Streamlining holiday cards

Over the years, the way I've done holiday cards has changed a bit. When I was a kid, my mother would design a handmade card and employ my brother and sister and me to help decorate them. These were small-batch artisanal cards, in today's parlance. When I got older and I started wanting to send my own holiday cards, I'd find cards I liked at Barnes and Noble, or, one year, Harrods, and spend Thanksgiving weekend writing unique messages to twenty or so families and friends. Now, as a business owner and married person, the list of recipients for my holiday greetings has grown somewhat, and hand writing messages, while a lovely thing to be able to do, isn't quite as practical or necessary as it once was. (In today's Facebook age, most of my relatives and friends can easily see what I've been up to over the year, should they care to.)

Our family's Christmas card from 1984.

This year I started using Send Out Cards, and I've been really happy with the product and the service. I'll be using Send Out Cards to create personalized holiday cards for everyone on my list, and it will take me probably half the time shopping for, writing, addressing and mailing cards would have.

Real Simple magazine had a great feature in the November issue regarding other online card services (unfortunately, the feature is not available online.) Send Out Cards is great, but it's fairly expensive to get started, as it is a subscription based service, with cards and postage extra. The sites Real Simple mentions just charge you for the cards you want to make. Not all of them also send the cards, like Send Out Cards does, and that's what makes a huge time difference in my opinion. Paper Culture is one that does provide this service. Among their other suggestions: Paperless Post (ecards), Shutterfly, and Tiny Prints.

Whether you are sending one holiday card or 500, it's worth looking into some of these new services.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Technology I'm thankful for

Thanksgiving is this Thursday. I'm thankful for so much great stuff in my life, it would take a really long blog post to document them all. So here are a few techy things that I'm thankful for that make my life and my work simpler.

• Gmail. I manage several email accounts and Gmail makes it easy to do it all from one portal. I love the labels and filters features, but most of all, I love the search function and the enormous amount of space I can take up, all for free. Gmail Labs also has some awesome add-ons that really enhance my use of basic Gmail.
• Goodreads. I really like being able to keep track of which books I've read by updating my Goodreads profile whenever I finish a book. It's a great holding place for books I want to read as well.
• Bento and Pages. These two Mac programs are a joy to use. Bento makes my financial and business tracking simple and easy to search, modify and combine. Pages makes any word processing document a pleasure to create.
• Evernote. Evernote creates searchable pdfs out of almost anything that you can look at on your computer. The free version has plenty of functionality for me, but the paid version is great, too. 

What are you thankful for this year?

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

How to fold a fitted sheet

One of the most clutter-heavy and messy parts of many people's homes is their linen closet. I avoid this clutter-trap in my own home by only having one set of sheets for each bed. You really need no more than two, so if you have more than that, consider donating some. You can save room by folding your sheets neatly and if you have no linen closet, you can store them between the mattress and box spring, just put your fitted sheet on one side and your top sheet and pillow cases on the other. I could never understand how to fold fitted sheets until I saw a demonstration of it. Here's a really good video that shows you how.



Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

DIY desk

I have a much bigger space for my desk area in my new place than in my old. The desk I've been using for over five years swims in this space, and I have plastic file boxes just hanging out beside it, looking ugly, that hold the majority of my business papers and office supplies. I also have a lot of books that became homeless when the most of the bookshelves landed in my husband's office, and he decided, quite understandably, that he didn't want a ton of romance novels in his work area. 

I decided I wanted to upgrade my desk and incorporate bookshelves. I've often wanted just a simple large surface for my computer, inbox and printer with some space for writing or other small projects. I sketched a design and ran it by my dad and my brother, who are pretty handy. They also have saws and other tools and a workspace; I have a semester of woodshop under my belt. Granted, that was in 1996, but I think the principles still hold. By the way, practical classes in junior high and high school are not always required, but they are really invaluable, especially for kids who read a lot. Anyway. Here's my sketch of the bookshelves, which will support desk surface. We're going to take a team approach to building this thing when I'm home for Thanksgiving. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Organizer's Blog Digest: Thanksgiving 2010

Here are some excellent posts from around the web that might help you as you plan and execute this year's Thanksgiving day.

Lelah's 2009 Thanksgiving dinner plate before.

Lelah's 2009 Thanksgiving dinner plate after.

Real Simple magazine had a great recipe section devoted to Thanksgiving recipes in November's issue. Here is their comprehensive timeline/checklist for planning for the holiday.

The New York Times has a beautiful spread of vegetarian and vegan dishes that would be fantastic additions to any Thanksgiving table.

Lauri Ward, of Use What You Have decorating, posted about the benefits of cleaning out your kitchen clutter before Thanksgiving dinner. Her point that "if you haven’t put the stuff to use in half a decade do you think you’re going to start on November 25th?" is well taken. I say, don't stop there. If you decided to keep it because you thought you might use it for holiday prep or presentation, and you didn't, then let it go without a second thought.

Last year's blog digest on this same topic is evergreen. Here it is for more links.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com