A Quick Closet Fix

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Jennifer

Our system for putting away gloves and winter hats worked quite well until it became cold and we actually had to find those items on a daily basis.

There were plenty of “I can’t find my hat,” and “I can only find one glove,” so I decided something must be done.

If you remember way back in February I shared our closet redo which took care of book bags, coats, and hats.

Effective for those items but we neglected to designate a place for winter hats and gloves.

Until now.

We decided the best place for some containers would be in our garage.

We took a trip to our trusty IKEA and found the IKEA RETUR Recycling Bin.

Ten boxes later we had some winter organization.

Best part: The closet floor is clear.

Now we are ready for winter.

Though, ironically, it’s suppose to be 70 degrees tomorrow.

No Cost Organizing

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Jennifer

I desperately want to be organized but I have one huge obstacle blocking my path toward achieving this goal.

Toys.

The amount of toys we have is mind boggling. If that’s not bad enough, there’s the fact that each of those toys comes with twelve million little pieces.

If you’ve ever been sitting at your child’s birthday party silently cursing the guest’s parents due to the gift that they brought, than you understand.

Or maybe you are more familiar with the midnight walk into your child’s room where you wince with pain due to a stray lego head or miniature cow.

Either way, cursing is involved and I needed to take action.

And this action needed to be free.

So I looked around my kitchen and settled on a recently emptied pickle jar.

I cleaned the jar with soap and water and applied Goo Gone on the remaining sticky bits. I let the Goo Gone sit for awhile and then scrapped it off using a rough sponge and water.

Two salsa jars and one pickle jar later our game pieces were organized.

Now the bouncy balls, dice, and bingo chips have a designated home in our game closet and are joyfully missing from every nook and cranny of our house.

One of those annoying birthday present were Mighty Beans. Thankfully they now have a contained place to reside on my son’s top shelf.

Not to be left out, our kitchen shelf holds our BoxTops jar. For complete disclosure I want to let you know all of these Box Tops were taken off of vegetables and fruits. Huh, never heard of Box Tops on those items? Must be only our store that does it.

Now if only my kids would hurry up and eat jelly and pickles on their eggs I could have another jar for organizing.

Do you have any cheap organizing ideas that have worked for you?

Piano Week

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Jennifer

Andrew & Alex started piano lessons last week. In an attempt to add to their excitement, we had PIANO WEEK at our house.

What might you ask is Piano Week?

Well, it’s just a week of activities I thought up or found which dealt with music. This was an attempt to give a little structure to our summer days. The focus being on little.

Here’s PIANO WEEK:

Visited: a piano store and received a tour by a very enthusiastic employee

Created: Alex created a power point about John Williams while Andrew made a poster. I originally thought they would choose Beethoven or Mozart but once we stumbled upon John Williams there was no turning back. One morning we spent over an hour watching him conduct on You Tube.

Read Books: 1. Beethoven – A Value Tales book 2. Duke Ellington by Andrea Davis Pinkney 3. Ludwig van Beethoven by Eric Summerer 4. Keyboards by Wendy Lynch

Made: Thumb pianos – directions found here

Listened: to a Mixed Classical CD from Target in the car all week

Food: We ate SHARP cheese, ate BACHli (I’ll be honest – Derek and I are the only ones who ate the broccoli), talked about fish SCALES while we ate fish sticks, and planned to make cinnamon FLATbread but never got around to it.

We also made dessert PIANOS compliments of Alex. We used ice cream bars but white Kit Kats bars would make prefect piano keys.

Movies: We watched the movie Beethoven with Charles Grodin and Bonnie Hunt. Yes I know it has nothing to do with music but the kids loved it.

We capped off the week with a trip to eat ice cream at Braum’s (BRAHM). I wanted to finish up the week at a piano bar but Derek thought otherwise.

We had some LOWS and HIGHs during piano week but overall it was enjoyable. The boys have enthusiastically practiced piano everyday since their first lesson and can’t wait to find out what this week’s activities will focus on.

What fun things are you doing this summer?

Little Bity Organizing

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Jennifer

Caroline doesn’t have a dresser in her room so I needed a place to put her socks, hair bows, tights, and diaper covers. Leaving everything in a pile on the closet floor worked well for several months but was a tad embarrassing when people would come over.

Since I had great success in the past with a clear shoe organizer, I decided to try one again.

In our old house I used a clear shoe organizer for toys and general house supplies (tape, scissors, pens, batteries – loved always being able to find these things).

Do you have any simple but effective organizing tips?

Junk Drawer

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Jennifer

I opened our junk drawer for the last time today.

Well, at least until it gets cluttered again but let’s focus on the now.

Here’s the before:

I cut up cereal boxes, granola boxes, and used an old thank you card box to organize the drawer contents. I could have gone to a store and bought fancy containers but I wanted to complete this project immediately. The pens are now housed in a Rice Krispie box.

The After:

So, do you have a junk drawer? Go ahead and clean it out. I guarantee it will put a smile on your face

Display Board for Kids Room

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Jennifer

Do you have a large frame you haven’t used in years? We have several and I decided to turn two of them into something useful for the boys’ room. Since our marathon displays have been in a closet for probably five years I decided it was time to change them up.

After taking the back off of the frames, I sprayed them with red paint. The boys have red beds in their room so I decided the frames would coordinate nicely with those.

I had some chicken wire lying around and decided to use it. Yes, I know. We do not live on a farm and I just happened to have some chicken wire lying around. Last summer I was going to make a jewelry holder using a frame and the chicken wire but I never got around to it. So, yes…I had the chicken wire just sitting around.

The frames were 22 x 26 inches so we cut out a piece of wire that was 24 x 28 inches. This gave an extra inch on each side for bending and stapling.

I declined to include pictures of our bloody hands from the wire. This was for the benefit of everyone with a weak stomach.

Derek bent the wire edges roughly 90 degrees using pliers. The bent section was the extra one inch of wire initially added on.

He then stapled the wire in place.

We hung the boards on the wall using the same wire that was originally on the frame.

The boys were able to each place their special papers (drawings of their imaginary soccer teams) and ribbons on their own board using clothespins. (We didn’t make a cork board for the boys since having the push pins around would have been dangerous for Caroline.)

If I was a true “crafter” I would have decorated the clothespins with glitter or scrapbook paper but frankly that seems like too much work to me.

The final product – I love it!

Master Calendar/Schedule

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Jennifer

Since we have 5 people in our family we naturally have 673 things going on at any one time. While I have my personal calendar and Derek has his own, somehow we would still each miss recording events. This miscommunication often lead to frustration by both of us so I decided the solution was a master schedule.

We determined the master schedule needed to be in the kitchen so everyone could glance at it or add to it when needed. We placed it above the chalkboard and next to a magnet board we brought from our old house. The magnet board is a great place for the dry erase markers since they have magnets on the back of them.

We used a 38 x 26 frame we had sitting around. Besides the cost of the dry erase markers this was going to be a completely free project. That is…until we broke the glass. Off to the home improvement store Derek went to buy new glass and we were back in business.

I printed off some days of the week labels while Derek stuck two large pieces of paper together. After I glued the days of the week at the top of the blank pages. Derek divided it into appropriate sections. Each day is roughly 5 inches x 4 3/4 inches big.

Here’s an example of a light day: 6:00 soccer for Andrew & 6:00 lacrosse for Alex.It also reminded me of what I needed to bring to Caroline’s school for a teacher luncheon.

A busy, yet typical Saturday

My favorite part is that it’s easy to wipe on and wipe off with a cloth.

Anyone else have a Karate Kid moment there? Wipe on, wipe off, Daniel-san!

Do you have any fun organizing tips? I’d love to hear them.

I’m sharing my schedule here:

Financial Goals Updated

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Jennifer

As I mentioned in a previous post, Derek and I have made some financial goals for our family this year. One of the ways I was going to directly help was keeping an eye on the food budget.

January’s goal was to spend $125 less on groceries/eating out a month (compared to 2010 monthly average).

Before I give you the results, here are a few “happennings” concerning eating during the month:

Derek’s birthday dinner, cookie cake for $24.95 (yes, I could have made one, no it would not have been as good), ladies night out for me, kids eat free night at BBQ place, Ben & Jerry’s dessert trip, Double Dip trip for dessert, coffee and breakfast for a friend, several meatless nights, bought diapers and wipes (yes, that’s included in this budget for us), several impromptu visits to CVS for gatorade due to the flu, and we ate out on several occasions.

So…how did we do……..(drum roll here people, work with me)

January 2011 food groceries / eating out budget was $328.35 less than our 2010 monthly average! Yeah for us!

What was the key to our success you might ask? Well, let me tell you. I ignored looks from my husband when I knew he wanted to go out to eat. No, seriously, I think it was our meal planning and cooking some meals ahead of time. It’s always easy to go out to eat when nothing is prepared at home. But if there is a casserole already sitting in the fridge, we’re more likely to go home and eat it.

I used this little form to keep track of all the food purchases. The form actually has 2 months on it. I cut off the top section to keep in my wallet for January and will use the bottom section for February.

It helped me keep a constant watch on what we were spending.

Here’s a peek at our January form filled out.

Thank goodness my birthday is today, February 1st. Just in time for our food budget to be huge. We are going to eat like kings tonight. Who cares if we have beans and toast the rest of the month. OK, maybe not but it’s fun to dream.

Now onto our February goals.

1) February’s goal is to spend $175 less on groceries/eating out a month (compared to 2010 monthly average).

Yes, we were very successful in January, but anything can happen and I’d still like to consider $175 a big achievement in the end.

2) February house goal: anything we buy for the house (decorations or furniture) has to come from money we earned by selling items on craigslist or ebay.

We have several items in our house which I’ve wanted to get rid of and replace for a long time. Sometimes it’s hard to justify getting a new lamp when the one you have works just fine. This goal could be a total disaster but I think it’s worth a shot. Don’t worry, I bought a gallon of paint last weekend so we would at least have a project to work on while we figure out this whole craigslist game.

So that’s what’s new with us in the goals department.

How are you doing with your 2011 goals?

The Salvation Rush

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Jennifer

The other day I had 20 minutes to spare between finishing swim practice and picking up Caroline from school. The Salvation Army store is a couple of blocks from both locations so I decided to go in. I usually like to visit these types of stores any chance I get when I don’t have kids once every couple of months. Some of my favorites are the Habitat for Humanity Store, Goodwill, and the Salvation Army.

I like to search and find “diamonds in the rough.” My husband thinks I just find “rough.” I know he hates getting the call at work, “Hey, what are you doing for lunch? I’d love for you to meet me at the Habitat store and see a bookcase.” I know what he hears is, “Hey, what are you doing for lunch? I need you to come and transport this rickety piece of junk home, sand it, paint it, and haul it up a flight of stairs for me.”

I have never been a big garage sale shopper. It makes me uncomfortable to actually know who I’m buying from. I hate the whole bargaining procedure at garage sales. How about five dollars? Can you do three fifty? what about four dollars? Drives me crazy so I just avoid it all together.

I have just started venturing into estate sales. On Friday morning Caroline and I went riffling through someone’s house. I came out with a $4 mirror that’s destined for our guest room. Somehow knowing the previous owner is dead is a lot more comforting to me than actually having an encounter with the current living owner.

So there I was browsing my local Salvation Army store, minding my own business, when an announcement was made, “Shoppers, for the next hour, everything in the store is half off.”

“Yes, books are included.”

“Yes, children’s clothing is included.”

“Yes, furniture is included.”

Apparently the term everything is a little unclear to some people.

People started dashing around like crazy – grabbing shopping carts, flinging clothes into their baskets, yanking clothes on and off their children. It was pretty unbelievable. I admit I was almost on my way out the door when the announcement was made. But since everything was half off it necessitated me taking a second trip around the store. I ended up taking home 3 books. I mean, I had to, they were on sale.

3 books: $2.79

No Sanding, no painting, no hauling for hubby : priceless

My Very First Giveaway!

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Jennifer

I thought the best way to celebrate my first guest posting was to have my first giveaway. When I told my husband he said, “Wait a minute…shouldn’t we think about this.” I told him to relax and not to worry. It’s not like I was planning on giving away our car or even his flannel pj’s…although on second thought. No, no I’ll stick with the plan.

What I am giving away is one completed coupon box of activity cards.

The winner will receive 48 activity cards, 3 pencils, 1 pencil sharpener, and 1 eraser.

In case you are not familiar with my activity coupon box, go here to read about my idea.

Big D & Me

Life with a Canook, a Belle, and a Pile of Kids

Category Archives: organization