New Blog, Old Blog

 

Well I've been blogging again.  This time I am teaming

up with my mom over here

http://handmadegiftsarebest.blogspot.com/ 

She is a retired-professional seamstress with too much time on her hands.  She is coming up with so much stuff its awesome.  So she decided to start a blog.  I have put some of my new projects on there and also some of my old projects.  I hope to see some of you over there.

 

Thanks Becky

Angry Birds Birthday Party

Well here it is. My little man turned 4. I wasn't going to have a party. but the angry bird theme just sounded so cute. so I started to think..... THIS IS THE LAST TIME I WILL HAVE A 4 YEAR OLD. I am trying to do everything I can to keep him little, and I guess what I need to do is enjoy it.

I didn't have a lot of time, but I had these $1 store invitations left from Preschool. so I printed out some angry birds and stuck them over top of the sun. I think they are so cute and simple.

I took him to the Party store to find some cute party stuff.  The balloons were just too much fun.  THe kids decorated some pigs and took one home with them.

 

These are the the birds we made for our game.  They are 1/2 filled with rice, and we colored the face parts on sticker paper and cut them out.  If We had more time they probably could look a lot better.

I put the big kids in charge of decorating the bottles like pigs.  The rice weighed them down to make it harder.

The big kids also had fun setting them up.  When every one had a turn we would set up for another level, it got al little harder each time.  we used both layers of the coffee table and then we added the piano bench on top of that.  WAY FUN!!

I didn't have alot of time that day, so the cup cake ended up a little plain.  There are some much cuter ones on pinterest. 

So go for it, Have an angry birds party, for you next birthday, or last day of school.  There are so many ways to make it fun

Easy Peasy Boot socks.

Could this be any easier?    #1 cut the sleeves off a sweater, (a larger one)
                                           #2 hem it using some elastic and stretching it as you sew.

~voila, you can be done or you can add more to it if you want.  I had plenty of lace and some little yellow flower appliques, I just love them,  The set I plan to dye gray.

WOW, I love clean cupboards

This is for real folks, I did not edit this picture at all, I only added text for humor. In fact I must have put 10 things away before I thought to take a picture. I took things one at a time and put them in the place they belonged. I figured if I tossed them into a box of things that didn't belong I would end up with another mess on my hands. It took me a while but it makes me very happy.

This cupboard is just an easy place to stuff things I don't have time to put away.  Its in my laundry room, right in between the kitchen and the garage,  so there is some pretty seriously random stuff here! 

Here in my "new" cupboard   I organized it like this.  Top shelf - stuff preschool stuff, play do etc.into. The middle shelf - there is a basket of cleaning supplies, that the kids use to do their chores, and the bottom shelf - is my wheat grinder homework stuff and some first aid supplies.

and under this handy cupboard is 3 really deep drawers,  that all look like this now.

     Gloves                       Hats              &Scarves

I think I am done posting about organizing.  It is getting old.  I think I am ready to

decorate the basement!?!?

Hallway Command Center

Everytime I think I have this place organized there is something else I find to do.

I have spent about 6 months trying to figure out how I wanted to do this. I needed a place to keep those rascally papers that need to be kept handy, team schedules, permission slips, birthday invites etc. I also wanted a chore chart that was dry erase and IN THEIR WAY, they walk past these 10 times a day, at least! So here is what I finally came up with.

In this last picture you can even see MY BIG CALENDAR, I sold several of these vinyl calendars on windows and wanted mine to have a lot more space for notes to the kids, grocery lists and honey do lists, etc. I love this calendar and can't believe I ever managed to live without it. We write EVERYTHING here. It has helped me IMMENSELY.

I am working on some picture magnets for my 3 year old to go on this magnet board.  I hope he will catch the spirit of the whole chore thing.??

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

So tell me, do you have one place for everything?  Do you have a neat way to keep it all together?

family binder

I labeled the toy boxes using google images.  The kids are loving to put the toys away now.  lol  yah right.

My New favorite thing is the family binder.  ahhh my brain feels a little bit more organized now.  I have added some links that I got the printables from at the bottom of this page.  I purchased these great markers that are a wet erase, they don't smear everytime you touch the page.  You have to use a wet paper towel, it is nice.

http://organizedhome.com/household-notebook

http://tipnut.com/budget-worksheets/

http://tipnut.com/budget-worksheets/

good luck with your January goals. 

Back to school

Once I finished the kitchen I knew I needed to do something about the way things go down when the kids come bursting throught the door at 4:00 every afternoon. I say bursting because on 3 of those days there are 7 of those beasts that range from 1st to 8th grade. I take care of a friends kids on the days she has school. They are hungry, tired, moody, stressed out, and excited to play and hang out together. (I really need to purchase so earplugs). This homework caddy will ensure that there are plenty of pencils ready to go, a sharpener to keep them from getting up to find one, and a calculator for the same reason. I think it still needs colored pencils and a longer ruler. YAY!!!

I've never seen hungrier monsters, they will eat anything they can get their hands on and they don't care if I am making dinner or if they are making a mess. So I set aside a shelf for afterschool snacks. They can touch anything on that shelf until 5:00. Then I put my foot down and put an end to snacking.

For packing lunches, I decided to start using reusable containers most of the time.  BUT to save the hassle of always trying to find a lid, I threw all mis-matched stuff away!  on the bottom shelf I have 2 baskets,  sandwich containers and the twist top containers are for my homemade applesauce.  I canned a ton of it, the only way We will ever use it up is to send it to school. 

Hope back to school time went well for everyone else.  I think if I could find a way to get them out of bed in the morning things would pretty much be perfect.  (okay thats a lie, no body's perfect)

A fresh start project #1 organize the kitchen.

Well well my little blog, did you think I had forgotten you? not so, not so. Life has been seriously insane. I mean busy-busy-busy. But I do love to blog, however I am not making any promises to blog MORE in 2012. My plan is to "simplify". So I will simply blog when I can... I have been on a crazy organizing spree. (this is one of my January goals, yep I said goals, my new years resolution was to set a goal to set goals, monthly goals, haha) I started in the kitchen. After all January deserves a fresh start.  Here is a before picture of my most used cupboard.

WOW did I feel like a slob.  Okay, the kids help.  But I had SOOO many half full boxes of crackers, and doubles and triples of things. Iit was nice to purge and things that I had lots of  I moved downstairs into my storage room. 

Oh my goodness, I sure do love the after!!!  I used a bunch of those $1 plastic shoeboxes to organize them into categories.  The one without a label... well I couldn't think of a name for it besides, stuff that keeps falling over and getting in the way. lol

I managed to get all the bulk stuff on one shelf, and it does feel so much better

I am sure everyone has seen these chalkboard label, I was getting tired of the cricut and remembered I had a little scrap of Matte finish black vinyl I had just thrown a way, so I fished through the garbage and started cutting to see how many labels I could make. - just the right amount.

We had about 5 of these drink mix containers  each had 2 or 3 packets left.  what a waste of space.  So I put them all together and used their containers for a few of my bulk spices.  

I love it.

Happy organizing, or whatever your new Years Resolution was.  :)

Entry - Reveal

Yard sale score, no lie I was on my way to HObby Lobby to buy these. I got them for 10 bucks each instead of 70 ish.  It felt like Christmas.!!

Here is the before shot, I can't believe I left it like this for so long. --Really Becky??  nothing even matches.  Okay honestly I was waiting until I decided on a paint color, now that was hard because it needed to be the same as the hallway and the living room, so here it is. a beige color. pfff,  gave up on something exotic and just went with the easy to please color.   My wood floors and wood trip made it hard for me to choose.

YAY my gallery wall is complete, really I had a heart attack putting all those holes in the wall, you have to be sure where to put things.
#1 - First arrange them on the floor, then cut paper to the size of each frame and them arrange those on the wall, you will be glad you went to the extra work for sure!!

I took these pictures at Halloween obviously, I can't wait to get them ready for Thanksgiving. I will be home from TN in a couple of days... should I skip it and just get Christmas out. I really might. hahaha

Another ruffled T

I can't believe I thought I would be able to blog while in TN,  I am exhausted and busy busy busy watching 6 kids for my bro and sis in law while they are in Africa while my Mother In Law watches my little darlins.  I really don't have time unless they are sitting here eating their lunch or in bed.  ---whew---   I am just posting some photos I had saved and not posted yet when I have the time.

Home made Cuteness

Strike a pose, Here she is in her sunday outfit. I made her quickly pose for me as I was leaving town. I made this skirt out of that ruffled fabric. cost was $10. The shirt is from downeast $5. It was a plain T and I ruffled some extra fabric and put it on the front. Best was only $1 on clearance at the mall. and the cardi was a hand me down from a friend. ahh I love saving dough and making something cute!!!

p.s. this blog is brought to you today from the beautiful state of Tennessee and I sure do miss that cutie pie, and all my children at home. I wish I could have brought her with me. Thanks to my amazing mother-in-law who it taking care of my family so I can take care of my brothers family. Its all about bringing home two sweet little orphans from Ethiopia to their new family in TN. I can't wait to meet them.

Giveaway Winner

WoO HoO -  the giveaway is over.  I always feel so dumb when I have a giveaway. 
 I used Random.org, but I do not have the time to figure out how to put the cute little screen shot on here, but it picked number 4,

which is -Tiffany.  

(She is married to my nephew and is the mother of my first and only great niece, oh yay I am a great aunt.  Is 35 old? Cause I feel OLD, wait not old I'm GREAT)