Posted at 09:30 AM in home tips, mostly normal, survival | Permalink | Comments (0)
No-Cost Kid Entertainment
Kids love novelty. Today I wanted to put a spin on the "here, let's color on some plain white paper" routine. So with a little tape, we have a no-cost art easel. Because vertical is so much more artsy, apparently. It was enough of a change to capture the kids' interest for a while.
I think this set-up would work fine with markers and washable paint, too. Glass is pretty forgiving. Okay. I'm off to make sure they haven't gotten adventurous and starting coloring the walls...
Posted at 09:38 AM in home tips, survival, toys and games | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Girls' Closet
So I'll admit, I'm a little (a lot) obsessed with things like organizing, and storage, and containers, and labels, and pens, and stuff like that. When I saw the title for the tv series "Storage Wars," I thought it was going to involve some intrepid organizers with a room and clean up, a trip to Ikea, and a lot of sorting and storing. I was uber pumped. Turns out, it's about people bidding on unclaimed storage units and then digging through the junk and viscera to (sometimes) find good stuff. Not as cool as I thought.
Anyways, I'm done a lot of stuff with the girls' closet in their shared room. In our old house, Shire didn't have a closet (instead, mom claimed it and we made it open into the other bedroom). I used to keep the girls' clothes in the room but I found it was impossible for me to ever put their clothes away (since the time that I have to do laundry is the time when one or both of them is sleeping, hence no messing around in their room). So I found a dresser at Goodwill (for 10 dollars) and put the girls' clothes in our room (we had extra space since we don't actually need a dresser for our clothes).
The storage unit on the floor came first as a kind of "toy library" idea I had. I didn't want the girls' room to seem to cluttered or overrun with stuff. I thought this would make it hard for the girls to take naps or just relax and enjoy their space. But we don't have a dedicate play/family room right now, so I know the toys would have to be kept in here. Using bins and shelves from Target, I made this toy system. The bins were not labeled to begin with, so I used pretty notecards and labels to mark what goes where. I realized that it would be easier for Shire to pick out (and put away) her toys if she could easily identify which was which, so I added a little prop to the handle of each box.
The totes on top of the high shelf are just standard plastic totes which I painted with some extra wall paint (note: I don't recommend this method if you're obsessed with a perfect finish. These are pretty haphazard, but it works for me...I guess..) All of the girls clothes that they aren't wearing right now are stored in these. Then I added a label with some pretty scrapbook paper and the same tags. This way, it looks pretty(ish) when the doors are open.
And there you have it. From an empty space to a cute and function toy library and kid storage center.
Posted at 09:54 AM in home tips, toys and games | Permalink | Comments (1)
Another Snowy Update
Here's another set of quick tips for anyone thinking about making the move into a "big kid bed." I've figured these out over the past few months of trial and error with Shire.
I also wanted to show you the shelf Stewart built last weekend for Shire's kitchen. She has a lot of food and accessories for cooking (and I might have bought Shire a couple of new surprises too...) so Shire needed some more counter space in her kitchen. We had this scrap wood from a built-in that was in the house when we moved in.
Now Shy has more space to cook! And it's versatile enough to serve as a mini bookshelf or bedside table in the future. Who knows, we might even put a finish on it someday.
Posted at 11:00 AM in home tips, toys and games | Permalink | Comments (1)
Home Tips, round 1
I'm starting to collect and categorize my cleaning routines/home tips using pinterest, but I also thought I'd share them here. Up first is the weekly cleaning routine that I've worked out for myself. It's about 15 to 30 minutes of "do it daily" tasks + 10 to 30 minutes of "once a week" jobs. So on a good day, I clean about a half an hour total (though realistically, sometimes it's closer to an hour when you add it all up). But my house is always in really good shape because of it, so I think it's worth it.
If you would like to share this, please credit this site. Thank you.
Posted at 09:14 AM in home tips, mostly normal, survival | Permalink | Comments (0)