St Patrick's Day Printables that Make Me Smile

 I've got a simple IKEA frame over my desk that I used for Valentine's Day Decorating.  It was time to fill that frame with some green for St Patty's Day!  Thanks to Blooming Homestead, and Two Twenty One for creating and sharing their great St Patrick's Day Printables.

This just makes me smile.

So simple, fast and frugal.  :-)

Erin Go Bragh!

Linked to these St Patrick's Day Parties
Categorically Crafting @ Someday Crafts
Somewhat Simple

Daily Declutter Challenge #31 - Baking Pan Cupboard...(aka...Lord, please take me home now...)

I was dreading this corner cabinet even more than the Tupperware Cupboard.  It was disorganized, overloaded, and to make matters worse, my Mom had been in town, and she is famous for putting away my dishes in exactly the wrong place.  (I'm trying not to complain....really, I'm not....but if you don't know where something goes, don't you just normally leave it on the counter and say, "I wasn't sure where those belonged."  Just sayin'.)  But my Mom is a busy bee, and has the tenacity of a bulldog....all great qualities...so if she sees a pan that needs putting away she'll stuff it where ever she feels like!

Hence....

I couldn't dodge it any longer.  My four year old was in grand spirits today, and happily coloured and played with her tinkerbell dollies while Mommy spent the better part of the afternoon on her hands and knees with her head buried in the depths of the cabinet.  I don't know why she was in such a particularly contented mood today, but I was rolling with it!

You know the drill...I pulled everything out, gave the cupboard a good scrubbing, and decided what I could put on the ever growing garage sale pile.

I then wrestled with shelf liner for a goodly while, as my cabinets are in pretty bad shape.  And no....I didn't get it on perfectly, and yes there are bubbles and wrinkles.  Lastly, I rearranged how I was storing items (more commonly used on the upper, less frequent on the lower) and nested things according to type.

At last!

Oh, what a relief to have this declutter behind me!  My knees are killing me!

But me and my ever so patient girls?  We are SO gonna bake together tomorrow!  :-)

Daily Declutter Challenge #30 - Where Stale Cereal Goes to Die

Did you ever have one of those days that felt like you started a million things but didn't finish any of them?  That was how my day was.  The fact that I stayed up till 1:30 AM cleaning up after our girls night probably didn't help.

But I was determined to conquer one area and the kitchen has been my main focus lately so I went with the "bulk" cupboard.  Assorted cereals, bags of flour & sugar strewn in disarray.

 I seriously cannot believe I am posting these photos.  This is humbling AND motivational!

Anyway, I hauled everything out, put all I could into other containters (Large bags are really quite useless in a cupboard.)  Wiped out the debris, and put it all back (minus the stale cereal that no one was eating), and this time I maximized it all into ONE cupboard rather than two!

There are other bottom cupboards that are desperately needing my attention....hopefully tomorrow I am a little more awake to attempt them!

Repurposed Key Necklace

Yesterday was a "non-daily declutter" day for me as it was packed full with speech therapy for my 4 yr old, a root canal (that took over 2 & 1/2 hours!) for my 12 yr old, and getting ready for a "Girl's Night" in the evening with a group of young women whom I have been mentoring since they were young teens. They're now in their early 20's, working, going to school, getting married, having babies....it's pretty amazing.

The day before the girl's night my husband did a little decluttering himself and got rid of a bunch of old keys from a key chain. He half jokingly. half mockingly handed them to me and said, "Do you want to repurpose these?" Har. Har. Sounded like a challenge to me, so I stuck them in my pocket and pondered it as I went about my day.

Now remember, I am trying to both learn how to declutter AND repurpose lately, so my rule is, if I don't know what I want to use it for RIGHT AWAY then I don't keep it. I don't have a basement, garage, or storage room and with six people living in a 1,400 square foot space, you can imagine NOT a lot of extra closet space.

But the phrase, "Key to my heart" popped into my head and it fit perfectly with what I was going to be sharing with my awesome young women the next evening. I could make a key necklaces for them as a reminder to guard their hearts!

I forgot to take a before, but you can picture just regular, goldish coloured keys.

STEP 1:
Spray painted the keys with some red spray paint I had at home. I gave each side a couple coats. I got impatient and didn't let one side dry thouroughly before I flipped them and did the other, so I ended up having to peel newspaper off the back of one side.

Keepin' it real....I did this on my kitchen table with the patio door open.  I didn't use enough newspaper on the table. Spray paint really.... ummmmm... sprays.

STEP 2:
Stick on heart shaped "bling"sticker that I picked up at Michael's.

STEP 3:
Thread with ribbon. I bought a spool of black ribbon from Michael's and my homestay student also gave me some soft lace ribbon she had in her craft stuff. Tie a knot around the loop in the key so that it hangs straight and then tie a knot at top.

Oooooo....I think I like this repurposing challenge!

Cost to me: About 50 cents per necklace.

Investing into the lives of young women: PRICELESS

Linking to:
Get Your Craft on @ Today's Creative Blog

Daily Declutter Challenge #29 - Organizing Cable & Cord Chaos!

I'm sure many of you are like me and suffer from a little something I like to call, "cord anxiety".  You know how it goes.  You own multiple electronic devices & they all have completely different USB cables and charging plugs.  Finding what you need can be a nightmare!  It is shocking how many of these items we have stuffed in our drawer.  Add cameras, memory cards, headphones, various batteries, and whatever else that can be deemed, "Audio Visual" and you have this result.

 

Can you blame my heart palpitations when I see something like this?

Thus, for the past month I've been squirreling away every little cardboard box that we used.  I would cut them down to size, and would tape up the open end as well so that I got two boxes out of the deal.

I cornered my husband into helping me decide what we needed to keep and what we could toss.  He didn't want to toss anything, protesting "You can never have too many cords and cables!  You never know when one might break and you need a replacement.  And I may need to cobble together a gaming system or connect three computers together to a projector."  He safely tucked away whatever cables that we didn't use ALL the time into his box full of cords and other computer peripherals.  That one is right next to his other box full of RCA cables and speaker wire.  I never new such boxes existed in the world until I married my husband.  And thank goodness for his geeky ways!  As I like to say, "I'm sleeping with my I.T. Guy"

Back to the declutter.  I arranged the little boxes into the drawer and neatly wrapped all the cords, and this is the result!

I'm feeling MUCH better now!

Daily Declutter Challenge #28 - The Craft Drawers

In my kitchen I've got a great shelving unit from IKEA  with drawers for my kids' crafts, playdough, etc.  From the outside you'd think I'm a really organized person.

Till you pull them open.

All three drawers looked pretty much like this one.  Except for the drawer marked "PlayDoh" which I already decluttered.

But I refused to be daunted.  I've been focusing on my kitchen lately, so I couldn't avoid this mess forever.


Here's the after!

The main thing I have been learning through all this decluttering is that drawers need to be subdivided.  Baskets, tupperware bins & repurposed boxes are great for this!

It's hard to know what to keep when you're decluttering kid's craft drawers.  I don't want to be so overwhelmed with stuff that we don't have the will to put together a craft, but I also want to have lots of opportunity for creativity.

However, as long as the basics are covered, we're pretty good:  colouring supplies, paint, glue, scissors, scrap paper, and beads.  I'm sure we can add lib with other stuff as it comes along.  (Toilet paper rolls, tissue paper from gifts, christmas & birthday cards...)

What crafty items do you love to keep on hand for your little ones?

P.S.  The audio visual drawer has to be conquered another day...

Fugly Pitcher Makeover

On a recent trip to Value Village with my mom, I picked up a really hideous looking pitcher and bowl set.

The picture doesn't even do justice to how putrid the colour scheme is.

My family thought I was insane.

But a a few coats of Heirloom White Spray paint, and a sunny Sunday afternoon later.....we have THIS!

My Mom was amazed...."How did you think of doing that?" she wondered.  I said, "There are millions of creative people out there who put their ideas on the internet for Clueless Crafters like me!"

Linking to these great inspirational parties!
Make the World Cuter Monday