashioned map and let your kiddo choose the destination. I promise the conversations you have & the memories you make will be worth more than any “thing” you could have bought them.

Time to Toss - Expiration Guidelines for Your Favorite Household Products

Pantries and bathrooms are some of my absolute favorite spaces to organize. Why, you ask?

Well, you just can’t argue with oregano that expired in 2012 or that Cajun Shrimp nail polish that is completely separated.

Whether you are working with a professional organizer, or trying to get started on your own, these are great spaces to get your feet wet when it comes to organizing. Pull everything out, check ALL of the expiration dates and get to tossing.

Having all of the expired products discarded allows you to see what needs to be replenished, but also gives a very true picture about what products you use and which ones you don’t.

The Baer Minimalist's Twin Baby Registry

Registering for a baby (or two, in our case) can be daunting! It is a totally different experience than registering for a wedding, because there are so many foreign items that you are told you will need, but you have NO IDEA what they are used for.

So my #1 tip is to ask a friend for help, or utilize a resource like Lucie’s List. This was the best way to get a jump start on registering for me. I consulted their guide for twins and built my registry online through BabyList. What’s even better is that I only had to pop in to Buy Buy Baby once to “test-drive” strollers - because a store like that is completely overwhelming in my opinion for any first time mom-to-be.

For the most part, I was careful about what we registered for because I don't like a lot of clutter. I also didn't want to register for a lot of items that we wouldn't use within the first six months (i.e. high chairs, sippy cups, toddler toys, winter clothes, etc.). I am thankful that we did that because we received what we truly needed right at the beginning.

We also did not know the gender of our babies until they were born, so I refrained from registering for a lot of clothes, toys, stuffed animals, blankets, teethers and books. Again, this helped us focus on essentials and gave us the chance to pick out these “fun” items once they were born. Of course, I saw tons of cute items along the way and just kept track of them on Pinterest pages dedicated to Baby Style and Baby Gifts.

Location Independent Living with Crystal Grave

Selling your belongings, packing up the car and setting forth on a true adventure. Has it ever crossed your mind? I think about it often, although I’m not positive I could ever pull the trigger. But I sure love being able to live vicariously through those that do.

For Crystal Grave and Chad Starns, they took advantage of jobs that allowed them to work remotely and headed out on a cross-country adventure five years ago. Since then, they’ve lived in San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Denver, New Orleans, Bozeman, St. Pete with plans to head to NYC next. In each city, they set up camp in a house or apartment for several months, before packing their car up again to hit the road. During this time, they’ve learned how important experiences are and have changed their beliefs on material goods.

Organized | LIFEMaria BaerJune 26, 2019The Baer Minimalist, LLCMinimalism, Travel TipsComment

2019 Indianapolis Donation Guide

I continue to be introduced to incredible local organizations (and a handful of national + international organizations) that tirelessly work to put your donated items into the hands of the most deserving individuals.

My hope is that you share this guide with family and friends, post in your neighborhood Facebook group, or print it, laminate it and post inside of a cabinet door! Then, take things one step further, and think through how you might be able to tackle some of the spaces in your own home where items are gathering dust.

Ultimately, I hope this guide serves as a reminder that those items that are stacked up in our basements, garages and closets could be utilized TODAY by someone trying to make a better life for their family.

DONATION RESOURCE // Coburn Place

This past week I had the opportunity to tour Coburn Place and was able to see how YOUR donations are placed directly into the hands of those in need. I felt compelled to share the impact that volunteers, the Coburn Place staff and the community are making for adults and children who are impacted by interpersonal abuse. My hope is that you keep Coburn Place top of mind as you look to rehome items that are no longer a fit in your space.

Since 1996, Coburn Place has been this incredibly unique resource for adults and children who are fleeing a dangerous situation. Indianapolis is beyond lucky to have this community resource in our midst, as it is one of the only resources of its kind in a multi-state area. In fact, since opening, Coburn Place has provided more than 1800 adults and children housing and support services.

A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Most Organized Garage Yet

Garages…dirt collectors, dumping grounds, heck, junkyards. Am I right?

With Summer just around the corner, I partnered with Monkey Bar Storage to share a step-by-step guide to your most organized garage yet. Imagine a clean and clear, streamlined storage space that has this season’s items accessible, next season’s items stored away and space for your vehicle. This is the stuff of dreams, people.

I’ll hand the baton over to Olivia from Monkey Bar Storage to enlighten you on just how this can be accomplished.

12 Ways to Get a Jumpstart on Being an Organized Mom

When we found out we were expecting, I knew my organizational skills would be put to the true test. When I found out we were having twins…PHEW, game on.

So what’s a Type-A gal to do? Well, write a list of goals and things I wanted to accomplish leading up to our babes arrival. Some items were things I’d been meaning to do for years (get up to date on our annual photo books), while other came with the territory (create changing stations so that we’d never be more than a few feet from a diaper).

Below are 12 things I’m so thankful I accomplished prior to our babies arriving:

1. Find a fun way to document your pregnancy, but don’t try to do too many different things. Making moments feel special and creating traditions is something that has always been important to me, but it can be too easy to get overwhelmed with multiple ideas as we browse Pinterest and social media. Choose one type of photo to take throughout your pregnancy to document your growing bump and make a note on your calendar to take said photos on a weekly or monthly basis (or even to mark the start of each trimester).

DONATION RESOURCE // Grant's Gifts

Two and a half years ago, my girlfriends and I were en route to our bestie’s baby shower in Cincinnati when we got a call from her husband. They were headed to the hospital due to possibly being in labor…10 weeks early.

What should have been a day filled with a celebration of the mother and baby-to-be, ended up being filled with every emotion possible and an adorable baby, Grant, being born just hours later. From there, we learned that he would have a long road ahead in the NICU.

In those first moments as parents, especially as parents of a preemie, you’ve got so many things on your mind. I’ll let Grant’s Gifts founder, Sarah Thomas, take it from here to share their NICU journey and the non-profit charity that grew from their experience.

You've Tidied, Now What?

For many of us, spring signifies a fresh start! We set to surveying our belongings, decluttering items, re-organizing what is left and finally figuring out what to do with all that unused stuff.

As a professional organizer, I find clients struggle with getting rid of items because they feel a sense of guilt – maybe you spent too much money and never used it, it was a gift from a loved one, or carries special memories for your family. The following options may help ease the burden of letting those items go.

DONATE TO A WORTHY CAUSE

There are many organizations throughout the Indianapolis area where your items can be placed directly in the hands of someone in need. Hop on over to our homepage and download the Indianapolis Donation Guide (available here when you sign up for The Minimal-List monthly newsletter).

PROJECT // A Not-So Neutral Twin Nursery

Let me introduce you to my new favorite room in our house…our twin’s nursery! We are less than two weeks away from our due date and this room has been such a labor of love. We still do not know the gender of our babies, but that didn’t mean that I had to keep this room neutral, did it?

I have never been one to shy away from color when it comes to decorating my home, so our nursery was no exception! The biggest design challenge was taking this relatively small space and making it work for not one, but two babies. That second crib really threw us for a loop.

I knew I wanted to have an element of whimsy in the space and wanted to bring that in with wallpaper. I searched and searched for a statement print that I could base the rest of the room around and landed on Hunt Slonem’s bunny wallpaper. When I saw this paper up at Drapery Street in the Design Center, I knew I had to have at least a touch of it in the nursery.

This was also the first time I have ever painted walls white in my home, so I pulled in my signature stamp of color for the furniture and added a dark chair rail to break up several of the walls.

Without any further ado, here is our not-so-neutral twin nursery.

Show Your iPhone Some Love <3

I can’t believe this LOVEly month is coming to a close! But boy, am I ready to turn over a new leaf from this winter weather we’ve been having and kick it into Spring gear.

With so much hype around tidying and decluttering, you have probably tackled a closet or two in your home already this year. But what comes after that? I think that there is something to be said about taking some of these newfound decluttering skills one step further and applying them to your technology (desktop, photos, iPhone, etc).

If any of you have started to get the screentime updates, you are probably wanting to decrease the number of minutes (okay, hours) you spend on your phone each day. Having your home screen organized will definitely give you a bit of your precious time back. So today we focus on purging unloved and unnecessary apps and finally get after organizing our iPhones.

I am going to walk you through how to purge unused apps, organize and categorize your favorites and suggest a few new apps to keep your entire life organized.

The Baer Minimalist® Blog -- Tips, Tricks and Hacks on living a more ORGANIZED + STYLIZED Life

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