Party box

Hi all, Been a bit quiet round these parts lately. Ive been busy pottering around the house and hanging out with the family but today I thought I'd just share a quick project I did one night organizing our party supplies.

I was using this old nappy box to hold unfinished projects but thought with a bit of prettying up, it could be put to better use.

So a layer of wrapping paper later we had this:

I didn't bother with the inside since it was going to be hidden away in a cupboard anyhow.

And inside houses my larger disposable party items and yes, that is some Australia Day stuff in the bottom which I had no home for!

This box sits in the bottom of our dining unit along with some entertaining pieces.
(except the items up the top dont really belong but again, had no other home for)

On the shelf above you can see my other party supplies box

Just a cheapie box I picked up from the dollar shop which I thought to be very appropriate for what it stores!

Inside this one is balloons, candles, plastic tablecloths and leftover invites which I probably wont use but didn't want to throw away. The green bag holds balloon sticks.
I also added sparklers I found randomly stuck in a vase. The things we do when hiding items!

I don't really have that much but I do like to keep everything together so when it comes to planning those special events, I can just have a look and see what we already have.

Maybe this gives you an idea on how to corral your party items.

Office in a box

Like most people, I've had a neverending struggle on how to best organize pesky paperwork clutter.
I started off with multiple accordion files scattered throughout the house. One day I sat down and went through them all throwing out a whole pile of bills including phone bills from 2006!
I looked online for the papers you should keep for tax purposes and surprisingly 7 year old phone bills were not one of them.
I then grouped what paper I had left into piles and stored them in a bag under the bed! Yeah, I know. Random.
Bills and statements for the current year I kept out in the office area for easy access but I wanted to keep them altogether in an organised, functional and of course nice looking, not at all paper hoarding, way.
Thats when I came across this post from Mairdville Manor blog about an Office in a box. Who would have thought under this lid was a bunch of boring paperwork files!

The box is split into 3 functions.

I have a file box with suspension files for historical papers including mortgage, tax returns, contracts etc.

 I used an old filer to gather all our warranties and manuals. Its not pretty but it does the job and its then hidden away.

I split them into general catagories including Kitchen, Electrical and Kids.

Then there's the blue file where I store the most recent documents for the year. Once the year is over, I will go through and throw away bills I wont need for tax purposes etc and then move the rest into the bigger file box.

And they all pack away nicely in the box and stored in our office area.

         
I also have this filing system out on the shelf for our current paperwork. Bills to pay, and then file, junk mail to look at etc.

In the white box I keep our receipts. I then go through this every now and then, file what I need to keep for warranties etc and throw away the rest.

So I guess I have a bit of a processing line happening with this filing business. If you make it to the big file box, you're one of the lucky ones!!

I hope this gives you an idea of another way you can control your paperwork! Its Pretty but functional!


Linking up with I Heart Organizing
                                    

Our play area

 

 This is a project Ive been working on for awhile. No project in this house gets done quickly. I put in a lot of thought, theres some trial and error, pinteresting, and lots of lots of thinking.

We dont have a big house but I like the idea of a play area for Little Man, somewhere in the living area so he's with us. Inevitably most of the toys he's playing with end up in our living area but thats fine, then at the end of the day they're packed away here.

After much contemplation, I decided the Expedit would be the best major piece of storage furniture.

This way we can fit books, stand alone toys as well as his smaller toys like blocks, cars etc.

The top shelf is currently being used for some of my craft stuff as well as a box of his craft bits and pieces.

Because Im looking at budget options, I havent gone too matchy matchy and tried to use stuff from around the house.

I did purchase from Ikea the purple Skubb boxes on sale, the white Kassett boxes and the 2 green Drona cubes which were also on sale. (I just noticed however the Green doesnt seem to be available at the Adelaide branch anymore) All of these are quite size deceiving and managed to fit most of his toys and craft goods really easily.

The very top of the unit I have a couple of frames I found which I need to fill, some pencils, glue and pipe cleaners, in the Bee caddy is some extra playdough and paints and the blue box has lots of random computer items which I need to find a home for.

I was lucky enough to win a Scotch adhesive pack from Bianca over at  A Little Delightful. I pulled these out yesterday to hang some canvas prints in a spare corner of the room.

Underneath these Im going to add some Bekvam spice racks to hold some of his books. Im sure we've all seen this ikea hack idea.

About an hour after taking these shots, the Play canvas fell down. Twice. Seems those adhesives arent strong enough to hold it. So for now its off the wall.

Sorry for the crappy photo (still amateur in the photography front too!) but this is his little table set up where he can draw and play with playdough etc. It is a little on the small side so im looking at purchasing another Lack table and move it to the middle of the room. The train set on the rug is going to move after his birthday since we bought him one of those train tables (which im thinking will move next to the window).

I also need a bigger rug and then finish off the office space on the other side of the room.

Always lots to do which keeps me busy, although frustrated cos I want to do it all at once!

Bits n bobs clutter

I have this drawer in my buffet that Ive been meaning to clear out for awhile. It has all my picture hanging and some felt pads stuffed in there.

Enter these couple of storage items I purchased cheaply on the weekend. Originally they were going to be used for some crafty items but I thought how useful they would be to help clear out this drawer.

Its one of those quick jobs you wonder why it took so long to get to it!

This compartment container holds all the picture hanging items, although whilst I was sorting them out I wondered if I would ever use them anyway now theres such a thing as command strips! Theres also some cup hooks I bought for another project. Im sure these items will come in handy one day!

The drawers house all the 3M stuff in the top drawer

and the felt pads in the bottom.

All done. And now Im left with an empty drawer to fill!

Game storage

This project came about as a result of another project I'm working on for organising my paper clutter.

I needed the wicker box that these games were originally housed in, so I was on the hunt for replacement storage.

And I found it in the form of another wicket box found at Kmart.

We dont have many board games so this ended up being the perfect fit. It also houses the video game paraphernalia that you end up with when the man of the house loves his Playstation and Wii! 

ooh i just noticed the lid of the poker set popped off

The actual game discs are kept in another box in the TV unit.

I love that its functional but also nice to look at it. A key when I'm buying storage is that I like it to have multiple uses. This, for instance, could also house extra blankets, become a coffee table or a toy box. 

Now that parts done, I can move onto the next one. 'Office in a box' coming soon.

Culinary weekend

Culinary actually may be a bit farfetched to describe my weekend but it sure did involve a lot of cooking and baking in prepartion for the week ahead.

Most weekends you'll find me in the kitchen baking snacks and meals either for the freezer or in preparation for the week ahead.

Lately ive been using the weekend to get a bit of a head start on meals for during the week. Husby has been working at least 2 nights a week so having dinner already prepared or at least some of the prep work done beforehand, makes those nights a little less stressful especially when Little Man has had less than the desired amount of sleep in child care.

When writing up our meal plan for the fortnight, i take those nights into consideration and try and plan meals that can either be frozen or are just quick and easy to prepare on the night.

This week I included a Thai pumpkin soup and a slow cooked chilli beef. Both of which are easy to prepare and can be frozen. 

I also whipped up some snacky things, mainly for Little Man but can be enjoyed by all of us - bacon,cheese and mushroom pinwheels and sultana and oat cookies.

I had a little helper for those.He mostly just liked eating the raw mix!

Last night I finished off making us pizzas. I usually buy the base which is bad but I haven't had much luck making it from scratch!
They were delicious. Pizzas are good for using up those leftover items in the fridge. We had some leftover cooked chicken, prosciutto and bacon. Bang that on with some 'pizza loving veges' and you have a sunday night pizza sesh!

Oh and cant forget the ice cream I made for dessert. Simple Vanilla this time.

The only negative that comes with cooking so much in one day...is all the DISHES! For the sake of keeping it real, here was a quick pic after I'd finished most of them. Nope, no dishwasher here! 

So now that some of the hard work is taken out, I can relax a couple of nights this week, even on the dishes!!

Busy day

As some of you may have read yesterday, I had a really productive day. I had the pleasure of an annual leave day (which incidently coincided with the Adelaide Cup long weekend, so woohoo, 4 day weekend for me!!). Ace was also in child care so i took advantage of a very rare day to myself.
Unfortunately it was a sticky 35C so not the best day for getting down and dirty with it (as some might say!) but I ploughed through since i had no choice.

I didnt get everything done i wanted to but some of the more important bits like doing a good ol' deep vacuum clean in and around the furniture. It really was quite disgusting and I had to empty the vacuum out a few more times than Id care to admit!

I also wiped down all of the blinds and skirting boards.

Now I wasn't a good blogger in that I didn't take photos of shame for you all to see but just imagine furniture that hardly or has never been moved since you moved in 4 years ago! Yeah, that!

Anyway I also did some baking and cooking in which I was more than happy to snap away....

Vanilla icecream in my icecream maker

Cheesy spring onion fritters

and also baked some brownies. I used this recipe which i found on pinterest. It was dead easy and turned out to be delicious. I sat down that evening with a coffee and smothered them in cream. Yum!

I also attached the spice rack i bought a few weeks ago but then never got round to pulling the drill out to attach. 

It was to help clear up this disaster corner of my pantry...

So today was the day but now that its up, I'm not so sure about it. 

The 'grill' design doesn't hold the little bottles that well so i might have to add a cardboard base to make it more stable. It also didn't hold everything I had, so i'll either buy another or maybe one of those Ikea ones.

Time went so quickly and before I knew it, it was pick up time.

I still have some more days up my sleeve to get stuck into some other projects if i feel like it however this weather is insisting on sticking around and it really isn't the most motivating!

Holiday to do list

I have 10 days annual leave coming up and Im going to use those days off to their full potential.

Nope, not for relaxation (well for the most part), I have sooo many things I want to do round these parts and weekends dont stretch far enough, especially when I want to spend as much time with my family as I can.

So here is a list of the things I want to achieve in these 10 days. Master A will be in CC for 3 of those days which is where Im going to achieve most things. As much as I love him dearly, sometimes you just need a full day where you can run around like a mad woman without worrying about little people.

The big plan is to set up a playroom and office area which I briefly spoke about here. It all starts with an Ikea trip! I'm still tossing up about the layout and what furniture would best suit the space and my needs but I have a general idea.

There's plenty of organising to do as well including:

• Finishing off the pantry
• Linen cupboard
• Both our closet and Master A's

I want to set up a long overdue potted herb garden which will eventually lead into a full grown veggie patch once the shed has been installed. I also want to plant some more potted colour and flowering shrubs. 

If time permits, I want to get some bulk cooking done for the freezer. There's been a few nights lately where I really cannot face cooking something or we've gotton home too late, so the meals I already have prepared are a lifesaver. If I can whip up some extras, that's a bonus!

There's also a bit of shopping to be done just for bits and pieces that sometimes on weekends I just run out of time. 

Oh and of course, I foresee a lot of playing, cuddling, reading, creating, walking to parks and generally spending time with Master A and the Husby to come. That, of course, is the most important! 

Lets hope these holidays are a much needed break where I can recharge and reorganise before I have to inevitably go back to the hundreds of emails waiting for me!

cleaning out the pantry

In an effort to save money where possible....AND be more organised this year, in last weeks meal plan I tried to use up some of the non perishable items I've had stocked for aaages in the pantry.

This is what I was working with:

• 2x canned apples
• 1x can kidney beans
• 1x cannellini beans
• passata
• aborio rice
• marshmallows
• multiple dried fruits
• hazelnuts
• 1x can water chestnut
• tortilla
• scotch finger biscuits
• packet egg noodles

There are other cans but it was a good starting point. Some of these items like the fruit, nuts and marshmallows, were leftover from xmas and were taking up room in an already small pantry. However the canned produce was the stuff I really wanted to use.
My new motto is to buy as I need and not buy to replenish. Our tastes and recipies are changing so I dont need to keep the same stock I used too. Plus, because I meal plan, there really isnt any need to keep stuff 'just in case'. I already know what I need when I write my list for the fortnight.

Anyway...moving on...so to use these goods I made the following:

Apple crumble - scotch finger biscuits and the 2x canned apples
Thai Chicken Curry Risotto - aborio
Jamie Oliver Veggie Chilli - tortilla, beans, passata
Chicken satay - water chestnuts
Donna Hays muesli slice - mixed dried fruit
Rocky road - marshmallows and nuts
Bacon and mushroom noodle cake - egg noodles

It felt good to use up as much as I could in an effort to also save money. I found my shopping list was a lot smaller this time filled mostly with fresh produce.

Ill do it again this fortnight to see what else I can knock out of there too!

Thought I'd leave you with a before and after of this shelf...eeek!

BEFORE shot

AFTER SHOT

I bought those stands from Kmart to help with utilizing the vertical space more. Just need some spice racks for the door to clear out that clutter to the right.
Definitely a work in progress!

If you have any other tips, I'd love to hear from you!