a thousand words: organized.

school days book

I've wanted to do this project since I discovered it back in august.

It seemed intimidating to me, mostly because I am not a scrapbooker or big crafter. Thankfully, MaryClaire agreed to tackle the bookmaking with me last week! Thanks MC. This blog {knitandpurlgrrl} had some great step by step instructions with photos. I am a visual person, so it really helped me out!

The finished product.

There are 14 envelopes in my book, for preschool through 12th grade. I now have a place for the bad (but completely necessary) school photo, report cards, a few select papers, and photos of special projects made throughout the years. I will have Berk fill in the blanks on the front of each envelope. I haven't made the girls' books yet, I wanted to see how I liked this system before committing.

how do you organize your kids school stuff?

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bows, bows everywhere

With two girls in the house the bows and clips abound! They were taking over the bathroom drawers and getting lost all over the house. Until I saw this:

martha's organizer

and this:

cool mom picks

I combined these two ideas and came up with this:

Aaron Bros is having a their one cent sale (which ends the 27th), so I purchased a frame there. I then purchased oversized paper (I think it was 18x18") & white grosgrain ribbon at michael's. I was lazy and just wrapped the glass like a present, and then laid the ribbon on top of that. It would be better (and probably safer) to wrap the paper and ribbon around foam core and just leave the glass out. But, I didn't have any foam core and was lazy! The whole project (including shopping) took me about an hour.

Now I have a new piece of "art" in the kids' bathroom:

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weekend happiness

We have finally come out of the fog of the stomach flu and surgery, so this past weekend was a productive & happy one.

There are a few (ok, many. too many to count) projects that I need to get done on the house.

First on the list this Saturday was my pantry. It was scary. Two very big, very deep cabinets that swallowed food never to be found again. Food was being wasted and spoiling all for lack of organization. I was inspired by a post on the creative organizing blog. Aby has some great tips, including the use of my favorite target bins. I have used them elsewhere in the house but never thought to try the pantry. pure genius! I should have taken a before picture... but, alas, I didn't think of it.

So here is the new and improved pantry... it makes me happy to look at. It's ok to laugh, I know I am a sucker for a good bin and my label maker!

While perusing the aisles at Target I finally found the perfect frame for project number two. My vision is to place 9 identical frames (in groups of three) in three different spots in my upstairs hall. Morgan often comments that we have nothing hung on our walls. Funny with all the pictures I take! I am slowly fixing this problem...

I love the big white mat board and the simple black frame. Perfect for rotating black and white family pictures through. Growing up on 62 Brewster Road my parents had a collage of family pictures in our upstairs hall. This is will be my version.

Here is a recent 5x7 that will take one of the nine spots. Only 8 more to decide on!

Lastly, Morgan and I spent an inordinate amount of time watching Season Five of 24. It was wonderful. We are a season behind and we like it that way! We can watch two, three or four episodes in a row if we please. No need to wait & see if Jack Bauer saves the day (again).