Halloween!

We are getting ready for Halloween around here. My older daughter is going to be a pirate and I crafter her a black, white, and red tutu. The baby is going to be a clown and she will have a rainbow tutu. Pictures to be posted when they are complete!

I didn't go all out on Halloween decorating but here are a couple decorated places in my home.

More organizing around the house..

I have been busy this week trying to bring some order into a few areas of my house.

After getting the organization binder in order, I tackled a few problem areas. In the pantry, I added a door shoe holder to hold all our snacks. In the bathroom, I added storage drawers- one to hold bandaids and creams, another to hold cold medicines and thermometers. The little purple basket holds all the cough drops. 

My craft area was turning into a dumping zone! I added a tupperware set of drawers to hold little items. Behind the stack of fabric is a bin for works in project.

 Instead of my fabric hiding in a box under my table, it is now neatly folded on the newly freed up shelf. Items that were stuffed in are now in the drawers.

My daughter had a huge play space in the front living room that she never touched. So I moved it all to her closet! I love not having to look at all those toys anymore.

Organization zone on fridge for keeping track of dates, appointments, and notes from school. The green dot is a dry erase dot. I can write notes there too and my daughter has one in her room. When I think of something I want her to do or remember, I write her a note there! 

 

Household Organization Binder

So I saw these organizer binders floating around in blogger land and decided it would be useful in my life as well. I started with a cute binder from Target - I should have gotten one with pockets on the inside but this one has at least gotten me started.
Directly on the inside I have my "To Do" list. If I don't have that in exact view, I will let things slip! I found a cute "To Do List" printable from the internet by using those search terms. But you could just have a plain piece of scratch paper and save the ink! Next to the to do list is a Target shopping list for all my extras you can't get at the grocery store. Little items are popping in my head constantly that I need like nightlight bulbs, WD-40, and Drain-o. So, again I have to keep that list handy. The list is removed because I just pulled it out on my way out the door to Target! No more scrounging around the house last minute trying to figure out what I needed and finding all my misc post it notes reminding me what to buy. It was so incredibly convenient to have the list ready when I had a free minute that I found to go to Target. Sometimes by the time I get my lists together, the best time to go has passed.
The first page that is inserted into the binder is a my weekly calendar at a glance. You could do that upcoming week if your week is busier than mine. I like to have a standing calendar visible- such as Wednesday says "Groceries", Tuesday says, "Baby and Me Class", Thursday says, "Volunteer at School". My weeks stay the same. I have a dry erase calendar on my fridge that I use to add in specific items such as appointments or play dates that occasionally come up.

Next I have a few months worth of calendar pages so that I can add upcoming appointments. Then at the start of the month, I can add those dates to the dry erase board. I have a weekly calendar of where all the baby story times are across Seattle so if a day comes up where we have time and want to catch a story, I just have to glance at my handy calendar and see where one might be! I also put on this same sheet (in a different color of course!) where the farmer's markets were. And finally I added to this sheet both inside and outside fun things to do with Gracie. Now I have a quick way to get ideas for the day if we have a day where we are free and are wanting to get out of the house. Sometimes you can spend so much time planning, you lose interest.
My next weekly calendar sheet is to keep track of chores. I divided up what chores and errands were best to do on each day and also what kind of meals would be good to cook on those days. If we have a "busy day" like groceries, I will have less energy for cooking so it's a standing leftover day. It really helps to plan not only what meals you are going to cook but what type of meal is good to prepare on certain days.
I have a list of months and a few lines below each month. I can keep track of important things to remember that come up each year. So for example, in January it says, "renew vehicle tags" and August says, "Vision exam". Target sells envelope inserts for binders for $1 so I picked up a few. There is one in the front section of my binder to hold black "to do" and "list" notes so there is always scratch paper available.
Then I have a few sections:
-Meals - With more printables to keep track of menu planning and grocery lists. I have a Costco shopping list. And another envelope pocket to hold coupons.
-Bills - With a printable of what bills need paying. I don't plan to update this monthly but I like to have a quick visual of what bills I do have and when they are due. I used page protectors to insert bills as they come in the mail. Monday is my bill and phone call day. So when I am ready I just need to reach in and grab the pile! Luckily my pile is never that big! There is another envelope pocket to hold my check book, envelopes, stamps, address stickers, etc.
-Paperwork - I have more page protectors to hold on to paperwork in progress, things that I have taken care of but need following up on.
-Two different kid sections to hold important papers for them. My older daughter's school schedule for example and a start of the year letter from the teacher I may need to reference again. There is not much in the baby's section right now, just a pool schedule and an application to the Moms Club that I am thinking about joining.
-Volunteer- I volunteer for the PTA so there are a bunch of important papers that I may need to reference in this section
-Craft- I have so many craft ideas rolling around in my head that I never complete. I thought if I had a section dedicated to planning my crafts, I might have more success in completing them. Managing what little time I have and being organized will help me to maximize my free time.
More page protectors at the end to hold misc papers and business cards.  The back of the binder has tabbed folders- one to hold blank pages (calendar, meal planning) so they are ready when I need them. Another folder to hold paperwork to file. I am *really* bad at throwing papers that need filing into a pile and suddenly the pile is huge and it takes me an hour or more to file them. I am hoping that by keeping bills and other papers that I collect through the week in a page protector in this folder that I can easily take my small, easy to manage pile, and file them right away. One last tab to house important phone numbers and medical info. If, that is a big IF, we ever go out on a date, I can take out this paper for the babysitter.

The side of my fridge now houses a dry erase calendar. I have 3 different colored pens hanging from the side. Pink ink is kid stuff, green is me, and blue is husband stuff. I also keep my chore chart here. In the morning, I check what laundry and chores need doing that day. I guess eventually I will have it memorized but it may be tweeked. I have heavier chores on days I don't go anywhere and a few easy chores for the days I do go places. All about the balance! I clip upcoming notices for school or work here too. I can't wait to have a gorgeous more professional household organization station with hand-painted chalk calendar on the wall and just do it all with more style. I plan to do that when we refinish our kitchen. For now, this works!

Yard sale score

I went to a yard sale this weekend and got this sewing desk for only $5!

I can't wait to fix it up! What color should I paint it?

Felted Gnome Family

I love the look of felted creatures! I couldn't stop thinking about trying it so I headed to Joanne's and bought some wool roving, which is just loose wool before it's spun into yarn. There are better places to buy wool online with loads of beautiful colors, but I just wanted a few packs right away that I could experiment with. I watched some tutorials on YouTube (you can learn anything on YouTube!) and got started. It is really easy. All you do is stab stab stab the wool with a barbed needle on a foam block until you get the shape you want. You can stab pieces together if you want to attach them. Pardon my uneducated terminology, I am a newb with needle felting.You can also use the wool to punch designs into other things- like purses, hats, bags, anything really. Here is a pic of loose wool with the barbed needles and foam block.

 

I got home and here is what I came up with! I love gnomes so the idea of making a gnome family was an obvious choice for me.  

 

The gnome family is resting on a felt pad that I hand stitched some embroidery floss around the edge for some interest. Then I felted a little pond and some stepping stones onto the felt pad. I also felted a mushroom table and used brown felt to cut and shape into little coffee cups. This only took me an hour! I would love a huge stock pile of fun colors so I can start felting some more fun creatures. Care for a cuppa??

Re-writable Menu Board Tutorial

I saw a tutorial online to make a re-writable menu board and it inspired me to take the same idea but use it as a way to keep track of where the local Farmer's Markets were open on each day. Living in Seattle, we have them in different neighborhoods all throughout the week. I can never keep track and sometimes finding even 5 minutes to get online and look it up isn't worth the effort with a wiggly baby. So now I can keep my favorites listed right on this board and know in advance, maybe even plan my day the day before!

First, I found a frame I wasn't using. Since I wasn't mad about the color, I painted it! I started with green but changed it to maroon. I am sure there are better paint types out there, but I used what I had. For a $1 frame, it doesn't really matter.

I found some pretty scrapbook paper for the background, this was a woodland pack I had on hand. I used the glass from the frame as a template to cut to size.
I printed the days of the week with the header "Farmer's Market" or you could type "Weekly Menu" or even "Weekly Chores". You can find funky fonts here. They are free and super cute. Who doesn't like free! If you need help figuring out how to install them onto your computer, leave a comment. Whatever you need to keep you organized! I used funky edged scissors to cut the days of the week paper.

Now you just write in whatever you want on the outside glass with dry erase markers. I just have one neighborhood written in so far, it's the only one I can remember. And I am not even 100% sure... Good thing it's erasable ink! If you are using yours as a menu board, write in what dinners you are going to have each day. I have bigger ideas for a menu board that involve painting an entire wall in my kitchen with chalkboard paint, after we remodel it but I don't know if I can wait that long!

Seattle Art Musuem - Free day!

The first Thursday of every month the museums in Seattle have free admission. Last month we checked out the Burke Museum at the University of Washington campus. Annie wanted to see the dinosaur exhibit and we made a new friend while we were there. Today we went downtown and went through SAM. It has some fabulous exhibits and I highly recommend it. Annie's favorite installation was the exploding cars as well as some Northwest Native American art, since she studied it in school. On the way to SAM, the Cooking Channel was outside Westlake Center giving out free Molly Moon's Fro Yo from a Food Truck. I got Salted Carmel, so good..

FIY our favorite place to park anytime we go downtown is at Pacific Place Garage. It has the cheapest rates of anywhere I've found (so far). I can also get to and from the garage very easily now so will probably not be parking anywhere else if I can avoid it. Since I am downtown anyway, I like to walk around a bit and take it all in- so I would rather not park exactly where I am going anyway. I love seeing the city, the sound, the mountains- it is just a gorgeous site.