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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