Deep Clean and Organize the Refrigerator in 30 mins!

After dealing with my youngest daughter, husband, AND myself being sick the entire duration of my spring break, I was forced to get a weeks worth of cleaning done in two days. With that being said, cleaning/organizing my fridge was on the top of my to do list. Not only did I want to give it a deep clean, but I wanted to ensure it NEVER got as bad as it was again. Here is how I cleaned and organized my fridge in about 30 minutes!

What you will need:

• 5-7 Mainstay Refrigerator Baskets from  (depending on the size of your fridge)
• Glad Press and Seal Wrap
• Ammonia (yup I went old school)
• Water
• Sponge/Dishcloth
• Spray Bottle
• Bathtub

1. Fill your bathtub up with warm water, a cup of ammonia, and a few squirts of dish detergent. To save time go ahead and move to step 2, but make sure you check on your filling tub periodically.
2. Okay now let's empty the fridge. I sat all my items on my kitchen table during this step. 
3. Take out all removable parts of your fridge and place them in the water you ran in your tub. The only thing that I was not able to remove in my fridge was the bottom rack. I was however able to remove the glass portion that sits within the rack. Make sure that all parts of the fridge are submerged (or mostly submerged) in the water. Let these soak for about 15 minutes while you move on to step 4.
4. Fill your spray bottle halfway with ammonia and the other half with water. Spray the inside of the fridge with this mixture and allow it to sit for about 5 minutes. While you wait go ahead and toss any items on your kitchen table that may be expired or items that you no longer use.
5. Using a sponge or dishcloth go ahead and wipe down the inside of your fridge. The ammonia/water mixture really works wonders and everything wipes off with ease.
6. Rinse (with warm water) and remove all items from the tub. You can chose to let these items air dry on a towel or to save time you could dry them with a paper towel. 
7. Once all items are dried go ahead and reattached the fixtures used for condiments. You can also go ahead and put your condiments back at this point.
8. Use the press and seal to cover the top of each shelving fixture prior to attaching it in your fridge. I ended up having to used two pieces of the wrap horizontally to cover each of my shelves. Using press and seal will prevent you from having to "deep clean" your fridge the next go round. Simply removed the press and seal, do a quick wipe down, and reapply more press and seal. If you look at the first picture on this blog you can barely see the press and seal as it blends in really well with the glass. Genius right? :)
9. Lastly, I used a few Mainstay Refrigerator baskets from Walmart (pictured below) to organized my fridge. They were rather inexpensive at $2.97 a basket. I have a rather small fridge so I was only able use 5 of the baskets. For my family I chose to designate two baskets for each of my daughters. For my youngest her yogurts and fruits go into her basket. For my oldest daughter all of the stuff she packs for lunch goes into one basket. I used two baskets at the bottom of my fridge for fruits and veggies as we always have a TON of those in the fridge. The possibilities are really endless for this and you will end up doing what works best for you family.

Enjoy your extra clean and organized fridge :)

Bow/Headband Holder

So my youngest daughter is 13 months and up until now I've used one of her smaller dresser drawers to store her headbands and bows. As you could imagine it eventually became rather difficult to find which bow/headband I was looking for at 5:45 am as I am trying to get her dressed and out the door. During many of my early morning Pinterest sessions I saw this super cute headband/bow holder and decided I would make one myself. Here is my finished product!

What you will need:

• Picture frame (I used 8x10)
• Ribbon of your choice
• Screw hooks
• Staple Gun
• Hot Glue Gun
• Embellishments of your choice
• Sharpie

1. If you chose a unfinished wood frame your first order of business would be to paint it and allow it to dry. I chose to stick with a white frame so that I wouldn't have to paint. I also thought it would make my colors pop a little more.
2. Next you will need to cut strips of ribbon that are long enough to span from the top of your frame to the bottom. Since I used a 8x10 frame I only had room for 3 strips of ribbon. Of course if you use a bigger frame you will need more strips of ribbon. Once your ribbon strips are cut place them against your frame to ensure they are properly centered, then using a staple gun secure the ribbon strips tightly to the back of the frame. It is important to make sure you get the ribbon stripes as tight as possible so they will not sag once you began adding your bows.
3. Now that we have a place to hold the bows it's time to make something to hold the headbands. This step requires a little man power, so ladies if I were you I would ask your husband (or a friendly man) to help with this part. Using a sharpie or pencil mark on the bottom of the frame where you would like each screw hook to go. Using a 8x10 frame I only had room for 5 so I aligned the middle one with the middle ribbon and then two on each side of it. Once you have made your makes your can start working them in. Happy screwing!!! lol
   
4. Now that the hard work is out of the way you add any establishments. I decided to added two butterflies using hot glue.
   

So after completing this project I realized that my daughter had more bow/headbands that I thought. I may eventually end up making her a new holder using a 10x14 frame. Other than that I think it turned out cute :)

Khloe Turns One!

So my daughter turned one this month and I enjoyed every second of planning and prepping for her party. Below are some of the details from her party. I pretty much made everything myself! 

Dessert bags I designed using Avery Labels online software and Avery Sticker labels.  I attached a piece of ribbon to the back of each bag with a small piece of clear tape. That way guest could easily tie it up once they chose their treats.

                           

Here is the cupcake image and brown chevron background I used to create the design of the stickers. I simply filled the designated circle with the chevron background and then added the cupcake on top. Lastly, I added the text "Khole's 1st Birthday".

This is a sign I displayed on the dessert bar table. I used the same design concept from the treat bags. I did however used Microsoft Office to design this. I set the dimensions of a shape to be the same as the actual picture frame. I filled that shape with the chevron background and then I inserted  a rounded rectangle shape on top of the background and set it to have a white fill. This is the shape that I typed my text in. Lastly, I inserted the cupcake clipart in the center above the text.

These are samples of a few of the treats that were on the dessert table. I made these about 2 weeks before the party to figure out how I wanted them to look and to make sure everything went smoothly (of course I made the one for the party the night before the actual party). From left to right: chocolate dipped marshmallow with pearls, chocolate dipped pretzel rod with sprinkles, chocolate dipped oreos with pink pearls, chocolate dipped rice krispy treat with sprinkles. I used pink Wilton chocolate melts as the chocolate and a variety of different sprinkles/pearls as toppings. I also used cake pop sticks for the marshmallows and rice krispy treats.

In this picture you will see that I made menu place cards for each food item, glass containers accented with ribbon to hold the plastic ware, and a banner to decorate the front of the food table.  The banner was created in Microsoft Word using the triangle

shape, chevron background, and a circle shape. Pink ribbon was secured to the back of each triangle using scotch tape. You could also hole punch to holes at the top corners of each triangle and run ribbon through the holes.

This was my first attempt at a dessert bar. I made everything on the table except for the cupcakes (got them from Sam's club), the bubble gum balls, mints, and rock candy. I purchased all the candy from Party city, they have a great selection of candy based on color. I did accent my cupcake stand by hot gluing pink tulle around the base. 2 small pink boxes were also wrapped in wrapping paper to give the rock candy container a little height. The containers holding the bubble gum and mints were decorated with various types of ribbon.

This poster was displayed over the dessert bar. If you are interested in making one check out my blog posted entitled Chalkboard Posters. I purchased a project board, covered it with pink fabric, and adhered the poster using double sided tape. The project board was then attached to the wall behind the dessert bar table using Command strips.

PVC Pipe Sensory Table

Now I really shouldn't take all the credit for this because I saw a picture on Pinterest and sent it to my husband. Two days later I came home and my daughter had a cool new sensory table. I will admit however that it was my ingenious idea to spray paint it pink.....oh and I did the painting :) Being a special education teacher it was really great to see how easy it was to make such a great inexpensive replica of something that almost every early childhood classroom has.

Update: April 14th, 2018: My 10 month old son now gets to enjoy his sister's water table. My husband my make me paint it blue though lol. 

What you need:

• PVC pipe (four 5ft poles)
• 4 PVC caps
• 8 PVC T connectors
• 4 PVC corner connectors
• PVC pipe cutters 
• 1 can of spray paint
• 1 storage bin (should be long and rather shallow)
• sharpie

1. My husband based the dimensions of the table around the actual storage bin. He did point out that the printed dimensions of the bin should not be used as they were not accurate. So you will need to measure the bin yourself in order to plan for the rest of table. It is also good to take into consideration how tall the child or children you are making the table for are.
2. Using a sharpie mark the PVC pipes based on the measurements you took and then cut out the necessary pieces. Besides the 4 pieces of pipe to make the top frame, the rest of the pieces will be rather short and with therefore require connectors to join them together,
3. Use the corner connectors at the top of the table (one in each corner), 1 T connector below each corner connector, 4 T connectors underneath where the storage bin will go, and 1 cap on the bottom of each leg of the table.
4. Spray paint the table outside and allow adequate time for it to dry.
5. Fill up the storage bin with water, sand, or any other sensory item and then watch your little one have a BLAST!

Partial Burlap Wreath

Apparently burlap is in style, so I figured I should jump on the bandwagon. This was my first attempt at using it to make a door wreath. I wasn't very adventurous as I only did a partial one lol

What you need:

• roll of burlap
• a great wreath (medium)
• wooden letter
• spray paint (your choice of color)
• flowers
• beaded accents
• hot glue
• staple gun
• 4 wooden skewers (yup the kind you grill with lol)
• twine
• safety pin
• scissors

1. Spray paint the front and sides of your wooden letter, then set it to the side so it can dry.
2. Tie about 2-3 feet of twine to the base of a safety pin. Tie the other end of the twine to the bottom right corner of the beginning of the burlap. Loop the safety pin in and out in a zigzag fashion pulling the safety pin tightly to scrunch the burlap. Continue this pattern until you have enough gathered burlap to cover half of your wreath. Once you have enough remove the safety pin and tie a knot with the twine securing the gathered burlap.
3. Hot glue the burlap onto the wreath from the top middle to the bottom middle.
4. Insert two skewers into the wreath about mid way on the left side. Position your wooden letter so that the skewers line up at the top of the letter. Flip the wreath over and secure the wooden letter to the skewers using a staple gun. I stapled the letter to the skewers in 3 separate place to ensure it was sturdy. Repeat this process again for the bottom of the letter. Trim any of the skewers that stick out on the left side of the wreath with scissors. 
5. Using floral pliers clip 3 flowers (you could do more) and hot glue them onto the wreath. I glued them in the center, left center, and bottom center. Glue your beaded accents around each flower.
6. Lastly, use scissors to snip any stray pieces of the the wreath. Sometimes twigs and branches hang in the oddest places. Then hook the wreath onto a wreath holder and you door will look fabulous. 

Chalkboard Posters

So if you are on Pinterest then you know the big thing is Chalkboard Posters these days. To date I've created two: one for my daughter's 1st birthday and the other was for a family member's upcoming college graduation.

What you need:

• a computer (duh lol)
• Paint.net or PhotoShop
• Chalkboard Image (download below)
• Various Fonts (see links below)

Chalkboard Image

Chalkboard Fonts

1. Browse through the chalkboard fonts and download the ones you plan to use. Once the file downloads on your computer you must open it, click on the font name, then click install. The font will then automatically populate in any font drop down menu on your computer
2. Save the chalkboard image down below. Then open the chalkboard image in either paint.net or Photoshop.
3. Change the image size to that of the size of the poster you are making. I did 24x36.
4. You will need create layers for each word/phrase you add to your board. This can be achieved by clicking "Layer" and "New Layer". It is important to note that you cannot edit a layer in paint.net once you move on to a new layer. You can however edit layers in Photoshop.
5. Once you have completed your poster save it as either a jpeg or a .PNS file.
6. I always uses Staples.com to print my poster because they seem to have the unique 24x36 size. It usually runs about $29.99, but recently they ran a promotion where the poster was only $10. You could also check places like Shutterfly, Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS out.
7. For my daughter's birthday party I covered a project board with fabric and attached the poster using double sided sticky table (picture below). You however can display it anyway you would like :)

Menu Board

Make meal planning and grocery shopping a little easier with this simple project.

What you need:

• Elmer's foam/cork board
• 3/4 yard of fabric 
• Ribbon
• 7 clothespins
• Small container of some sort
• Paper
• Laminator (I got mine for $30 at Walmart)
• Hot glue gun
• Command hook or strip

Red Striped Background

1. I created the days of the week tags, Menu title, Shopping List, and meals tag in Microsoft Office. I Googled "striped background" images, saved the image, and then I use the image to to fill the shape I was using in Microsoft Office. Once the background appeared in the shape I inserted another shape on top and filled it with text (ex. Monday). You really have to play around with this step to get exactly what you are looking for. You can also google different fonts on Pinterest, download them and use them to create your labels. The font I used for my board was called "whatever it takes" and the title of my board (menu) was "return to sender". Lastly, I printed all of the tags and labels onto cardstock and laminated them.
2. Next I covered the foam/cork board with fabric using a hot glue gun. I also glued on one piece of ribbon vertically about 2-3 inches off the left side of the board. I then glued the days of the week tags onto 7 clothespins and then glued the clothespins onto the yellow ribbon. Make sure to the glue the pins so that the mouth of the pin opens up to the right.
3. As you can see in the picture about I have my shopping list above the container that holds my menu items. You can take the time to measure where you would like these items to go, but I honestly just eyeballed it. I did the same with the title (Menu).
4. Lastly, attach your board to a wall or door in your kitchen using a command hook or strip.

Here is my menu for this past week. Gosh I love this thing!!