Tackle It Tuesday

Since I cleaned out my van last night, I decided to post a Tackle it Tuesday.

Am I the only one who, after soccer season is over, has a car full of empty water bottles, empty snack bags and crumbs, grass and dried dirt on the floor?

I couldn't take it anymore and it had rained this afternoon and the humidity had dropped some. So I went out and started to clean. Then I had a brilliant idea, I made my older two (who were the only ones awake at the time) help me clean.

I have put a ban on food in the van. Does anyone else do this? Part of me thinks, get over it, this is a family car, it is going to get dirty. But the other part is, the kids should not be this messy and absentminded with my van.

So I am interested if anyone has banned food and drinks in their car. Just curious.

Here are the after photos, honestly I was too embarrassed about the before photos. I think I had half a box of Fruit Loops on the floor of my van.

This post is linked to Tackle It Tuesday at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Reducing Paper Towel Use

I think that just about everyone that I know uses paper towels.

You spill something? Need a napkin? and impromptu plate? We all grab paper towels.

And I don't know about you, but I go through alot! Because not only do I use my towels for those items, but I also use them to make homemade wipes.

And has anyone priced paper towels lately? I mean, jeesh! they are really going up in price. Of course now they have double rolls, super double rolls, 4 packs, 6 packs, 8 packs and even 12-15 packs!

I remember the good old days when all you had to choose from was either a single or multi-pack. And plain white or a cute little kitchen type design on it. I miss those days, really I do.

Because it just confuses me. When they came in 8 packs, I would look for them to go on sale for $5.99 a pack, then I knew to stock up, now it is rare that you find a sale like that. Although Kroger did have such a sale recently.

Add to this the guilt I feel for using so many towels. I mean, we all know where paper towels come from right? Trees. And I love trees. I hate the thought of being so wasteful.

So, all that being said, I am going to try and reduce my use of paper towels. I have slowly been stocking up on cloth towels and rags for this purpose. I will let you know how it goes.

This post is linked to Tackle It Tuesday.

Home Decorations that have been Repurposed or Redone

I talked about here how I love to find things at garage sales, thrift stores, etc. and repurpose them, repaint them, redo them for our home. I love this look, it is very homey and inviting to me, not to mention frugal. I feel like my guests can feel comfortable here.

So here is another view into our home and some of the things that I repurposed or unconventional solutions to problems and all done for next to nothing but the cost of some paint.

This is a photo of a bench that I got the first year we were married. From the looks of it I also have not dusted it in that time also. I guess I need to dust this and deslobber it huh? This bench used to be stained brown and had birdhouses on it. Very cool at the time but not anymore. This little bench has been inside, outside, you name it. So this summer I decided to paint it black and use it for a few of my collectible bears.

This shot is of a table that I painted about 10 years ago, I crackle painted it a dark hunter green. I was going to repaint it black, but my girls liked itlike this, so for the time being it is still green. This shelf was garbage picked by my mother years before I was even married. She used it in her garage, but it is still in great shape, they just don't make furniture like that anymore. The red shelf that has the bear lamp on it was given to me 14 years ago by my mother-in-law. It started out cream and sat next to our bed before we had bed side tables. Then it sat on our porce as a planter, then came back in to keep the lamp out of reach of our little guy.

This is one of my favorite things I have redone. It was to our kitchen table that we bought 10 years ago. Which we ended up outgrowing, as the table portion was not that large. It sat downstairs and was used as our craft table after we bought a new bigger table. When we finished out basement, we really didn't have the room for it anymore, so I painted the bottom black and used the stuffing that I saved from a couch that our great dane had destroyed. The fabric I got for $4 a yard from WalMart. Usually I will use sheets or tableclothes as my fabric but this was much cheaper to buy the fabric this time. This now sits in front of our big bay window in the front room.

This isn't really a redo, you see, we have no coat closet by our front door. So years ago for my birthday my husband bought me this hall tree. I has a storage bench at the bottom. But I have pretty baskets up top for our hats and gloves that we use during the winter season. The extra get stored in the bench. Notice we are one hook short now that we had our 4th child! Oh well, we had only one when we bought this!

This crate/chest I got from my mom when I was still in college. I might of even been in highschool, I honestly don't remember. When we were married it never made it out of a storage space in the basement. But again, when we refinished our basement, well, decided to bring it into our front room and use it as a table. Notice the ugly carpet? It was almost brand new when we moved into this house. With the kids and the animals, it has never seemed the right time to replace the flooring. Plus, this is a bit of a debate as I want hard wood that continues into the kitchen my husband wants carpet. So we still have our ugly carpet.

This little chair was an ugly blue with stains all over it. I got it for $3 at a garage sale this summer. I repainted it and used some of the fabric that I used on the bench above to make a little pillow. Again I put one of my collectible bears on it.

I did all of these items before I had a blog, so I don't have any before photos. From here on out I will take before and after photos of the pieces that I redo.

This post linked to Frugal Friday.

How to keep mail and papers piling by the door to the garage?

In our kitchen the door to the garage is right next to the kitchen counter. This is also the door that we come in and out of everytime we go somewhere. So you can imagine the pile that happens there.

We sit mail there, what has come in and what needs to go out. We sit our keys there, my husband puts his wallet, phone, ipod, pager, name badge and anything else that he needs for work there, these all go in a basket. I have speakers there for our ipod, a little country crock to put our change in and a little dish for my lipbalm and my wedding ring when I am cleaning.

So you can see, it gets piled up even before the junk gets piled up.

So I had this idea, which I am sure I have seen on some home and garden show. Remember the curtain I used on my shelf as a table runner here? Well it had a twin and I sewed it up to make a little organizer for my papers.

Here is what I came up with.

I used a tension rod that I had for something else, and hung it with ribbons below my picture that is right inside the door. I have a space for mail, the coupon magazines we get monthly and some other papers that I don't currently have a home for.

I thought it turned out really cute. And many times what I want and what I am willing to pay for something don't match. What I mean is plain and simply I am cheap. This is something that works for me, using stuff I found in the house to repurpose for something else. I do this all the time and I love it!

This post is linked to Tackle It Tuesday.

My Kitchen Cabinet

Some of you may remember my post here, where I talk about my disastrous shelves in the kitchen.

Well, I could take it no longer. The collection of papers, holiday papers, holiday pencils, stray artwork, thankyou cards and anything else the kids didn't know where to stash finally became too much.

I took a few hours and went through the stuff. Trashed alot of it and organized the rest.

Here is what my shelf looks like now. I can actually see my cookbooks. I don't have to dig to the back of my cupboard for my mixing bowls. And my new flameless candles and crockpot I got for Christmas have a place also. Here is what my shelf looks like now.

The striped fabric on the top is actually an extra curtain that matches my kitchen curtains. I am using it like a table runner.

I also organized a little white cabinet I have. This cabinet used to house snacks on the top shelf, school supplies on two other shelves and my cookbooks on the bottom shelf.

I very recently used some gift cards I had to purchase a label maker. So I have been labeling everything under the sun! I am in heaven.

Here is what my white cabinet looks like now!

Everything is labeled properly, so there is no question as to where the card games, crayons or extra paper go. You may notice on the top are two of my canning jars. One for pencils and one for pens, both properly labeled.

This time of year I go through the house and tackle all kinds of organizing projects. I move things around, so on any given day, my family cannot find the kitchen towels, bandaids or baby bibs! For the most part, my organization skills work out. But sometimes, I end up putting them back where they were in the first place.

Now on to the next project to organize and label! I will make sure I post those photos also!

This post linked to Tackle it Tuesday.

Easy Transformation

With the hubub of school, comes a mountain of papers. Papers to turn in, papers about future projects, homework papers, art projects, invitations, papers about other papers, the list goes on and on. And having two in the same school system, means any paper that pertains to school information, we get two of.

I try to stay on top of it. And yet, my shelf that contains all this paper looks like this more often than not. And yes, I do need to do something with those bananas. They will be turned into chocolate banana muffins, yummy!

I tried to get organized. Notice the three tubs on the bottom, they are all labeled with my oldest three names on them. Which is great, except that I have 4 kids and eventually I will need another tub for my youngest. And the light blue tub is mine, I put receipts, papers I want to keep, photos I haven't put away yet, basically anything that I don't know where else to put goes there.

I also keep a box of cards ready on hand. Birthday, get well, congratulations and sympathy cards are all stored in the pretty striped box. That way when I need to send out a card, I don't have to make a quick trip to the store, I already have it. That is pretty organized right?

I also have a tub for my tape and stapler, which is a great idea. Exept little ones find my tape and use it to tape things down. All kinds of things. So my tape/stapler tub is really just a stapler/empty tape dispenser tub.

I have a binder for my allergy recipes, nicely labeled. I keep my black coupon binder here, except it is sitting on top right now, not nicely in my bin. Pencil sharpener, check. Tissues, check. Random box of crayons on my fruit plates, check.

I would like to say that I spent a whole day organizing this. I said I would like to say it, not that I could. Placing my kids artwork in their labeled tubs under my bed(yes, I do that, keep a tub for each childs artwork under my bed). I would like to say that the dust bunnies are gone in this shelf, the empty notebooks and that my stapler/tape tub has reclaimed its original glory. But I can't say that. Because I didn't find the time to do that.

Instead I did this. This will have to do until I do find the time to go through this shelf. And yes, I did eventually turn the bananas into chocalate banana muffins. Maybe that is why I don't have time to tame the paper beast. I bake too much. Oh and notice how my lines don't match up? Well, no one's perfect.

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday.

School Papers--Can you organize them?

I got this idea from here, she used hers in her homework center area. I needed a place to keep all the important school papers. I had been keeping them in my "mom's binder". I will talk about that another time, but that wasn't working for things that had a return by date, as I would forget about them, I needed them out in plain sight. However, being out in plain sight means they can get food dropped on them, dropped on the floor and into the dog slobber, or the 4 year old finds them and colors on them.

Then I saw this that We Are That Family had used, an old tray! I thought that was genious! I found this tray at good will and yes, it was perfectly cute the way it was, but I didn't want a Christmas tray hanging up all year round.

So I took my new favorite thing to use, my chalkboard paint and painted it! I found this at the local hardware store. I should have used primer first, after I sanded it, but I was out and too anxious to get started. So I painted 3 coats of the chalk board paint instead.

Here is the finished product, already in use. I have it on my back door going from the kitchen to the garage. I love it there, I am able to see things on my way out the door. I have 4 clips, one for each kid.

This is linked to Works for Me Wednesdays and Tackle it Tuesday.