Bookcases finished

Well, almost finished! I kind of lost steam with putting out holiday decor, then traveling all over the place then coming home and taking down holiday decor all while being 8 months pregnant. Ha! But We are loving our finished bookcases in the Wii room and use this area so much more now!
Anyways- for now this is what the wii room is looking like:

We changed a few other things around too, most notably we got a new rug! I found a great deal on Rugs USA and we are loving the pattern and the cushy-ness! The old rug was so hard that I could barely put my knees on it, and since I plan to play with the baby in this room I thought something softer might be nice!

We also got a new chest of baskets for by the back door! Its narrower than what we had to fit the space better but still has lots of storage to hold hats, leash, purse, etc- things I need when running out the door that I don't want sitting out on a countertop all time!
Here's some up close and personal shots of the shelves:

Clearly there is more styling to come but for now I'm pleased enough! I'm sure one day soon it will start to irk me and I will come and mix it all up!
We have tons of closed storage along the bottom which has been amazing. We have board games and Wii games and DVDs in the cabinets on one side, large baby gear on the far side and we are using the center drawers for frequently used items. The top one is Sam's dedicated drawer! LOVE that all of his things (other than treats and leash that are used multiple times a day) have a spot to be stashed. And the bottom one I plan to use for baby toys used all the time!

And on top of everything else, our TV wires are now hidden which makes me very very happy :) Yeah for a pretty space! 

Jewelry organizer DIY

What do you do with your jewelry? The things you wear daily? I never really thought about it because I used to not wear a ton of jewelry. But I've been collecting more and more necklaces so I needed somewhere to put them! I have come across a few DIY jewelry organization tips on Pinterest and other blogs so I decided to give it a try for myself.

I just used a 16x20 canvas, some thick foam core, 1/2 a yard of burlap fabric from Hobby Lobby and big push pins.

I didn't even end up using the adhesive because I was worried it would be tacky through the fabric since the fabric has a pretty large weave. 

So I just cut the foam so it would fit inside the back of the frame and taped it in place

Then I just took my light duty staple gun and stapled the fabric around the edges, pulling taut as I went and being careful to make the corners smooth

until I got all the way around! Then I just turned it over and started pinning away! One of the reasons I chose to get the thicker foam board is so that my push pins wouldn't stick through the back. I just was worried about sticking the wall or even my hands if I ever move it! 

You can find the thicker foam board at Hobby Lobby and probably Michael's

TA DA!! 

While I have more jewelry I could display these are the earrings, necklaces and bracelets I wear the most so its nice to have them close at hand! If you wanted to hold even more just use a bigger canvas!! 

organizing DVDs

Since working on organizing the pantry I've kind of been on an organizing kick! I don't know about you but for some reason I have tons, seriously like over 150!!?! DVD's. Back in the day I would just buy them even movies I wasn't sure about or that I hadn't seen??? What is wrong with me??

Anyways- I've told you about how we finally got the DVD out of open shelving to a closed cabinet so we weren't looking at them all the time but it's been kind of bothering me that these DVDs that we use so infrequently are taking up so much prime space in the entry cabinet. So while I was lamenting this ultra-important issue to a friend at lunch she had the most genius idea: take the DVDs out of the case and store them in a CaseLogic case. .. .you know, the ones from the 90's you stored all your CD's in. . . yeah, you remember!

Anyways- sadly I still actually have a large one that I still had CD's in that were OLD to the tune of Ace of Base, Crash Test Dummies and Mariah Carey (old school, not current). Yeah. . . what can I say I have excellent taste in music. LOL- I've learned to embrace it! Anyways, I digress, I went through my CD's and plucked out the few that I still wanted to keep (which I might add are in my iTunes account as well) and chunked the rest. then I just went through and put all my DVDs into the case and now it fits in the TV console and I have a whole side of our entry cabinet to put more important things!

Totally forgot to take a before picture of this cabinet but you get the gist- the top looked just like the bottom- tons and tons of DVDs

And now- all closed up tight in the CaseLogic but still close at hand! 

I did decide to keep all of the cases in case I ever want to sell the DVDs at a garage sale. They are safely packed in a box and up in the attic! So excited for all of the extra storage space!

Check back soon for a few more organizing tips

Pantry update

So I've been fiddling with the pantry and I think I have it pretty well organized and labeled now- but its still not as pretty as I would like it to be. Most people say to take everything out and then add stuff back in but I was a little chicken to go that route since I wasn't positive I was going to be finished with this little project in one day and I really didn't want my whole pantry sitting all over my kitchen for days! So I worked one shelf at a time.
I also decided to add new shelf liner while I was at it and I'm already glad I took the time to do that! My main goal was just usefulness for how we use the kitchen. I wanted to try to keep our most used items in the middle/ top two shelves that are at the easiest reach then go out from there. The other super helpful thing was get some of my husbands grill tools out of the pantry. He would always forget they were in here but I didn't really want to leave them open to the elements under his grill. So we got a storage box from the Container Store that was just big enough to hold everything and it resides in the area under the grill sealed with a lid until we need them!

Before:

After:

It is hard to tell from this picture but I the paper towels stayed in the same location but instead of stacking them upright I've laid them on their side. It is ah-mazing how much more I can store there now! Such a small change that made a huge difference

 I put our most used items front and center! We love this tortilla soup- and a few others so those are easy access as are the storage bags. I use the tiered shelf for less used spices/ can goods

 All of my baking goodness- top shelf for general baking, lower shelf for more specialty things like cake flour, cookie cutters, sprinkles, etc!

 breakfast and drink stations. Getting our crystal light, tea and hot chocolate out of the boxes made a huge difference! I think I am going to get another clear container like that for my oatmeal packets as well!

In fixing up the pantry we rearranged some other areas of the kitchen cabinets, making things more accessible. I had a lot of the cooking spices in the cabinet by the stove but then the olive oil and more spices in the pantry- just little things that didn't really make useful sense. So while it may seem strange to dedicate cabinet space to some cooking things- I really love having them so handy since this counter is frequently where I prep dinners!

inside cabinet:

 cooking spices used most often went into the stacked spice rack which takes up so little space it's amazing! Then others off on the side so I'm not going between this cabinet and the pantry all the time while cooking! 

I do keep my recipe box in this cabinet as well but I'm also loving the cork board for all those random recipes I haven't put on to cards yet or that I'm using a lot for easy reference!

Now it's useful but it doesn't feel pretty to me yet?? How can I spruce it up? I'm not sure what I want to do. I really don't want to have to take everything out and paint the wall behind it and I don't want something permanent up there but I want to see if I can find some cool patterned contact paper or removable wall paper to pump this space up. While it looks a lot better than it did before it still feels a little blah. . .any suggestions??

Pantry

You know when you are browsing Pinterest and you see pantries like this:

Source: theinspiredroom.net via Susannah on Pinterest

Or This:

Source: blueprintbliss.blogspot.com via Susannah on Pinterest

And of course one like this:

Source: Uploaded by user via Susannah on Pinterest

What I'm working with:

Seems pretty pathetic!! I think we actually have a decent amount of space I'm just not using it very well. My goal is to try to figure out what all we use most often and find a better way to organize everything with the most used items at easy reach and with space for all of our paper products/ dog food! I would love to knock out the shelves (especially that rod going down the front) and start over but I don't really want to take on a huge project. . . so my goal is to try to figure all of this out while keeping all structure!

I'm putting this out here so I will actually work on it. . . .so please hold me to it! This is driving me crazy!

Photo books

How do you keep up with all your photographs?  A lot of mine actually end up on my blog which is great and allows people to see them but then what?? I never have them printed and I'm even worse about putting pictures into an album. A few years ago I heard about My Publisher, it's like any of the others but for some reason it has just become the one I like to work with most!

I finally got through all of my pre-married photos and got them into albums, then I had an album made with all of our wedding photos (which I totally still keep out, btw! Love looking at it- is that crazy??) PHEW! Just getting to that point was a lot of work. So I came up with this genius plan so I wouldn't have to go through all of that again! I would do a bound book for the whole year! So instead of uploading pictures and having them printed, I would go through the pics and create pages in a book on My Publisher as I went! So I put in Valentines and spring pics in the spring, and so on. You get it right- WOW amazing. Then at the end of the year all I had to do was add Christmas and then hit publish! SWEET. . . and it was

I had this baby bound and in my house by mid- January! Funny to see the house from when we just bought it- so much has changed! 

My brother's graduation and our anniversary trip to San Fran! 

The spine and back can also be printed on- I love that! 

But guess what. . . I haven't even begun on 2011. Can you say UGH! I know- its a lot of work but I am going to do it! I am determined- It is so nice to have pics from the whole year in one album that isn't enormous and can really be a coffee table book! Every time we have people over, they always comment on the book and look through- it's getting a little embarrassing that the most recent picture we have is from December 2010!!

This is project #1 on my list!! Hopefully it won't take me too many months to get though!