Organization Challenge: Linen Closet

Good morning everyone! Today I have a challenge for you! Since getting everything out of boxes when we moved in, I just shoved stuff everywhere. In dressers, drawers, closets, etc. So my linen closet looks a little...frightening. Well this weekend I finally got that mess under control and I'm here to share a few tips on turning that mess of half folded towels and balled up sheets into a thing of beauty! Keep scrolling for an added tutorial on how to fold a fitted sheet properly.

-Make sure you have towels, sheets, comforters separated so you know what you are looking at immediately when you open the door

-For the best look, make sure all towels are folded the same way. Sounds pretty obvious, but when you are in a hurry and just fold and shove, you realize quickly that all your towels start looking like you did it with your eyes closed.

-Stick a dryer sheet in between comforters, sheets, or towels to keep things smelling fresh when you aren't using them.

-Having trouble with those pesky fitted sheets? Do they look like a hot mess all bundled up? Well, I took the most raggedly, wrinkly sheet set I had and here's how to fold them to actually look like a regular sheet.

How To Fold a Fitted Sheet

 Step 1. Hold both corners of one side of the sheet over your hands. One side should be inside out (seam out). Fold the inside-out pocket OVER the hand with the right side out pocket. Lay it down flat and do the same to the other side.

Step 2. Take the two folded pockets of one side, and repeat step 1, turning them seam side out and folding them over the other pocket, to make the above picture. All pockets should now be neatly folded inside of each other.

Step 3. Now that the "pocket corner" makes four neat edges, you can fold your sheet however you normally do. 

Step 4. Voila!

-For an added trick, you can put all of your sheet set (fitted sheet, top sheet, and one or more pillowcases) inside of one of the pillowcases in order to minimize space. Plus, now you will never spend twenty minutes searching for one piece of your bed set!

When your linen closet is overflowing with towels, you have sheets sticking out from under the door, and you need a sumo wrestler just to close it, take these tricks with you on your next cleaning spree. It will look amazing, you will feel amazing, and the next time company comes over you won't be racing to beat them to the towels. Have some more closet tricks? Put them in the comments below and I will be sure to add them!

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Organization Board

Hello loves! This is my craft from last week that I was unable to do for several reasons. We had a sick little baby, and he's actually sick again today (teething) but I pushed through the screaming. I also didn't have ink for my printer and had to remind my hubby several times that we were out, and finally got some YESTERDAY. So I can finally do my craft blog on time!

Today's project is the Organization board! I found this one pinterest via this awesome blog post and let me tell you it is the cutest thing. You know me and organization, so when I saw all the things I could put centrally in one spot I was in love.

To do this, you need 4 picture frames (hit up the dollar store) Two of them 5x7 and the other two document frames 8x11. Or you can be like me and forget and end up buying 8x10 so you have to trim both the pages.Try not to do that.

Follow the link above and you can find the ultra cute printables, that I used as well. I could have put them up for you, but I would rather you go to the blog that originated this idea and give her all the credit/page views. I altered them somewhat to fit my color pattern, and the daily clean list I changed quite a bit, but still. I even decided to do the whole chevron pattern because my kitchen is decked out in pink and yellow. I'm not a huge fan of chevron but I thought it was a good way to incorporate. I'm going to tell you right now, I was not aware they have chevron tape. Go buy that. Making your own chevron pattern by hand is the worst idea ever. Ever. I even looked up good measurements to make things, but I'm not even going to bother posting it. I was watching Walking Dead in the dark and didn't follow it anyway. I was going to redo it but my husband said to leave it. So you can blame him.

After that disaster was done, just print out your cute pages and put them into frames. The original suggested hot gluing the glass to the frame so you could write without it moving on you. I didn't realize when I bought new glue sticks that I had the jumbo sticks, and my glue gun takes the teeny ones. Jeez Louise. But I used card stock that was real thick so the glass ended up not moving when I got the frames put together. 

Attach using command strips or whatever sticky adhesive you have. I used a combo of the scotch adhesives for the frames, because they were cheap, and the more durable command strips for the board. 

And one more time because I just think it's so super adorable! Here it is hanging in my house 

Well, there you have it! It'll be so much easier to keep up with Jimmy's rotations, doctor appointments, chores, and keep me honest with dinner plans instead of saying "oh I forgot to lay something out again...let's just go to Subway" Crap. Next week I'll be sharing my Easter crafts for this year so stick around! 

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Organization Challenge! #Refrigerator

Hello all! Apologies for my missing Friday craft blog. We had a sick minion on our hands and on Saturday we were having a scheduled base wide power outage (dontcha love California????) so we were getting the heck outta dodge for the day. I decided to just bump it to the next Friday. Plus I need to get ink for my printer, so I'll pick that up at some point.

Anyway, today I decided to start my organization challenges! I was going to do them every day (excluding Wednesdays) for the next however many days, but I know not everyone is a stay at home mom so I decided to just do one a week. If you want to see them done more often to follow a long, let me know! I plan on doing a set of organization challenges every so often, so I can mix it up differently next time around. Right now I initiated it merely because my house is still up in arms from our move. It's "clean", but we had to get some additional furniture, so organization is at a -12.

So today's challenge is for the kitchen. Does your fridge look like a Snorlax threw up? (bonus points for understanding the Pokemon reference) When you get back from the grocery store do you just throw everything in there willy-nilly and then later can't find a single thing you bought? You go down for a midnight snack and don't bother to turn the light on, go for a cold bottle of root beer, and pick up a bottle of ketchup instead? God, I hope not. Gross. Well today we are going to spend some time organizing the refrigerator, freezer, and pantry! I could put up pics of mine, but I figure you don't want to see my boxes upon boxes of mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. I'll just give you some tips on optimizing your space.

Tips for your fridge:

Make sure you pay attention to expiration dates. I know you think that's common sense, and it is, but it's something everyone forgets about until they are craving a giant plate of nachos and realize your sour cream is 4 months old.

If you have kids, put their drinks on one side of the fridge and the adult drinks (not booze..although you probably want to keep that away from the juice boxes too) like tea, soda, etc on the other. When you are in a pinch for a juice box, you know exactly where to look. Or bonus, they could even get them for themselves if they are old enough.

I use those drink mixes for water because my little hates regular water. The kind that doesn't have sugar tricks her into thinking she's hopped up on koolaid and she is still getting her 8 glasses a day. I always make two 2-qt batches a day. Not really an organization tip, just something for your fridge.

I've heard a fantastic idea about putting down cling wrap on the shelves of your fridge. That way when it gets dirty, you just have to pull up and replace the cling wrap. I haven't tried it yet, but it might be my next pin-spired cleaning post. It sounds pretty brilliant to me.

For your freezer:

To help keep freezer burn down on your extra food, if you are going to put extra meat (or whatever) back in your freezer in a freezer bag, make sure to write the date on the bag. All things can keep in the freezer for different amounts of times, so make sure you look that up. You can write that on the bag too to keep yourself on track. You can buy those contraptions that seal up your bags without air..but I'm to cheap for that.

Keep ice packs in an easy to reach place like the door of the freezer for fast access when someone has a booboo.

We have a notoriously small freezer so if I'm running out of space and I have something like two pieces of Garlic toast in a huge box taking up room, I will cut off the directions to cooking and tape that to a freezer bag so that I can toss the box.

For your pantry:

If you have a responsible kid/toddler you can put a basket or section of snacks they are allowed to get into for themselves. But if you have a sneaky kid like me, who brings me the poptart box on the daily, keep the chips and snacks on the top shelf.

Keep cans down low. Since those are potentially the heaviest thing in your pantry when collected, if a shelf breaks at least they will not take out every other shelf on their way down. It's happened before.

To eliminate cluttery cereal or snack boxes like cheez its, put them into containers to dole out. I have seen many different things, from empty coffee containers to rinsed out creamer bottles. The large creamer bottles are great for things like goldfish. Little hands can pour too. It also helps them from going stale when you have these snacks in a sealable container.

Keep things organized by category. Try to keep breakfast things together on a shelf, just like sweets and ingredients for dinner. That way you aren't looking all over the place taking 20 minutes to find the sugar, cinnamon, and the baby food.

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That's really all I got folks! Got any good tips to organize your fridge, freezer, or pantry? I'd love to hear! Do you want me to add some pictures of some of my tips? Let me know that too. I challenge everyone to go out this week and organize the crap out of your kitchen.You have until Monday, where we will reconvene for another organization challenge. Good luck!

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Grimy Bathtub to Sparkly Clean

As you may remember, I did not move to our duty station at the same time as my husband. I had to pop a baby out of my body first before I could go cross country. So I don’t know if I can blame him or if it was there previously, but when I got here I noticed our bathtub had heelprint smudges all over the bottom. Now I know we are on an army base and these guys get really nasty out there in the field, but seriously? I like to take a bath. I don’t want to sit my butt down in your desert filth, especially if it’s not even my husbands desert filth. Gross

.

Um….gross.

I tried cleaning with as many household cleaning products as possible but I wasn't even making a dent. I used to work in the apartment community and I learned for plastic tubs you can use oven cleaner, but I really didn't like the idea of ventilating the house and keeping the minions out of the way. Off to troll pinterest! I found this concoction using baking soda, Dawn dish soap, and vinegar.

The measurements:

½ c white vinegar

½ c blue Dawn dish soap

4 tbsp baking soda

Radioactive Blue

The original post called for a spray bottle, but as we have seen my reputation with spray bottles, I went with the advice of the blogger above and just used a glass measuring cup and a washcloth. Heat the vinegar for 90 seconds in the microwave and then LET IT COOL for about the same amount of time. Unless you want Mt. Vesuvius on your hands, that is. Then slowly add in the baking soda and the Dawn dish soap after that. Just so you know, vinegar and heat? Smells awful. My house smelled like feet for the afternoon. Open a window when you do this.

Anyway, I proceeded to spread the concoction into the tub with a washcloth. It needs to sit for about two hours, I think I let it sit a little longer just in case. Then just rinse it! Be careful, because it makes way more bubbles than you may anticipate. I literally had bubbles coming out of the drain thing in the middle of the tub. And my washcloth was bubblelicious no matter how much I tried to rinse it, so eventually I just threw it in the washer as it was.

Apparently my shadow loves the camera.

The end result? It didn’t get everything out. (I feel like this is becoming a pattern...what a terrible way to start a blog!) But compared to what it looked like beforehand? I’ll take it. I ended up doing it again a week later, and the results were even better. I have noticed recently that even though I clean my tubs every week, my daughter’s tub is starting to get teeny heelprints as well. I don’t put my kid in the bath disgusting, so what the heck kind of tubs are these?! So I suppose I’ll start mixing up this potion once a month and slather it on just to keep the dirt level down. I’m sure after a couple more cleanings, all those smudges will be gone and I will post an update later on. But hey,  it beats the hell out of stinky oven cleaner. Take that, desert filth.

               

      The Before                                                                                       And After

                                                                (shut up about the lighting. and the shadow. and everything.

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No Sew Tie Blankets

Good afternoon! Today (rather last night) I decided to make a tie blanket for my 4 month old. A dear friend of ours made one for my little girl, who is now two, when she was a baby. Let me tell you..my daughter is in LOVE with this blanket. For two years it has romped everywhere with her; she can't go to sleep without it or ride in the car for more than 30 minutes. She literally wakes up from naps with her hair plastered to her head because she can't part with her beloved blanket OR her princess comforter.

Blankie Love

Unfortunately we moved so shortly after my son was born, we weren’t able to get a blanket made for him. So I went on a search to find a similar patchwork fabric for boys, which let me tell you was not easy. I thought, it’s no sew! It’ll be easy!! While, yes I did get it accomplished, it was not without a few Momsane moments.
If you would like to do this blanket, all you need is about a yard to 1.5 of two fabrics of choice. I’m a fan of the microfleece or minky fabric as the back so for his I chose a blue that complimented the patchworking.

Materials!

First lay your fabric flat on a surface with the pieces facing away from each other. You would feel kinda foolish if you started tying them and one side of your blanket was backwards. This was especially hard for me- keeping the fabrics together, straight, and taut because I first tried to accomplish this when the minions were up. After the fifth time Brook grabbed the blanket off the table and wrapped it around like a cape, I gave up til after bedtime.

No more littles.

Now at first I didn’t believe I needed to do this, but trust me. You kinda do. On your first corner, after you get everything more or less lined up (don’t worry cuz you’ll probably have to trim some after you get finished with one side), cut at least 3 inches down and 1 inch wide. Discard that first little flap. That way you can start making cuts and you have a nice little corner. If you try not to do this, you’ll end up cutting off a strip just the same. Might as well do it from the get go.

Now you can begin making 1 to 1/12 inch wide, 3 inch cuts. Just keep it going til you are ready for your next corner

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1in x 3in. Snip snip.

Now if you want to go ahead and tie, go for it. Just make a knot. tie them together. Then tie them again. You know how to do this, right? I don’t need a lesson do I? You can just tie each of your corners like normal, or if you want a more rounder finish, you can take both “corner” pieces from each side and double tie them together. It makes the knot a pain in the ass to actually get through, but I think it strengthens the corners more. I did it, so whatever

 

       

Knottage                                       One whole side down!

Now from here, you’ll have to move to your next side and smooth the fabric out. You may need to snip some because your fabric may have shifted. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

Now a little disclaimer for the people working with patchwork like me. If your cut extends between two different patches, you may experience unraveling. Or worse, when you start tying your strips together some of those patches may break apart. I know I was drinking a glass of wine and all, but that didn’t make me Superwoman. So when three of my patched strips ripped off when I secured my knot, I thought maybe I was turning superhuman. The knots still held and all, but if it happened to untie later on down the line (which they will. Brook’s does all the time and I spend ten minutes retying random strips that have come undone) I would have to reattach those patches. But once I sat for a while scratching my head, I realized the issue and I saved any patch pieces that fell off. I also kept scraps from the corners I discarded. That way, in the event something comes untied and I need to make a quick fix, I can sew a patch back on. Could I have sewn the ends and reinforced each patch before tying them together to make sure I wouldn’t need to do this in the future? Sure. But it was 11pm and I’m not Super Stay at Home Mom. That’s way too much effort for this glass of wine. Maybe after 4 I might feel ballsy enough, but then again I might not want to see the outcome. So if you want to be super fantastic, go ahead and sew your strips together to make sure. If you are like me, just wait for those suckers to fall off first and then apply first aid.

That’s it! Once you’ve done all four sides, give everything a little tug because it’ll look a little bunched up and tight at first. I actually did this after each side just to make sure it didn’t get too tight. Then put it through the washer to get all the little fuzzy scraps and strings off, and also to ensure that nothing falls apart. It should look a little something like this!

 

Jude approved

And that’s a wrap! Or a knot… or whatever. Now that everyone is enjoying naptime with their new blankets, I feel like I’m missing out.

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Adventures in Couch Cleaning: Microfiber

So I have come to the conclusion that I actually have three children even though I've only birthed two. The other one is just a heck of a lot bigger, stinkier, and messier. Oh the messes.. You see our couch is a tan microfiber that has often been used as a nap station, a kid’s sick bay, and had it’s fair share of juice and spit up so it already has some stains. But the other day I watched my husband literally sit down with a full bowl of cereal and spill half of it on the couch cushion. I swear I thought about being a widow long and hard for a few minutes as I stared at that basketball sized stain. That was my final straw. It was time to make my first real post on my first ever pin from Pinterest. How to clean your microfiber couch.

Keep reading for my attempt and to see the results.

Here is what my beloved couch looks like pre-clean.

This is the arm of my couch. More stains of cereal, no doubt.

Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the stain that incited my rage, because the first thing I did after ordering my husband to go to work before he spilled anything else, was to rip all the cushion covers off so it didn’t soak into the padding. I threw the covers into the washer, because I was told that it’s safe to do. When you pull them out of the washer, however, do not be alarmed when you see them look like this:

I know I was. But just dry them like normal, I did both the washer and dryer cycles under gentle or permanent press. When they dried they looked beautiful and tan instead of muddy chocolate. My husband was officially off the hook. Now for the step that I was holding my breath for; those set in arm stains.

According to the blog post, you need a spray bottle and regular rubbing alcohol. I can tell you from first hand experience, make sure your spray bottle has the “spray” function. Just trust me. If you do happen to make the same mistake, keep reading and I’ll try to help you out a little. Also have a sponge with an abrasive side (the yellow and green kind worked just fine for me, but if you are worried about color transference find some that have a white abrasive side) and a soft bristle scrubbing brush that does not have colored bristles. Ready? Go.

Spray the alcohol on to the area and be sure to saturate it. If you are cheap like me, you will get a cheap spray bottle that only has the “stream” function and you will just make lines of rubbing alcohol on the couch that looks like a newborn peed on it. You need overall coverage to make this work properly. Once saturated and looking about how the cushions looked post washer machine, take your sponge on the abrasive side and scrub-a-dub. Then let it sit. Just, let it sit. I know you are going to try and argue with me. Just go to bed and don't think about it. Let it dry completely and in the morning when you look at it and it’s blotchy and dark, refrain from trying to kill me. That’s where the second part comes in; the most important part. Take your soft bristle brush and in circular motions, brush out the arm/base/back of the couch. This smooths the fibers and “fluffs” up the fabric. Now it looks better doesn't it? I told you. When I used my stupid sprayer the first time, it left the little “baby pee” marks even when it dried. It was faint, but still pissed me off. So I redid it. The stains from the botched run came right back out. So if you didn’t listen to me at all and got a 2 cent bottle, spray the alcohol onto the soft side of the sponge and then apply it to the couch to get a more even coverage. Then flip to the abrasive side and scrub the crap out of it. Now you should be back on track. Listen next time, will ya? Here is the result!

Stains be gone!

Results! The second picture didn't do it justice, but most of what you see is just where I had fluffed it. It didn’t get every single stain that ever came across my couch out, but the eyesores are definitely gone. And as long as when company comes over they don’t feel the need to sit on the very edge of the couch hoping whatever that suspicious spot is doesn’t touch their clothing, that’s good enough for me! So in closing, this works really well for moderate stainage! I can’t speak for different color microfiber, or even different types of microfiber, so please test in an inconspicuous area first. And if you are worried, go to the original blog where she has updated/answered some of those questions. With two babies and a big ogre child, I plan on cleaning up the couch once a month in order to cut down on the mysterious globs and blobs that show up. Thank the heavens because I’m not ready to part with this couch quite yet. Soon, but not too soon. Until next time guys!

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An Obligatory Introduction

Good morning Blogisphere. Let’s get to know each other, shall we? My name is Karrah and I’m both a stay at home mom of two beautiful children and an army wife; two things that seem to be stereotyped as sitting on my butt all day eating chocolate. I can assure you, sitting down is a 3 minute luxury and chocolate usually gets ripped out of my hands and gobbled up instantly by my 2 year old. In fact the last M&M I ate was more than a year ago, even though I’ve probably spent a small fortune on them.

We are new to the army life. My husband has been in for less than a year and his first duty station is in the middle of nowhere. He moved in October but we didn’t follow til after our baby was born and we were cleared to go. Fun fact- previously we lived in Georgia. Our duty station..California.Try to do that by car in four days with a 2 year old and a 6 week old. Good luck. Anyway, so I’ve only been here for about a month, almost two. Currently all my friends are halfway across the country and I don’t know anyone here. I’m also rather antisocial so that probably doesn’t help any. While pacing the house and talking to myself, I’ve realized that I have become bored and you can only have so many intelligent conversations about Minnie Mouse and Elmo. So what to do? Make a blog, that’s what! Now I can talk to myself and not feel quite as creepy and depressing!

So, what can you expect from my ramblings? Well I’m very sarcastic, obsessed with organization, I like to bake, and I love crafting even though they usually turn out a little like I had too much wine while assembling. So if Pinterest threw up, that would be this blog. I knew you were interested.

A little about me:

I’m a southerner at heart. Born in Alabama and raised in Georgia, I value my sweet tea and chicken biscuits.

I’ve been married two years, three in May, to my soulmate. The kids call him Daddo but I call him Dummy..lovingly of course. In all seriousness though, I wouldn’t be where I am today without him.

My two year old daughter is probably going to grow up to be Evel Knievel and my three month old son is destined to be a linebacker. Or a sumo. Seriously, my daughter weighs 27 pounds and he weighs 16 already.

I’m addicted to internet gaming. Not poker and gambling. Not WoW. I’m talking random, pointless flash games. You will literally catch me at 1am playing Pogo games because  I can’t figure out how to get the stupid squirrel through the stupid maze and it will completely consume my life.

I am an aspiring writer that I hope will take off into the stratosphere some day soon. Hoping, praying, voodooing…..

I do enjoy a nice glass of wine. But I have a feeling, when I’m done nursing and can crack open the bottle of Merlot that has been taunting me for two months, the quality of my “crafts” will be severely impacted.

I swear I’m a nice person. I may be sarcastic and cynical and maybe a little on the insane side, but I’m also nice! I promise if you stick around, I’m guaranteed to give you an idea or two, or at the very least make you laugh. That’s all that counts, right?

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