I Heart Organizing

Happy New Year Friends!!! :)

Is it just me or is January is the adult September? In my younger years I was always so excited to go back to school, it never lasted long but the idea that this year was going to be my year inspired me. I would go out and buy super cute notebooks, tabs, highlighters etc, and for that first week of school I took impeccable notes.

Luckily, for me, with age has come a little more dedication and my motivation lasts much longer then just a week.

January is all about resetting, cleaning up, getting the things done you have been putting off. And although these tasks seem daunting, when you break them down and actually get them off you to-do list, it is such a good feeling!

For example, since I moved last year the way my kitchen was unpacked has driven me nuts! But I ignored time and time again because taking everything out of the cupboards and trying to find a new configuration seemed impossible. But this year I finally did it! And man does it feel awesome!

Since blogging is all about the sharing of ideas, I thought I would share some of mine that make my life so much easier and more organized -

Make Lists
I am constantly making lists, I usually have 2 or 3 on the go at any given time. One containing things I want to accomplish by weeks or months end and the other for daily activities. I keep other lists on my phone of thing's I'm running low on, so next time I'm out I can check to see what I need. I even keep one for things I want to ask my doctor next time I see him. I write down everything I have to do to get out of my head on paper.

Chunk it Out
Break out your to-do list into small pieces. If you want organize your dresser for example. Make a commitment to sort out a drawer a night, by week's end you'll be done and it only took you about 10 minutes at the end of your day.

Maintain
Once you get some organized, make sure you maintain it. For example - every 6 months or year, make a note in your calendar to go through your files and shred any paperwork you don't need. Or clean out your closet of any unwanted items to donate or consign. Maintaining is always so much easier then dealing with it after it builds up for a long time.

Get Inspired
Before I reorganize anything I was check out what other people have done on Pinterest. I pull ideas from all over to come up with the perfect solution for myself.

Make the task fun 
Put music on, get your friends or spouse involved. Make it fun. And make sure you reward yourself after a job well done!

Happy Organizing! This year's going to be great! :)

House Guest Welcome Basket

When I went to New York with my fam years ago, we stayed with my Step Dad’s sister and she put these little welcome baskets in each room filled with snacks. I thought it was such a great idea and obviously it left a lasting impression. It made us feel welcome and was nice to have a little snack without having to raid that host’s fridge.

Next month a few of Andrew’s friends from out of town will be staying with us, so I thought I would whip a few baskets up for them. I not so secretly wish they were girls because I could totally make awesome baskets for girls filled with bath products and cozy slippers etc. But since the ones I made are for men, they mostly have junk food with a few toiletry products but either way I’m sure it will serve the purpose of making them feel welcome.

Here’s what I put in the baskets, but really the possibilities are endless!

• Magazine
• Face Towel
• Toothbrush
• Toothpaste
• Mouthwash
• Floss
• Travel sized shave gel
• Pringles
• Starbucks Refresher Beverage
• Gum
• Chocolate Bars 
• Candy
• Caramel Corn
• Licorice
• Microwave Popcorn

Frozen Yogurt Bar

Okay so I’m kinda of obsessed with Froyo these days. I have always been a fan of Yogen Fruz and I just tried Tutti Frutti for the first time this month. I would happily trade all desserts all together (including chocolate) if I was guaranteed a cup of this goodness on a daily basis.

Anyway, we have “Treat Day” at my office every Wednesday. We all take turns bringing something in, and believe me when I say we all take this very seriously! Things can get elaborate!

This round we decided to make it a “Healthy Treats Only”, which was super smart since the holidays just passed, not to mention we literally have a access to unlimited candy all day every day. (sounds amazing but is a curse when you start crash around 3pm, easy access to unlimited candy is never a good thing)

Given my new found obsession with frozen yogurt, I naturally decided to do a Frozen Yogurt Bar for my Treat Day. I purchased tubs of frozen yogurt, and brought in a ton of different toppings....most of which were healthy. ;) I also had the option of bowls or waffle cones.

Here are a few healthy topping ideas -

• Granola
• Coconut flakes
• Walnuts
• Almonds
• Pistachios
• Craseins
• Kiwi
• Pineapple
• Strawberry
• Mango
• Blueberries
• Pomegranate
• Raspberries
• Cinnamon

Here a few not so healthy, but also not terrible options to keep it fun -

• Mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Peanut butter chips
• Mini marshmallows
• Maraschino cherries
• Rainbow Sprinkles
• Cereal like Fruit Loops or Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Household Binders

I’m still working away getting re-organized since we moved. Moving is a great fresh-start isn’t it? It forces you to go through absolutely everything you own. Personally, it has motivated me to do a bunch of small projects I have been meaning to do for a while. This being one of them!

The previous owners were great and left us all of user manuals for all of the appliances. We also bought some new stuff so I literally had a box full of papers. So I decided that the best way to organize them would be a giant 3 ring binder, sorted by category, in plastic sheet protectors! Exciting isn’t it!? ;)

I also used the same inserts that I used for my recipe binder so they match, and matching is very important when it comes to organizing.

The sheet protector’s worked perfectly as most appliances had more than one book or sheet so it kept everything together.

I divided them into the following categories – Electronics, Large Appliances, Small Appliances, Home Appliances (things attached to the house like the furnace and fireplace), Furniture, and Fitness Equipment.

Even though we will rarely access them, it’s nice to have them all in one place and easy to find when the time comes.

I also created a “Household Binder”. This idea came to me at 3am when one of smoke detector’s started to chirp every minute or so informing us the battery was dead. Andrew wasn’t available so I climbed on a chair and removed the battery. There! All fixed! WRONG! That did nothing and unfortunately I didn’t keep 9Vs on hand as I’ve never had to? So I googled it and everyone advises to just switch off the breaker for that area. Again, no problem, I knew where that was. I went through every possible breaker and still no luck. So as a last resort I drove to 7-11 to buy a stupid battery. The moral of this story is to get familiar with your dwelling. Know what expendables are needed where, and keep them on hand. After all, these types of things always happen at the worst possible time.

This binder consists of our Household Budget, Emergency Contacts, Information on our Alarm System, Expendables, and a Reference List. The reference list is what I think will be used the most. I included our garage code, mailbox number, wireless name and password, contact info for the power company along with our account number. And the list goes on… basically anything that concerns the house is referenced there. That way if something crazy happens in the middle of the night we don’t have to dig through our filing cabinet or click through websites to find contact numbers. It’s all right there, at your fingertips!

DIY Vehicle Trash Bin

Wow, what an awful title for a post! But I just had to share this idea with you!

I saw it on a Pinterest a while back and wanted to do it ever since! Line a plastic cereal container with a bag and use it a little trash bin for your car. It has a lid and is nice and compact so it works perfectly!

Paper Roses & Twigs

When I ordered the red paper roses for my sister’s party I also order some of the script ones as well. I wasn’t sure what I was going to use them for but I love them so knew I would figure something out! (On as side note I think they would look amazing on top of a gift wrapped in brown kraft paper instead of a bow)

After an excursion to IKEA where I bought a large glass vase and some dark twisted twigs I busted out the glue gun in hopes of making a masterpiece! First, I arranged the twigs in the vase. I trimmed some of them down around the base as I thought it looked a little odd having them all be the same length. Then I started gluing on the paper flowers as I saw fit. Upon completion I wasn’t sure how I felt about it so I took all the sticks out that has flowers on them to make sure I didn’t like that better. And I didn’t. I thought it looked too plain so I arranged all the twigs back into the vase. This was NOT a good idea. Trying to get these curly twigs with the roses on them back into an arrangement I liked was near impossible. So I highly recommend arranging the twigs first, and once the flowers are glued on…walk away. WALK AWAY! ;)

 In total this little project only cost about $30.00 so if you do change your mind in a few years you won’t get buyer’s remorse if you want to swap out the twigs with something else!

I also ended up doing a smaller version for my office at work. For that one, I got the vase and twigs from Bouclair.

Birthday Decor

For my sister’s 30th birthday bash, I wanted to decorate the house without spending a ton and still make it look sophisticated and cute. So I improvised and made a few things myself to cut down on costs. After all, most of the stuff just ends up in the garbage when the last guest leaves anyway.

I decided on a silver theme with a hint of white and pop of red. One nice thing about having her birthday this time of year is that it made it easy to find sparkly silver items too add to the décor.

One of my good friends, Kristen is a Wedding Planner, so she came over and helped me figure out where everything should go and with the decorations. It's so nice to have talent friends! :)

Flag Banner 101

Tape and scrap book paper will be your best friends for this people! I suppose if you were making a banner to use again and again, using glue and ribbon would probably be a better way to go. For me, it was a one time use so using tape was the quickest and most effective method. I actually didn’t even hang it, I just taped it right on to our fireplace mantel and it worked perfectly!

The first thing I did was cut out paper flags (triangles) using different patterns of scrapbook paper. I traced the one I liked until I had enough flags for each of the letters.

Then I printed out each of the letters with a circular boarder, cut them out and glued them to the middle of the flag. If you decide to string them using ribbon you would then need to punch holes and so on, but all I did was tape each flag to the next. Be sure to curve the flags as you tape them to give them that “hung” look.

I had ordered some paper flowers off Etsy for the party, I wasn’t sure how was I going to use them but as soon as I saw the banner I thought it would look adorable and add a little punch of color to it. So I glued a paper rose in between each flag. This worked great as it also hid the overlap and any tape that might have peeked through. (I ended up using the remainder of the roses scattered among the plates on the food table to continue the theme)

And there you have it! A cute, easy, and cheap banner to use once, or again and again.

Tissue Pom Poms

I have always loved the look of these, but this was the first time I actually made them! I was a little discouraged at first as the tissue kept tearing as I pulled them apart, but after doing a few I got the hang of it.

If these are also new to you, here is a great tutorial on how to make them.

• A few tips from me to you
• Use more than 8 sheets of paper per pom pom I found that 12 made much fuller pom poms
• Buy good quality tissue paper
• Be gentle with the tissue
• Make sure the ribbon or string is long enough to hang it from where you plan on using them
• For hanging clusters, use different sizes, colors and string lengths to make a full arrangement. I also incorporated balloons and some white spirals to mix it up.

30 Years of Photos


Since this is a milestone birthday I wanted to do a little something extra. I saw this idea on Pinterest, and lucky for me it was yet another cost effective decoration that made a statement.

I collected photos from friends and family that would be at the party, and printed them off in B&W. Next, I cut out a large “3” and “0” from Bristol paper to glue the photos onto it.

This was a great idea because everyone at the party including the birthday girl can take a little trip down memory lane.

 

Here one of the food table, unfortunately it's empty as once the guests started to arrive I totally forgot to take more photos! I will be posting more appetizer recipes that I made as well, stay tuned! :)

 

Glitter Pumpkins

I love Halloween, I actually love all holidays and I always have such big plans to go all out. But they always sneak up on me and I run out of time. This year wasn't an exception but I saw this idea on a day time talk show and I fell in love with the idea so I made time. On the show they used real pumpkins which looked great, but I decided to use fake ones so I could reuse them for years to come.

For this project you will need - various sized fake or real pumpkins, Mod Podge (I used the glitter kind), a large paint brush, various colors of fine glitter (orange, purple, black) and aerosol hairspray. I got all my supplies from Micheals.

I put down a garbage bag to avoid glittering the whole kitchen. I would recommend doing one color at a time and washing the brush in between to avoid sparkle cross contamination.
Holding the stem of the pumpkin, brush a generous coat of Mod Podge across the pumpkin, sprinkle the glitter all over the pumpkin until it's covered. You might have to filter the glitter that didn't stick back into the jar to re-use. Set the pumpkin on a plastic bag to dry, you might have to turn it on it's side to allow the bottom to dry as well. Once, completely dry, spray with hairspray. This will make sure the glitter stays on the pumpkin.

Happy Halloween! :)