Create a Scrapbooking Tool Caddy

This is my go-to caddy with all of my handy tools that I use for scrapbooking. Recognize what it is? It's a utensil basket that I got for less than $5 at Dollar General. :) It's PERFECT for holding my favorite tools. The space intended for napkins is the perfect fit for my Scotch tape gun and the side sections intended for silverware are perfect for scissors, glue sticks, rub-on tools, a crop-o-dile, ect. That's a few bucks well spent!

DIY Pen Holder

My craft corner is done in animal print, so I wanted my pen holder to match. I took an empty soup can, washed it out and cut animal print scrapbooking paper to fit around it. I taped it on, used hot glue to glue some coordinating ribbon on, and wa-lah! :) Easy and effective.

Creating a Scrapbooking Inspiration Binder

Although I am a very creative and expressive person, I do have moments when I sit down to scrapbook and I think to myself "Now what?" I sit there staring down at various colored pages and don't even know where to start. That's why I created my inspirational binder. When I have "creativity block", I grab it and thumb through it to muster up some inspiration. I made this binder from the giant stack of scrapbooking magazines I had. I went through them, tore out all of my favorite pages and then threw the magazines themselves away. I took the pages that I kept, slid them into page protectors and put them into a binder. This comes in handy not just for inspiration, but also ideas on different scrapbooking techniques, tips and page layouts. You can learn a lot by reading a few scrapbooking magazines. :)

Scrapbooking Organization: Die Cuts and Punches

I've been scrapbooking for several years now, so I've accumulated a lot of random die cuts over the years. To organize them, I separated them by category the best that I could. I separated them by tags, embellishments and sayings.

This organizer contains projects (mini albums that I'm working on), shape die cuts and my punches.

I use stickers a lot more often then I use die cuts, but when I need them, they're right where they belong. :)

Organizing Your Scrapbooking Stickers

 I have A LOT of scrapbooking stickers, so keeping them all stored in one container would be extremely frustrating for me. To make it easy, I broke them down to 6 categories: Love, Travel, Baby, Seasons, Words and Misc.

When I'm working on a scrapbook, this method makes it so easy to grab the appropriate stickers for that particular project.

I bought these tubs at Dollar General for a dollar each, so it's cost efficient as well. Happy Scrapping!

Scrapbooking Paper Organization

Organizing my scrapbooking paper is super easy with this lovely organizer I got from Hobby Lobby. I organize my paper by pattern (Floral, Polka Dot, Stripes, Animal Print, ect.) and then by color. It makes it really easy to find the paper I want and it also keeps my paper from getting bent or damaged. It's the perfect system for any scrapbooking diva. :)

Organizing Your Paper Scraps

I'm an avid scrapbooker, so I have lots of scraps of various size scrapbooking paper. I originally kept them in an envelope, but that got frustrating when I came around to using them, because I had to dig around for the color or pattern I was looking for. Now finding scrap paper is really easy with these cubbies.

 

The left column are full sheets of 8x8 paper and to the right are my scraps. I organize my scraps by color. Shelf 1: Organe, 2: Pink & Red, 3: Purple, 4: Blue, 5: Green and the bottom shelf is neutral. I try to set aside a day every couple of months to sort through each color and throw out the scraps that I most likely won't use, just to keep the chaos under control.

If you're a scrapbookin' fool like me, I hope this helps keep your scraps under control. It works extremely well for me! :)

Laundry Organization

When it comes to doing laundry for your family, it can get a little chaotic, especially if you're doing laundry for a big family. I'm lucky enough to only have 3 people to wash clothes for, but it can still be a bit overwhelming at times. To help keep things moving smoothly, I have a method I use. In our bedroom, my husband and I each have plastic white laundry baskets that we use for our dirty clothes. For clean clothes, I use a collapsible blue basket that I store folded up beside the washer. I know when something is in the blue basket, it's clean and if it's in the white one, it's dirty.

Laundry Organization: Detergent Container

 

I found this glass container at a thrift store for $2. Obviously you can keep your detergent in the box that it comes in,  but I found it more functional (and way more appealing) to keep it in this cute little container with a scoop. Just an easy way to make the inside of your laundry cabinets more pleasing to the eye. :)

Laundry Room Organization: Check Your Pockets Bowls

My husband is notorious for having change, screws, guitar pics and who knows what else, lurking in his pockets. He was the inspiration for these little babies. I bought 3 votive candle holders from Dollar General, painted them white, glued a fabric flower on and topped it with a sticker that has our initials on them. Now when I'm sorting through pockets to do the laundry, if there's trinkets, I just toss them into the appropriate bowl.

Bathroom Organization: DIY Cotton Ball Holder

I made this cotton ball and Q-tip holder out of a mason jar and a small candle holder. I already had the mason jar and I bought the candle holder for .50 at a thrift store. Fifty cents well spent! It sits nicely on our counter in the bathroom and adds a nice touch. :)

Laundry Room Organization: Pocket Change Bank

Find a lot of loose change when you're doing laundry? I sure do! We always have change lurking in someone's pant pockets. That's why we have our piggy bank in our laundry supply cabinet above our washer. My mother-in-law made this bank for my husband and I as our "wedding fund" bank back when we were engaged, so it's very special to us. I wanted to keep it, but wasn't sure where to put it, so it ended up here. :) It's the perfect place for all that extra change that I find when I'm doing laundry.

Kitchen Cabinet Tour

Today I am letting it all hang out. Now, you should know by now that I get a natural high off of organizing, so it's no surprise that I have people who want me to organize their house for them. (And I LOVE doing it!) The most common place I get asked to organize is the kitchen, so today I'm taking you on a tour of my kitchen cabinets. It's not a glamorous tour, but maybe it'll give some sort of inspiration to a desperate soul.

Organizing Bowls -

I stack our bowls and dishes accordingly and I usually stick the lids either on top on or below the stack. Our measuring cups I store on the cabinet door with some sticky pegs I got from Dollar General for a buck.

Organizing Cups -

Our cup cabinet has 3 shelves, so I split them up by category. The top shelf is home to our water bottles and travel cups, shelf two holds our coffee mugs and the bottom shelf houses our regular drinking glasses.

Organizing Baby Bottles, ect. -

Baby bottles, dishes, bibs and all the accessories in between can be overwhelming to organize. I started by sticking 2 sticky pegs onto our cabinet door and making that my storage place for Stella's bibs.

For my shower I got a bottle "tree" that hangs baby bottles to dry. Because our cabinet is so huge, it actually fits quite nicely in here, so I hang the bottles on there not only to dry, but as a place of storage as well. See that pink hello kitty to the right of the bottle tree on the bottom shelf? That's a container where we store all of the nipples, caps and bottle accessories.

On the top shelf I store all of her bowls and food. This entire cabinet is all Stella's! :)

Cookbook Organization -

This is where I keep my recipes for all the glorious meals I love to make. I have my fabulous recipe binder that holds all of my magazine recipes in one handy place, along with the Cookie Bible (a must have if you're a gal with a sweet tooth!) and other various cook books. On the top shelf you'll see my recipe box along with a stack of blank recipe cards, just waiting for me to write yummy things on them. :)

Storing Pots and Pans -

So, this isn't a very beautiful picture, but I find our Lazy Susan quite handy to store our pots and pans on.

Junk Drawer Organization -

Everyone has one - a junk drawer! The catch-all of the kitchen. This is ours. I bought a set of 3 black storage baskets at Dollar General for a dollar and 2 of them I used in here for our office supplies. Basket number one holds our pens, pencils and scissors. Basket number two holds our batteries, white out, push pins and mini stapler. We keep our post-it notes just to the left of the baskets.

We also keeps our oven mitts, tea and Casey Pizza box tabs in here. (When you collect 10, you get a free large pizza, so I suffer through the clutter for free food. haha)

Organizing Bags/Foil -

This handy little drawer is where we keep our trash bags, sandwich bags, tin foil and plastic wrap. Pretty self explanatory. ;)

Organizing Your Silverware -

There's not much to our silverware drawer. I keep straws to various cups just to the right of our silverware holder. Above our utensils, I keep Stella's silverware and the black basket above holds our napkin rings.

That concludes the tore of my kitchen cabinets. I hope it wasn't too scary for ya. haha.

Free Printable Tags

Have your days been merry and bright? Here's a little extra something to help with all of that gift wrapping. Customized gift tags. Like them? Click here to print!

Free Christmas Printable!

We only have 12 more days until Christmas, so to get you into the Christmas spirit, I'm giving away a fun FREE printable!

In my house, we are huge Christmas movie fans. We watch a Christmas movie pretty much every night in December in anticipation for the big day. If you are anything like us, you're going to love today's printable! "Christmas Movie Bingo" is a fun game for the whole family. Here's how it works - you're going to print off pages like this one:

There are 4 different cards, each of them different, with 9 Christmas themed items/characters. To play all you have to do is mark your card off when you see one of your items shown in the movie.  Most of these items are featured in the majority of Christmas movies, so this game will work with ANY Christmas movie you decide to watch. You can play 3 in a row wins or if you're up for the challenge, you can see which family member can get their whole card marked out first. Make it fun by adding your own rules!

Get your free Christmas Movie Bingo Cards here -
Card 1
Card 2
Card 3
Card 4

Creating a Pantry Clip Board

Our closest superstore is 30 minutes away from our small town, so I don't like forgetting things to put on the grocery list. In our pantry we have this hanging clip board to write down things that we need as we run out of them.

I bought a clear clip board from Dollar General and used scrapbooking paper to make it cute. I used scrapbooking stickers to write "We need" at the top, and attached a dry erase marker so we can write the things we need and erase them after our trip to the grocery store.

Creating our clip board was easy and super useful! I hope you find it useful too! :)

Creating a Recipe Binder

I love to cook, so when I first got married I subscribed to all kinds of cooking magazines. When they arrived in the mail, I'd drool over the pictures and dream of a day when I'd cook these fabulous recipes. Guess what really happened? They sat in my kitchen cabinets next to my recipe box collecting dust until I finally decided to do something about it. I went through all of my magazines, tearing out the recipes I KNEW I wanted to make in the future. Recipes that seemed too complicated or that I didn't care for, I threw away. So what did I do with all of these loose recipes ripped from their magazine? I created my fabulous recipe binder!

To create my recipe binder I bought a cute binder, some clear sheet protectors and dividers. (I also used some foam letter stickers to write "recipes" on the side)

The categories in my binder are the following: Main dish, Side dish, Dessert, For kids and Holidays. Obviously you can change any of these categories to suite your own recipes.

I put my recipes in protective sheets and placed them in their categories.

Now I still have those delicious recipes, but I don't have all the clutter of keeping a dozen magazines and they're much easier to keep track of this way!

Organizing Your Recipe Box

I cook recipes from my recipe box on a weekly basis, so I have lots of recipes in the "main dish" section. To help make it easier to find a specific dish, I made tabs using these little babies -

I alphabetized my Main Dishes by sticking one of these on a blank card and writing letters on each tab. (Pictured above) Easy and effective!

Homemade Baby Food

I am a lover of all things organic, so when it came to feeding my daughter solids, I just couldn't bring myself to feeding her store bought baby food. I realize you can get pre-made organic baby food, but I found that it's much cheaper to make your own. This way I know exactly what is being put into my baby's body. Making your own baby food sounds intimidating, but is actually quite easy. Once you get the hang of it, you'll be amazed at the endless variety of foods you can create. Here are a few examples...

 Homemade Applesauce 

- 2 Red Delicious apples

- ½ cup water

- Cinnamon (optional)

Wash, peel, core and dice apples. In med saucepan bring water and apples to a boil. Cover and let cook 10 – 15 minutes, or until apples are tender. Remove from heat and add Cinnamon. Use immersion blender and puree until smooth. Let cool before serving.

Broccoli and apple

 

- 1 organic Apple

- Desired amount of organic broccoli (I like to use more broccoli than apple, just to ensure that my baby gets a good amount of veggies, but depending on how your child eats you can use as little or as much broccoli as you desire.)

Wash Broccoli and apple. Peel, chop and steam the apple. (or you can boil the apple for about 7 minutes) Steam the broccoli, and then blend with apple.

Broccoli and Carrots

- 1 cup fresh organic broccoli, chopped 

- 1 cup fresh organic carrots, chopped

 

Clean broccoli and carrot. Chop one cup of each and steam for 8-10 minutes. Blend to desired consistency and serve.

Banana Avocado

- 1 1/2 bananas

- 1 avocado

Peel and chop banana and avocado. Blend in blender, adding breast milk or water until desired consistency.

Pumpkin and banana 

- 1 can of organic pumpkin 

- 1 to 2 banana(s) 

Puree them together, adding water or breast milk until you reach the desire consistency. 

Spinach, peas and pears 

- 2 organic Pears

- 1 1/2 cups peas

- 1/2 cup organic spinach (defrosted or steamed)

Wash, chop and peel the pears. Steam the peas and the pears together, then blend with spinach.

Sweet potato

There are three different ways to prepare the sweet potato. You can boil, steam or cook it in the oven. If you prefer to cook it, here's how you do it -

preheat oven to 375. Wash sweet potatoes well, then using a fork, poke with holes. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 1 hour, flipping once halfway. Scoop the flesh out and blend in blender.

 *Here's a tip! If you don't have a steamer, there's an easy solution to steaming your fruits and veggies. Simply peel them (if needed), chop into chunks and add about 1 inch of water to a small separate bowl or microwave-safe container. Microwave your veggies along with the water, for 2 minutes. Viola! Steamed and ready to puree!

(For a smoother texture, add water or breast milk to any of the following recipes.)

Ideas -


Foods to pair with Bananas –
 

avocado
sweet potato
butternut squash
melon
pumpkin
pear

Foods to pair with Sweet Potato – 

 butternut squash

carrots

bananas

Foods to pair with Cantaloupe –

Peach
Banana
Avocado
Raspberry

Sizling Beef Kabobs

Ingredients -

1/3 cup Canola oil
1/4 cup Soy sauce
2 Tbsp Red wine vinegar
2 tsp Garlic powder
2 lbs Beef top sirloin steak, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 Medium yellow summer squash, sliced
1 Large onion, cut into chunks
1 Large green pepper, cut into chunks

Instructions -

In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the oil, soy sauce, vinegar and garlic powder. Add beef. Seal the bag and turn to coat; refrigerate for at least an hour.

Drain and discard the marinade. On eight metal or soaked wooden skewers, alternately thread the beef and veggies. Grill covered, over medium-hot heat or broil 4-6 inches from the heat for 8-10 minutes, turning occasionally.

Creating a "Coat Station"

Creating an "coat station" for us was pretty simple, because we live in a tiny apartment and don't really have room for anything complex. But, if you're like us and you want a place to hang your hat (literally), then here's a simple solution. 

This is our hanging coat hanger. I keep my purse and umbrellas here as well. It's not as nice as having an actual entry way, but it works!