Where's the beef?

My dear darling husband constantly runs around the house saying, "Where's the beef?" about 7 pm every night.  At that moment, I look up from whatever craft I'm working on and realize I should feed the poor man.  Crafting takes a front and center approach and most everything falls to the wayside, especially home cooked meals.  So I scrounge around the pantry and fridge and plop stuff into a pan/pot and hope it turns out.  After all, he does the dusting, cleaning and laundry when I'm on a craft binge, the least I can do is dinner.

But I'm tired of scrounging....thinking....and the like.  SOOOO, I've been tempted for many months to build a meal calendar to help alleviate the scrounging and thinking part and make it more a set, 'I will make this on this day and stop trying to get it together at the last minute'.


Silhouette, double-sided paper, tacky tape, push pins and black sticker letters to the rescue!!  I used Avery 2 x 4 inch clear labels and put main courses, side dishes and desserts on each one.  I then adhered the labels to paper cutouts that were 2 1/4 x 4 inches.  Then Silhouette helped me cut the fold over pockets.  I used 1/8 inch eyelets in the hanging holes to make them a little more durable.   Tacky tape holds all the pockets together. 

Eventually, I'll put a cute little "quote board" on the bottom right for inspirational thoughts. 

3M Command strips hold the entire board to the inside of my pantry door. 

What a relief....no more scrounging, thinking and sometimes sub par dinner turn outs! 

Just good ole cooking and a plan. 

Now I pick out what I want for the next two weeks, review the checklist at the bottom of each entree/side dish/dessert for necessary ingredients (which go on to my Saturday shopping list if I don't have them), try to make them correspond with as many coupons as possible and have one less thing to stress about.

Pretty cute, huh?

Don't forget to check out the "Party Central" tab to see what parties we love linking up to every week!

An Orginized Space

Question:   Are weevils ever a good thing?

Answer: Yes!    

About a year ago, I bought a bag of rice that ended up infesting my whole grain shelf before I found the problem.  Actually, my hubby found the problem in a bite of his sandwhich.  Gross!  After throwing everything away, even the perfectly fine stuff in shelves below, he agreed to get containers for everything.  Normally he would have not seen the need, so yay for weevils.  Sick, huh?

That was round one of getting organized. A year later, I decided my New Year's resolution would be to get every closet and cupboard in my house in tip top shape.  I have given myself a year to do it.  Totally do-able!   I just finished my entire kitchen. I don't have a traditional walk-in pantry, but I have designated cupboards for everyhing that I like just as much.  My real "pantry" is in the mudroom and I would rather have everything closer to me in the kitchen.  That closet houses my appliances, bags, and office stuff.

 I won't bore you with pictures of the whole kitchen (even though I kind of want to).  Here are some of my favorite areas:

Snacks in penny candy jars and drinks

Spice cupboard.  My spice rack fits perfectly with room for my salt and pepper shaker.  I couldn't have made one better if I tried. I love it when stuff like that works out!  The middle shelf has more spices grouped by how frequently I use the item (red pepper in the back and dried onions in the front), and the top has bulk spices, salt and bread crumbs. 

Panty: drink mixes on top shelf, then crackers, grains, cereal, canned goods, box mixes, and syrups and sauces on the bottom

I put my bulk sized dry goods in glass canisters displayed on the bottom of my hutch.  I normally like things out of sight, but thought these looked nice and uniform.  What would you do?  Should they stay or should they go?

The last container will hold baked treats or homemade breads. I just need to make a {baked goods} label.

Baking cupboard: extra sugar on top (It's not in my cold storage because some kids got into it when I was not watching.  Have you ever had a whole room covered in powdered sugar?), then flour, powdered sugar, brown sugar, and granulated sugar in the white and silver containers in the middle with the oils, and then baking spices and ingredients on the bottom.  I am still on the lookout for cute little jars for the items on the bottom.

It's nothing too fancy, but I love the look of all the cansiters and the peace of mind knowing it is all safe.  It has taken me a year to collect all these containers, but doing it a little at a time makes it affordable.  Here's to keeping it up the rest of year!
                                                         
Don't forget to check out the "Party Central" tab to see what parties we love linking up to every week!

The Great Wall of China

I've been wanting a cute hutch for extra storage for a while now, but seeing Jackie's post about her cute new hutch earlier this week really clenched it. So, being a woman of action, I turned to craigslist.

Craigslist and I are BFF. It knows me. Every time I need something I just pop in, and it says, "I've been saving this one decently priced, perfectly casual thing just for you. You're welcome."

Seriously. After two seconds of looking through the Craigslist search return of "China Cabinet" I saw this little gem.

It was priced at $65.00, but I offered $50.00 and they guy said okay. Sold!

It's not solid wood,  it was pretty beat up, and I'm wanting to lighten things up around here, so I knew I'd be painting it a la The Nester's China Cabinet.

We picked it up on Wednesday, and I spent Saturday listening to wise people and painting my heart out. It was an amazing day.

Done! Well, really she needs to dry for at least 24 more hours. I should have waited at least that long before putting stuff in her. I just get too excited. One of my nearest and dearest friends was over that night, and I enlisted her help in putting it together, and rearranging my collection of white dishes inside.

What's better than a Saturday night spent accessorizing?

 I can't think of a thing. Maybe she can, but she didn't complain.

Here's so you can see how this painted piece kinda works with the paint color of the "entertainment center" in the next room over:

I was worried about having two big painted things so close together...but, I think it turned out just fine.

I had these little pink knobs lying in wait for the perfect future project. Do you think this is "the one" for them? Or should I go with something white and bright?

I didn't really notice these cute little details before--I think the paint really brings them out:

And here's how it looks from the other side.

Here are a few tips if you're ready to take on your own huge piece of furniture painting:
1) You should sand. And prime it, if you're really going to do it right. I sanded, and got so caught up with I forgot to bring out my leftover primer. Luckily, the sanding helped the paint stick, and the BEHR paint is quality, so it's fine so far, but I do worry about peeling.
2) The right paint and tools make a difference. I splurged on the real deal paint and I finally bought a Purdy paintbrush. I used a small sponge roller for the flat areas, but that Purdy got right into the nooks and crannies like a charm. It was amazing. There are no stray brush hairs, and the paint went on so smooth...okay, I'm gushing. I don't think I can ever go back to the two dollar brushes.
Update: 3) The paint color I used is BEHR's Garden Wall (730D-4) from Home Depot. It's my new favorite shade of Greige. It goes on really light at first, and might give you a panic attack as you realize "This is NOT the color I wanted", but once it dries it does darken!


Alright, Kourtney. Now it's your turn to get a hutch. Everyone else is doing it. I expect your post within a week :)

I can't wait to get started on our dining room table/chair revamp now! Well, actually I can. This job was a lot of work. But I'm excited to get started in the somewhat near future, and get the dining area DONE(ish).

Linking up to:
Metamorphasis Monday
A-Z Tutes and Tips
Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday
 Perfectly Imperfect Random Furniture Link up!

Animal Magnetism

I've been wanting to explore the capabilities of mod-podge for a while now. I knew the moment I saw this beauty at Goodwill that the time was right.

She's a beauty all right. I hammered that gorgeous embroidery right outta that frame, and got down to business.

Step 1: Spray paint frame black

Step 2: Get a piece of galvinized tin (can be found at Lowes for about $15.00) the fits your frame. If they don't have the exact size you can cut it down with some tin shears...or if you don't have those, you can play the ol' helpless card at the store until the poor associate goes to the back and finds a way to cut the sheet down to your specs. We went with the second option. You can leave it plain, but we decided to mod-podge wrapping paper. It was a little tricky. The wrapping paper was very thin, and tended to wrinkle. Character, right? Right. Thicker paper would have worked better. When it dries, insert it into frame.

Step 3: Glue cute buttons, ribbons, flowers, etc. onto cheapo magnets.

Step 4: Enjoy your new super cute memo magnet board.

And whats better than having a magnet board? Having 2 magnet boards!! The embroidery was stapled to this wooden frame:

I'm going to use some left over tin and make a more casual board for the kitchen--I'll let you know how it goes. For now I'm going to link this one up to the Shanty Sister's "I did it without my (future) hubby" party, and Today's Creative blog.

The Big To-Do (list).

I'm a believer in to-do lists. When I have a list, I can accomplish anything--I can focus on one task at a time, and the urge to mark a task off the list works as motivation. Without a list...well, to be honest, I sit around and look at blogs all day. It's not pretty. But, keeping track of the lists is a pain, and I'd writing down all of my tasks for the week was getting out of hand. I found an old poster frame in the laundry room, and with it, the solution to my paper list making problems. Some wrapping paper, ribbon, and dry erase markers later--we're in business!

I dragged my roomie and BFF down with me on this one--she couldn't resist the call of a cute, cheapo, personalized dry erase board either. Who could??

Heres a to-do list for this to-do list:

Need:

Frame with glass/plastic insert

Wrapping paper

Letter stickers

dry erase markers

1) Glue your paper to the cardboard insert (for a simple dry erase board, just put it in the frame and your done here!)

2) We arranged our lists in a weekly basis, and put down stickers for the tasks we have to do everyday, cleaning, daily prays, etc. We left some empty room for stuff we would write in, like homework and daily workouts.

3) Once you have everything just the way you like, put it back in the frame, and you're done!

I can't get the button to show up, but I'm posting this at the Thrifty Home Penny Pinching Wednesdays Party.