hair stuff organized

My daughter has been blessed with long, beautiful hair...

{Christmas 2010}

Most times it is a blessing, I should say. With that long hair comes many days when there are lots of tears (from both of us!) in the battle of wills to decide who gets to brush her hair. Often times we're scrambling to go somewhere and I just want to grab something to keep her hair out of her face, so I dig through the hair ties, bows, ribbons, headbands, etc. to only leave a mess that looks like this on the bathroom counter...


Here is what it looks like in the drawer every day...just a jumbled up mess that started out as "somewhat organized". (The hair bands were supposed to be in the green container and the ribbons, bows, and headbands in the purple container. Yeah. That system obviously failed.)

{BEFORE}

I decided I just couldn't handle it anymore, so I found the perfect solution!

This is originally intended to be a craft organizer, but the possibilities are endless with little containers such as these. I bought them in a 2-pack from Michaels when they were 40% off. They fit the small hair things just perfectly.


I took the head bands, bows, and ribbons and put them in another basket on a shelf that was actually empty.

And, now look at this drawer!

{AFTER}

This "tackle" took me all of 10 minutes to complete...now why hadn't I done this sooner? I will never know. Go find a 10-minute tackle and whip a drawer into shape. You'll be thankful that you did!

no use crying over dried noodles

I was in DESPERATE need of a food pantry tackle, so for this week's Tackle it Tuesday at 5 Minutes for Mom, I concentrated on the ugliness of our pantry. I decided I should probably clean it out before I hit the grocery store, so I did a little re-organizing and purging first!

BEFORE
{the two worst shelves}

AFTER
{but before grocery shopping}

AFTER-AFTER
{ahh...nothing like an ORGANIZED pantry all stocked up!}

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

BEFORE
{in all its glory...pre-grocery shopping trip!}

AFTER
{orderly and full of food = perfect for me!}

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

BEFORE
{my poor canned food shelf pre-grocery shopping}

AFTER

{gotta love canned food prices at Winco!}
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

During the tackle, there was a little spaghetti noodle mishap. My half-opened box of spaghetti noodles fell 3 shelves down to the ground. What a mess it was after I had already organized the lower half of the pantry!

I had to move all of my organized work just to get to the noodles...ugh!

Oh well, I had a couple of little cuties to help me and I paid each of them a quarter for them to put in their piggy banks. They ate that all up...guess it's time to start implementing chores and allowance!


Real exciting stuff here these days, but little by little I'm trying to get the house put back together to become more of a well-oiled machine after the holiday craziness. You have to start somewhere, I suppose! And for me it was the pantry! What about you? Is there a little nook or cranny you've been needing to clean out and organize?

Updated to add on 1-16-11:

After my pantry makeover, I discovered Toni at A Bowl Full of Lemons. She is hosting a 21 Day Organization Challenge. Day 7 was pantry organization.
My pantry is nowhere near hers...so inspiring! I'll most likely redo mine in the future. Yep. Never good enough.

A Rootin' Tootin' Far Out Birthday Party!

On Sunday, we celebrated Austin's third birthday TOY STORY style (his actual birthday was Sept. 28th). We had 17 adults and 24 children in our home! We are so blessed that 1) we have enough room for that many people now that we're in our new house and 2) it was decent weather, so people could be in the backyard to play!

There are lots of pictures, so I'll try to be brief in my words. Leave me a comment if you have a question on anything you see. And, if you want to see the picture larger, just click on it.

WELCOME TO THE PARTY!

This will be the third year I've re-used this banner...I've just changed the pictures each year. Each circle has a picture of Austin that represents each month of this past year.
Monkey Party banner here
Construction Party banner here

My original plan was to feed everyone dinner, but when I realized that EVERYONE on the gust list could make it, we did light snacks instead (that's a lot of people to feed!). The menu was mango-peach salsa (YUM!), guacamole, tortilla chips, fruit, snack mix, and cucumbers and carrots with dip.

And, of course...cupcakes!

I went a little easy on the decorations this year and focused more on the activities. Since there were going to be so many kids in attendance, I knew there had to plenty available to keep them all busy! I came up with the idea of having "stations" available (similar to what I did last year for Austin's construction party), but this time I gave each child/mom a list of all of these activities.


My creative juices just happened to be flowing the night before the party, so for each station I came up with a rhyme and made a sign to hang at each of the locations.
Cupcake time...Austin loves him some cupcakes!

Of course, he loves him some presents, too!
I decided that with so many kids around and you know how much kids love presents, that whoever brought him the gift he's opening, they get to sit right there next to him. Part of the joy for me was seeing the smiles in the faces of the present-giver. There is just something about watching someone open a present YOU gave to them...makes me smile for sure!

And did I already mention there were 24 kids there?!
So, therefore there were 24 goody bags to hand out. Well, technically only 19 since any child under 2 went home empty handed. Sorry Hannah, Levi, Claire, Bradley & Anna...I still love you! It just so happens that the majority of the goodies in the favor bags were found on clearance! Each bag probably cost me just about $1! The top left in the picture below were for the 15 bigger kids and the bottom left were for the 4 littler ones.

All in all, it was a smashin' success and a fabulous day to celebrate my boy! We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends who love and adore our children!!

Another birthday party TACKLED! I love planning these parties, but they are definitely a big job! Speaking of tackling, I should probably get going on cleaning up the leftover party mess. I got started last night, but somewhere along the way I lost my motivation.

{And, slowly, but surely I'm getting back into this blogging thing!}
MORE BIRTHDAY PARTY INSPIRATION HERE!

Want to see more Tackle it Tuesday?
Head on over to 5 Minute for Mom.

tackling this, that, and the other

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! Ours was spent doing project after project, but I loved having my hubby home for THREE DAYS! We got so much done, but still enjoyed spending time together. There still seems like so much left to be done, but we're on our way!!

The last couple of weekends, we have tackled...

*Decorating & painting the "formal dining room" (which won't be used as that for us right now.)

BEFORE

AFTER

Sorry, I can only give you a sneak peek at this time.
We're still in MAJOR transition, but it's painted!

*We proceeded to remove wallpaper cards off Austin's room...

...with a steamer...

...which left us with all of this on the wall!

...so then we tried this...

...and Goof Off
...and wallpaper stripper
...and peeling it off with our fingernails
...and using a straight blade

{insert helpful suggestion here!}

*We went to IKEA on Sunday and found the most awesomest (I know it's not a word, but it should be!) storage cabinet thingy for my very own craft room. Best part? It was in the "as is" section stating that it had scratches on it. Ummm...we couldn't find a single scratch anywhere. It was another 35% off its already reduced price because they are discontinuing it. It was meant. to. be.

So, now I can finally do something about all of this ugliness (hey, we "just moved in"...do I get a little sympathy?)...


Sorry, still only a sneak peek. It will take a lot of hard work and sweat to get this room up to my standards. But here is the bottom half of the unit we purchased. It has a hutch on top. It's actually meant to be a kitchen buffet, but it will work just perfectly for what I want it for.

To add to the tackle list from this weekend/past week:

-filled holes and touched up paint through the house (main living area color)
-hung picture frames (just a few!)
-started weeding the backyard, finished weeding the front yard, lawn mowed, grass seed filled in patches
-major rearrangement of furniture upstairs to make room for my new storage cabinet (we literally moved things from craft room to Mikayla's room to our closet to the play room - oh my!)
-finally organized our bedroom closet
-purchased 2 gallons of paint for Mikayla's room (next weekend, maybe?)
-garage sale pricing
-started organizing the garage (WOWZA! is all I can say!)
-laundry...too many loads to count

I bet there's even more I have forgotten, but all this to say...it was a very productive weekend!

Check out what others have tackled at 5 Minutes for Mom.

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And, on a business note...

If you love Stampin' Up! products, check out my most recent blog post at Stuck on Stampin'. They just released their retiring products in preparation for the new catalog coming out on July 1st. There are also a handful of accessories that are 25% or 50% off. Even if you live far, far away you can still order through my website at heidiboos.stampinup.net. Feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment with any questions.