Christmas Ornaments - A little piece of our family history

You might ask, "Why is there an underwear ornament on your Christmas tree?"  Or, one day, my kids might ask that question, or my grand kids might ask their dad why there is an underwear ornament hanging on their tree. (I'll tell you why at the end of this post...)

A few years ago when I was lying in a hospital bed being treated for blood clots in my lungs.  I realized, if I were to pass away, my kids wouldn't know the history behind the ornaments that were hanging up on our tree every year. (Obviously, that wasn't my main concern, but you have a lot of time to think when you are by yourself in a hospital room thinking you could have, or could die.) So, I decided that year I was going to record the history of every single ornament on our Christmas tree.  If it didn't mean anything to me, the ornament got tossed. It's taken a few years to finish every single ornament, but I can now say I have completed my task!

My kids receive a Christmas ornament from us every year.  You can see more about that tradition HERE and HERE.  We try to choose an ornament that kind of sums up their year, or if there was a big event in their life that year, I choose an ornament that goes along with that.  I started with recording the reason why I chose their ornament, but I needed to print them off and place them with the ornaments. 

Also, when I travel by myself, or we travel as a family we usually try to get a Christmas ornament as our souvenir. We began that on our honeymoon.  So, our Christmas tree is a bit of our family history. 

Another great reason to record a history, or a have a bag or box for each ornament, you know if there is one missing.  With a real tree, as the month goes on the branches start to sag and ornament slip off, or children move them, etc. At the end of putting up the tree if you have empty boxes or bags you know to keep looking for an ornament.  This happened to us this year.  We finally found it kind of towards the back of our tree.  It blended in, and had I not known it was missing, it would have been taken out to the street with the Christmas tree. 

Here are a few examples of how I have recorded the history of some of the ornaments:

1.  You can simply write the history on a piece of paper and slip it in a zip lock bag.  Some of them, I have taped on a zip lock bag. 

2. I prefer to type up most of the histories of each of my ornaments, but I was too lazy to get my laptop during some of this.

3. For ornaments that have boxes - I hot glued the history on the inside of the box lid, or packaged taped over the history on the outside of the box.

I feel so accomplished after having finished this yesterday! It only took a few years to fully complete, but we have a ton of ornaments.  I love that when I'm not around, my kids will know where the ornaments came from and know a bit of our family history. I have ornaments on my tree from John and I's childhood, our travels, ornaments my mom made, ornaments we were given as gifts, and ornaments from friends weddings.  I love that that is all recorded! 

That underwear ornament is Jonah's from the year he was potty trained.  The easiest kid to potty train by far, and he always just hung out in his underwear all year.  The Charleston ornament was from my first trip to Charleston with my sisters.  The paw print was Trevan's ornament this year from starting high school, it's his high school's mascot paw print. The Nutella ornament is also one I made for Everett because he was a Nutella monster.

Tupperware Cabinet Organizer DIY

Do you have one of those cabinets like I did with random storage containers where you could never find the right lid for the right container??  I solved my problem and made the OCD part of me very happy.

I couldn't find my before pictures, and the product label picture for the mesh organizer, so you just get the final pictures.

What I did:

I bought a small mesh organizer and cut the bottom off to fit the length of my cabinet.  Then I gathered it in width wise  to fit the cabinet door's width and safety pinned it to hold it in place.  That showed me where to place my sticky hooks (dollar store score!).  Then, any other person but me, should take the organizer and sew it in place with a sewing machine.  However, I'm an instant gratification person, so I loaded up the organizer and then left it pinned like that for almost a year, before recently sewing it by hand to keep it in place. 

Showing the gathered section pinned

Then I sewed it very sloppily by hand.  A nice machine stitch would have looked nicer.  Oh well, who cares. 

My nicely stacked cabinet, with another container to hold the larger lids.  

The small containers go on the top, then in the sections below I put circle lids in one section and square lids in the other section.  It makes it easier for my kids to pack their lunches and find the right containers! 

You know, I've had to instruct John and Trevan multiple times on how to place the lids and stack the containers (like stacking blocks!), but it is so much better than how it was before!  It's the little things!! 

Bed Skirt Fix

Was I the only one that had serious issues with my bed skirt?? I was finally tired of it being twisted or not straight. I had heard about doing push pins a long time ago, but just had never taken the time to do it... What was my problem?!

Last month, I cleaned and moved around my bedroom; cleaned the walls, blinds, deep cleaned bedding, etc. It was the perfect opportunity to try out the push pins. It worked great!!

You guys, I even put the king sized mattress back on the box springs by myself (they are HEAVY!) and the bed skirt didn't even budge a centimeter!  

I kick myself for waiting so long to fix it!

*Something not so funny - I washed my bed skirt and it shrunk...  The fabric was just cotton and polyester so it should have been fine even though it says dry clean only.  It probably shrunk because they didn't wash the fabric before sewing the bed skirt.  Lame.  So, I will cut along the edge of the white part of the bed skirt to be able to move the black-ish part closer to the edge of the bed skirt.  I think I was too tired to have figured that out the day I was putting the push pins in.  Always something to do around here!!

Recipe Wall

This was the wall in my kitchen on the night before Thanksgiving:

Here's a tip for you entertainers out there that you might find helpful:

When I'm having a party, or doing any entertaining where I'll be cooking a lot, I like to have all of my recipes where I can see them, instead of stacked in a pile. I guess I like to see what I'm up against. Then, when I finish making something, I'll take that recipe down off the wall.

It's a nice visual for me so I can see what is left for me to do. This also helps when you make your grocery list as well. I find that when I have piles of recipes in my hands I always forget to write down an ingredient.

This is also helpful if you have a hard time figuring out the timing of dishes when you entertain. You can organize your recipes with what needs to be done first, or with what you need to be preparing while another recipe is in the oven.

I also add a "TO DO" list to the wall too with other items I need to do in preparation for a party or gathering, just to make sure I don't forget something. Then it's all right in front of me, and I can take it down once everything is done!!

The Kid's Closet

I love a clean, organized closet. But, with kids, it's next to impossible to keep their closet clean and organized! We don't have a play room - all of their toys are kept in their room, except one small basket in the living room. So, we have to squeeze a lot into a little space. Behold, their closet; both function and fun:

When I moved Mallary into Trevan's room before Jonah was born, we had to make room for girly toys, and we were needing more space. We had all these big toys that didn't fit in the toy baskets in their room. So, my husband offered to build shelves. We had an old, cheap, entertainment center that we bought when we got married that was just occupying space in our garage. My husband just tore it up and made the boards work for the shelves. I also encouraged him to do a little dumpster diving in the construction waste that is around us, and he found the wood to make the brackets for the shelves. He finished them with paint we already had. I was ready to go to the store and just buy some shelves, and my husband saved us money! They are wonderful.

(An example of my OCD: What stands out to me in this picture is Trevan's shirt on the end, not hung up in the right place... But, that's okay. At least it's hung up...)

Organizing your recipes

One genetic trait I inherited from my mother was cutting out recipes to try from magazines, newspapers, etc. Okay, maybe it's not a genetic trait, but she passed it down from her mother too. I've had the same binder to collect recipes I've cut out for years, and finally had to get a new one, because the old one was broken.

This is how I organize my recipes:

I have one, basic, three ring binder that is full of recipes I want to try. Recipes I've cut out of magazines, or found on the internet, or that people have given me to try. (When my mom didn't have the energy to cook anymore, she started cutting out recipes to give me that she wanted to try but knew she wouldn't, or gave me recipes she thought I would like.)

(You can make a cuter cover than that, but I don't have the energy to do that when I printed this out...)

I use sheet protectors as my dividers, and a bonus to using those, is when you find a new recipe but don't feel like taking the time to add it to the binder, you can put it in the sheet protector on the back of the page of the divider. So, if I find a salad recipe I want to try, but there isn't a blank page to put it on, I tuck it in the sheet protector that holds the Salad divider page. Does that make sense?

I also use those sticky picture pages that have the peel back plastic cover. These are my favorite to use, and are the easiest. When I run out of these, I lightly glue the recipe to paper and slip it in a sheet protector.

Once I try a recipe, if it was bad, I throw it away, if it's good, it gets moved to my tried and true recipe binder, shown below. (which was given to me by my friend Becky to collect all of our yummy recipes)

The recipes in this binder are put in here a number of different ways. There are recipe pages, like large recipe cards. I also use the same sheet protectors and sticky picture pages as I do in the other binder, but in this binder I also use picture album pages to hold my recipe cards.

My husband looks at my Recipes To Try binder and asks, "Do you really think you're going to try all of these recipes?" Little does he know, that depending on the week, I could use up to three or four recipes out of that binder a week. This week it has only been two. But, the weeks not over...

I like having the recipes that I want to try organized and being able to flip through them like I would any cookbook. So, if you have recipes lying around, here's a simple way to keep them organized!

My friend got my tried and true binder from this Etsy store, though she doesn't have any binders in there right now; you can custom order them. See more samples of her work here.

Using your cook books

I love cookbooks! That's probably even an understatement. Let's just put it this way, I have no room for any more cookbooks - I don't really have room for the one's I have. I really love reading cookbooks. I'd choose a cookbook over a novel most any day. Before I had two kids, I used to watch TV in the evenings, and read cookbooks at the same time. (Now, I just sleep on the couch with the TV on...)

A few years back, I came across a problem; I remembered seeing a recipe for a certain something I wanted to try, but couldn't remember which cookbook it was in. So, I had to search through dozens of cookbooks to find the recipe. I then came up with a solution. I started reading cookbooks with a pen and paper on hand. If I found a recipe I wanted to try, I would write down the title of the recipe and what page it could be found on. That piece of paper, with a list of recipes I wanted to try from that cookbook, was then put in the front page of the cookbook. (Really, I should tape it inside the cover - putting that on my to-do list.) Problem solved! Now, if I'm looking for something to cook, I can just browse my written lists inside the cookbooks.

I've found it really helpful. Do you have a system you use with your cook books?

Tomorrow, I'll post how I organize my recipes.

I know, you can't wait...

picture found here

Organizing winter gear

I love organizing, and I think it can legitimately be included under the category of creating, because sometimes you have to get a little creative when trying to figure out where to put everything in your home.

I've had a hard time trying to find a place for all of our winter hats, scarves, gloves, and mittens. I used to keep my son's gear in his room, and my daughter's gear in her room, and my husband's stuff and mine in the coat closet in a basket. The problem was, whenever we were going out, I never felt like hiking up the stairs to go get my daughter's hat. Or, when my son got home, his gloves never made it back to his room, so we would shove them in our basket in the coat closet. I didn't like the system I had. I just wanted a convenient place to put everything, and not have to dig through a basket to get it.

I finally figured it out. We always enter our house through the garage. The garage leads to a small laundry room where our coat closet is. On the inside of our coat closet door, I hung a canvas shoe rack to organize all of our winter gear. Now, Trevan can put away his own gloves, and all of our winter hats, scarves, and gloves finally have a home.

Not really rocket science, but a perfect solution for my problem.