Monday Motivation: Junk Drawer

Everyone's got one - a junk drawer.  Some organizers teach that you shouldn't have a junk drawer.  That junk is an ugly word.  That every little item we find around the house must be put away immediately to keep an orderly home - NOT!

I think everyone needs a junk drawer.  A place to keep all of those little items that we need to keep at our fingertips and a place to keep little figgits and jiggits* we find that have no home. 

Once a month I open my junk drawer, which is located in my kitchen, and organize it.  It only takes me 3 minutes to do this.  

Here's my "before" drawer: 

It's been a pretty calm month, so this looks pretty good.  It's usually much worse.

I like the plastic divider trays.  I have 3 in this drawer.  Two are stacked on top of each other in the back of the drawer. 

Because everything has it's own home, I just go space by space (cubicle by cubicle) and take out any items that don't belong.  I put misplaced items back into their own homes.  I usually have a few things to throw away and a few things to put somewhere else.

Here is the "after" picture:

As you can see, this would never pass for a Container Store photo, but it works for our family.  Some of the items I like to keep in this drawer are:
1.  Tape (scotch and double sided)
2.  stamps
3.  calculator
4.  magnifying glass (especially as I get older)
5.  cable ties
6. thumb tacks, a few small nails
7.  binder clips
8.  felt chair leg pads
9.  exacto knife and extra blades
10. mini staple and extra staples
11. small hand held pencil sharpener
12. window suction cups
13. picnic tablecloth weights
14. super glue
15. candle stickum (to hold taper candles in holders)
16. trashbag ties, clothespins
17. WD40 pen for squeaky hinges
18. sharpie pens and highlighters
19. rubber bands
20. brads
21. small tubes from floral arrangements (not sure why I saved them except I think they're cool)
22. juice can lids (I'm saving them right now to make a game for my preschool class)

This is what I'm storing in my junk drawer right now, but over the years the items have changed.  Today I found 36 cents to put in the piggy bank and 2 buttons to put in the button box.  I threw away extra garbage bag twist ties because nobody needs 100 of those.  I found two items that needed to go to the garage in the extra hardware bucket.

*figgits and jiggits - what my son used to call the items that were always found in the bottom of his toybox

Do you have a junk drawer?  If so, where is it located and how do you keep it organized?