A little Valentine fun, a little organizing fun

First, a little Valentine fun.  I always like to bake candies/cookies/foods for the kids' teachers.  They all have way too many "teacher" things so this makes the holidays more fun and shows how much we appreciate them!  This is Amariah (she really dislikes having to stand in the pictures, can you tell?  Lol!) with some goodies for her three teachers that she has this year:  Cinnamon Apple Jelly, Brown Sugar-Oatmeal Mini Loaves, Peanut Butter/Kisses Surprise cookies and Oreo Truffles.  Yum!

Well, since I've been back from Mexico... I have been FREEZING!!  I'm not one to complain but that sunshine on my face and sand between my toes every day ruined me!  I've been trying to stay busy.  My projects have only been ones that can be worked on by the fireplace.  I LOVE my fireplace so much!

I finally put my cabinet together.  Well, I guess I should tell the truth... Rich finally put my cabinet together.  We talked about painting it a different color because I didn't think black would look good in that room.  But here it is finished and it will stay black:

Oh, I think I need to show a before shot.  This is what the room looked like in October when I decided to tackle re-purposing two of my rooms.

Here's a (not so good) close-up shot of what this cabinet's purpose will be.

I finally found an open cabinet that held three sections with interchangeable shelves.  One section for each child.  When they come home from school, they go straight to the laundry room and drop off their bags, books and lunchboxes.  It has been wonderful this week to use this cabinet.  I got so tired of stepping over bags and kicking them out of my way.  This is a lifesaver!  And now for the fun part!  I'm going to show you how we made the boxes on the top shelf that will be used to hold all their papers.

I grabbed these boxes from when I put Christmas candy out on the shelf at Hobby Lobby.  At the time, I had no idea what I would use them for.  They turned out to be the perfect size and shape!

Then each child went through all my scrapbook paper and picked out some paper for the sides, front, and lettering.  We used Elmer's glue because it is safe for the kids to play in.  This was their favorite step of the whole process.  Here are Amariah and Robbie spreading out their glue.  Ryan, at age 14, was too old to get his picture taken and I had to make him sit down and play in the glue.

Once they glued the paper to the front and the sides, I used a xacto knife to cut around the curves in the front of the box.  If you don't have a Cricut, then I highly recommend you get one!  I only have the smaller one but it gets the job done.  I originally bought it for my scrapbooking but have used it on every thing else!  We cut out their names and glued them to the finished box.

Robbie had fun saying his letters as he put them in the machine.  He was so excited to see his name print out.

 

This is what the finished boxes look like...

 

It's a little bit of organizing but on a grand scale for our family!  School stuff has been an eyesore for us as long as I can remember.  Now I have one more small cabinet to buy for this room to hold all their extra school supplies then I can mark it off my list as complete!

I am grateful for fun loving kids that like to get in there and be messy with me as we create and see what we can come up with.  I love to bounce ideas off of them and see how creative they can be.  A simple but messy project, a small amount of time, but wonderful memories made!

Slight Progress

I've been working all weekend in my laundry room, turning it into the kids' catch-all room.  Whew!  We have too much stuff!!

There are three areas of this room that I'm going to re-purpose.  The first area-- it is the area behind the door as you walk into the room.  This door is always left open because it leads to a bathroom.  So this door to the room kinda acts like a door to this "closet".  All the stuff is hidden, because you have to walk in the room and shut the door to see what is behind the door.  I like it that way!  It's all very accessible, yet hidden.  Perfect!

Here is the YIKES! before picture (and before painting)...

Here is the after picture.  I hope you can tell a difference.  Lol!

The top 4 shelves belong to cases of pictures that are waiting patiently to be scrapbooked.  My soon to be 11 year old (as of next week) daughter has the next shelf.  Yes, along with all her scrapbook supplies, the Cricut is on her shelf.  I bought it with intentions of using it all the time with my scrapbooking but somehow it has become hers with her many school projects.  I will say I'm thankful to have it; her project boards look rather smashing when the Cricut is used.  So far... an "A" on every project.

Then we have the little guy's shelf.

Am I insane for putting Play-Doh, stamp ink, paint, chalk and markers at the reach of a 4 year old?!?  Probably so!  I brought him in and showed him his little shelf.  I wish I was recording him.  He was oh so excited to have his own little place for all his neat stuff!  I sat him down and we discussed how important it is to tell Mommy or Daddy when he wants to work on something.  Then we get the clear table mat and take it to the dining room table.  When we are done, we put it all up and put it back in its place.  If not, then everything gets put up where he can't have it.  He's pretty good about listening.  Even at four years old, he understands consequences.  We'll see how it all pans out.  Actually, I look at it as investing in him and influencing his creative side.  I love being able to offer him choices at his age.

Yah!  Stage one completed!  Stage two started!  Gotta love progress, right??

I'm grateful for kids that get almost as excited as me when it comes to organizing and taking care of their things.  I believe it's very important to teach them to respect and take care of all things that God has blessed us with.

Re-arranging Rooms

I sure do love the mood I get into when I take down my Christmas decorations.  Everything looks so clean, so sparse.  Well, not really sparse because my home is full of things I love so it might be to the point of clutter for some people.  But I surround myself with things I love.  Anyway, back to the point.

In light of this creative mood that I'm in, I have been re-thinking the purpose of a couple of rooms in my home.  So... I have taken it upon myself to do some re-arranging.  As I sat down in one of the rooms to make a mental list, I started to get the feeling of being overwhelmed with the task ahead of me.  Yikes!

This is the plan:  I will take everything out of my now craft/laundry room and turn it into a catch-all-kid room.  Hmm... I need to come up with a catchy name for that area.  I re-painted the room back in October with the plans of purging and organizing as I put it back in the room.  See how nice and clean it is?

Well, it didn't get organized-- more like thrown back in the room and looks worse than ever now.  So... all my craft and scrapbook stuff is going upstairs to the library.  I still have to buy 3 more cabinets with that same finish to store it all in.

When everything is out of that area, then we will get three (one for each child) bookcase-type cabinets.  That will be their area for their school books, athletic equip that is not kept in the garage, toys, jackets, shoes, and no telling what else.  I have a 24 x 36" bulletin board that will go on the wall for all their school/sports/fundraiser/whatever else papers.

This picture is definitely a before shot.  Before I even painted the room.  Eeek!!  Wow, that's a mess!!  This behind the door area will be where all their craft, crayons, play-doh, etc will be.

That is all I can think of at the moment, but I am going to do some net surfing about organizing kids stuff.  If anyone has some great ideas they want to pass on, I would be ever so appreciative!

Julie, this is mainly for you.  =]  When we were stuck at home in the snow and ice, I took the opportunity to organize my gift closet.  This is the only space in my home that is neat, clean and organized right now.  Lol!!  This is pretty much what it is...

This 3-drawer cabinet contains boxes, gift bags, tissue, and flat wrap.  The bottom drawer contains only Christmas.  The middle drawer is organized by everyday, baby, birthday, and kids' categories.  The top drawer is all solid colors.  Yes, there are lots of solid bags-- 200+!  But don't you worry... I only buy them on clearance.  Those all happen to come from Hobby Lobby where I paid pennies for a bag!  I'm such the bargain shopper.  On both sides of the cabinet is where I store my roll wrap.  One side is Christmas kids and the other side is other Christmas, baby, and birthday wrap.

The big blue tote is where I store gifts that I buy throughout the year.  I mainly start buying the essentials for my kids' Christmas (pj's, undies, slippers, etc) in June.  Also, if I come across an extremely awesome deal on something, it gets tossed into the tote.

The small blue tote is the "party tote".  It holds balloons, streamers, banners, etc.  That is mainly Amariah's department.  She's my big birthday decorator.  This is awesome for me!  Not only does she love to do it, I love being able to mark that off my list without any worries.  No stress there!  =]

This tote holds the 25 cent packages of bows that I buy after Christmas.  I love after-Christmas sales!  On top of it, I keep all my solid tissue paper.  It is organized by color (of the rainbow).  Yes, I am a freak... I already know that because my family likes to remind me.  I had to show you my little stash of tape.  Every year after Christmas at Hobby Lobby, we always have tons of tape left over.  So I stock up on it at 66% and 80% off!

Then this shelf contains cards.  The box on the right is my Christmas card box.  It contains silver pens, cards, address labels and thank you notes.  The box in the middle is my card organizer.  It came from Current.  Remember that neat little catalog?  I wonder if it's still around?  I've had that box for many, many years.  It just happens to be the very first thing I ever bought, even before I married, for organizing.  I guess it can be blamed for my organizing madness!  The box on the left is mainly Christmas gift tags/labels.  There are a few everyday ones in there.

I guess this post is long enough.  If you made it this far, then thank you for holding out till the end.  If you stopped 1/4 of the way into it... I really don't blame you.  Haha!  I'm just way procrastinating!  I could accomplish so much in the next hour with the kids being in bed, Rich gone to work.  But I'm a little overwhelmed on where to start.  I think I'll post pictures as I go so I can look back and see that progress is being made.

I am grateful today for a place in my home for everything and everything (soon to be) in place.

Craft Room Remodel

Yikes!  No wonder I couldn't find anything or get anything accomplished!  Yes, it was this bad!  Actually worse than this... I had already cleaned off the shelf, walls and everything out from underneath the table before I took this picture.  It was a grotesque mess!

I have the best help in the world!  Not only does he do a great job for a 4 year old, but he's cheap... only requiring goldfish for pay.  You can't beat that!  I let Robbie help on the first coat.  It kept him busy and after the second coat had dried, you couldn't even tell he had been there.  He was SO excited about being a big help to me.  I love making my kids feel like they are accomplishing great things. 

YAH!  It is finished!  Well... this wall anyway.  I have a similar cabinet to go beside this one.  I can't wait to fill them with all my goodies in an organized and labeled fashion! =]

Another wall.  When was the last time you pulled your washer and dryer out from the wall?  Has it been more than three years?  If so, I encourage you to take a look at what you have back there.  Boy, oh, boy!  EEEKKK!!  It was quite interesting and I'll just leave it at that.

Ahhh... this is more like it!  Clean.  I love clean!

It's almost hard to tell in the pictures, but the new color is quite a bit darker than the original.  I'm loving it already!  It's been fun watching it transform into a peaceful, cozy little place that will be my haven.  I am grateful for a little place in my home that I can call my own.  I already love my little craft corner... even though I have to share with the laundry...

Routine, Organization, Efficiency

It's so nice to be back!  I love routine and organization. I love efficiency in every form of the word!  As mundane as it can be, I feel like I'm not getting anything accomplished if there is not some sense of order around me.  I'm not a control freak at all.  I don't have to be in control of my day or any tidbit of my day, BUT I just can't seem to focus if I'm unorganized or inefficient.  To have Ryan back in school and Rich back to work; I feel, is a huge accomplishment!

  Ah, how I've missed our family devotion time.  It felt so good to get it going again.  I hate to say it, but it went bye-bye for awhile with the onslaught of school starting and hospital ordeals.  I so wish I wouldn't let life get in the way of our family devotions.  What are my kids learning from that?  That when life gets busy or hectic, take a break from God's word?!  That's when we need to be in it as a family every single day!  I so want my kids to be grounded in His word.  I want them to seek it and not friends when they are having a bad day.

It was so nice to have Rich home every single night for those 5 weeks.  After we put the kids to bed, we would sit on the couch together and watch the diy network... every single night until midnight or later.  It was relaxing.  We would dream about our house and our yard.  I will hold out for those flagstone pavers on top of all the concrete in our back yard.  Yes,  I know they are expensive, but I love the old-time feel and look of them.  We discussed projects we wanted to tackle and list their importance.  We would go to bed at the same time.  I would lay there beside him and think about how much I cherish that time with him and how much I loved just having him there beside me even though he was snoring.  It's been a long nine months that he has been on midnights.  Only nine months??  Are you kidding me??  It seems more like nine years!  I'm glad he gets to see the kids after school and spend the whole evening with them.  He gets to be at all the games and even gets to coach now-- since he can make the practices.  But oh, how I miss having him home at bedtime!  I have found myself in a routine that I'm not too fond of!  I seem to stay awake as long as possible every night that he is working so I will just go to bed and crash.  I have such a hard time falling asleep without him beside me.  I tried putting Robbie in bed with me at night, but it's just not the same.  I need my husband beside me, where he should be.  Speaking of... why am I still awake at 12:45 AM when I need to wake up at 6:30 AM?  I am grateful for a husband that I enjoy being with.