27.6.11

Quicker than you can say "You're showing us your Lingerie drawer?!"

It's yet another drawer overhaul, because, not including the ones in the garage, there are 28 drawers in this house, and possibly more in yours! No matter how organised I am getting, I can walk into any room of the house right now and find a drawer that needs sprucing up, and so, here you have another drawer post. And this one actually has my drawers in it!

Some may be horrified to see that I am sharing this particular drawer with the blogworld, but honestly, it would take quite an imagination to get them from the little folded scraps of fabric that you're about to see to the image my Hubs may be be able to conjure up. So without further ado, here is a super fast overhaul on a couple of my 'Drawer Drawers'....

I am lucky enough to have a partner that likes to buy me pretty things, but I wasn't really trying very hard to make them look good in the drawer. Apart from aesthetics, it wasn't a great way to be storing some of the more delicate items like pantyhose and lace, as they could easily snag on the inside of the drawer.

So I grabbed some leftover containers from the pack I bought at Ikea (I had already started using one here) and sorted things out. Pantyhose slightly squished into one, spare straps into another, and other special pieces into yet another. The rest of the bits and bobs got folded and placed neatly in the gaps. Much more protected and easy on the eye ;o)

Now, the swimwear drawer. Something I don't see a lot of in the winter months, but that's no reason to leave it in a jumbled heap!

Another container corals those pesky straps, bikinis are paired up and folded, and my beach skirt is knotted back up to maintain it's pretty crumpled effect.


DONE!

Go on, you know there's a drawer waiting for you, all it needs is a minute of your time.....

xo Cassie

23.6.11

Another Drawer Overhaul

So the kitchen......it's a hub of activity, and is the most visited room in the house, next to the bathroom perhaps. What this really means is, no matter how tidy you get it, at some point, it's going end up getting cluttered and disorganised.

That's okay! Between dinner parties, grocery nights, kids meals and all the rest of it, it is completely normal and acceptable to end up with something a little less Martha Stewart, and a little more Hoarders. Don't beat yourself up over it, just get in and spend 5 minutes at a time straightening things out. Heck, if you're feeling up to it, spend an hour or two! It really doesn't matter how much time, so long as you get to it somewhat regularly. 

You've already seen my Fridge Overhaul here, and some of my other drawers and cupboards getting a spruce up here and here. Now I'm going to show you my 'Pantry Drawer'; the drawer that gets used as a mini pantry because our actual pantry is too deep to store tins and jars effectively. A few months ago I had the lightbulb moment to swap out a drawer full of spare crockery for the most accessed food items we had in the pantry. Although it still isn't my dream pantry option, it's a darn sight better than before. Unfortunately, I have no photos of the true 'Befores' of our kitchen. This 'blogging about everything I do in the house through images' thing is still relatively new to me! Never the less, behold my drawers!



Maybe I should call this a Jumble drawer, as opposed to a Pantry Drawer? Anyway, regardless of it's name, this drawer holds sundry food items in all shapes and sizes *limited to the height of the drawer, sometimes frustratingly so (damn you condiment bottles!). This is where you'll find all of the makings of a good cup of tea or coffee, except for the teabags. See I have a nice box for those, and I couldn't bear to bury it in here. You'll also find all the possible toast toppings, and milk add-ins amongst the tins and jars of, well lots of different things you really couldn't care about. Oh and also, those annoying packets of sugar/dried fruit/flour that wouldn't fit in the pretty pantry container you bought for them....yeah, they're in that blue-lid container.

Everything out! Always! I hope you know this by now? Look at all the treasures I found...hair, stale chip, plastic wrapper. Mm mm. Okay, now wipe it out.

So, the contents are out, now what? Turf what's out of date, condense what's doubled up, check your fridge to see if it's ready for the new jar of pickles, plan some meals around things about to go out of date, cross off that jar of seeded mustard you had on this week's shopping list (you have two already), and wipe everything down.
Then put it all back in again, but NICELY. Sort by height or food type, it's up to your preferences and the way you use your kitchen. I sorted by height and type, and by the confines of this rather small drawer. I found a use for the silly small containers you get in the 'Value Packs' by filling them with things I wanted easy access to and packet leftovers like Custard Powder, and zippied up some popcorn for B4's snack.

Optional extra: Make labels for your containers so that the men can find them (sorry boys, but it's too often true). Fun Facts: In the Yoghurt Topping container is a special mix I made up for B4's snacks. I whizzed up some Arrowroot biccies, almonds, flax seed and oats for a crunchy and nutritious yogurt addition. B4 loves it, and I no longer feel guilty about the flax seed (lindseed) I spent a mint on and then promptly stopped using. The snack box is stocked up with biscuits and sultanas for quick dashes out the door with B4. I try not to go anywhere without a drink and a snack for him. It buys me time and sanity.


Now stand back and admire your handiwork! No really, admire it, take photos of it, make sure you got that image locked in your memory somehow, because in a few hours, the downhill slide will begin....


For a bit of a giggle, see what I found here when Google-Imaging 'Messy Kitchen'. This is why I spend so long on the darn computer. Google Images. Anything you could ever imagine to find is at your fingertips. And now there is Pinterest, so that you can SAVE all of the said images! I HATE YOU GOOGLE! GIVE ME MY LIFE BACK.


xo Cassie

20.6.11

Under the kitchen sink.

Sometimes you find just the right thing, for just the right place, even though you weren't really looking for it in the first place. I found such a thing when doing our grocery shopping at Aldi recently and I shouldn't have been suprised, as this often occurs at Aldi. What with their interesting weekly specials on anything from tools, to ski wear (in Brisbane why?), to office supplies and home decor, I often find myself picking up the most fabulous little soap holder, or 1000 thread count sheets that I have been hunting for at a reasonable price in other stores for months. Unfortunately you never know what they're going to have until the catalogue is released a week before, so I have occasionally wanted to kick my own head in for having just bought something Aldi is about to stock at a better price, in better quality.

This particular purchase is not going to be one of the more exciting finds I've had, but it is very
useful and was the perfect solution for under our kitchen sink.

Pretty much everything under here made the cut when I decluttered this area a few months ago, but we all know I like things to be 'aesthetically pleasing' (close friends and family can attest to me using this phrase far too frequently). This is NOT pleasing me aesthetically at all. I don't care that no one else but Hubs, B4 and I see under here, I make things pretty and/or organised for my own pleasure! Considering that this is where our bin is (which I love by the way, I will never again own a kitchen bin that is out on display), I see this area at least 20 times a day, so I was happy to be improving it!

On the inside of the door, I had been storing these oven mitts, but since finding some fantastic silicone ones....

....at Aldi in fact, I wasn't really using the cloth ones, so out they went. I really can't rave enough about silicone mits; they are deceptively effective in protecting your hands from heat, they stack into each other and hang or sit neatly, and they wash SO easily in hot soapy water with the rest of the dishes after dinner. Goodbye cloth oven mitts with your easily stained fabric and limited heat protection! I am also slowly replacing/purchasing all of my bake wear with silicone. It's a revolution!

Anyway here it is, my new Aldi purchase, nothing special eh? But special enough for me!

Of course I couldn't leave well enough alone, so off came the dodgy sticker.

I had better things in mind....

Now while some may think it would be pretty obvious what's in the basket by looking at the bottles, you have to remember that BOYS will be using the things in here. This way, fingers crossed, Hubs will remember to put the fly spray back in here after he goes on a mass murdering spree of our local insects, and I can do a quick inventory for shopping lists in the future. In a perfect world.......

Ta da! Perfect fit for the door, perfect hanger for our floor and dish cloths, and perfect size for all of the bottles I keep handy to the sink. Happy girl. Well...........until two minutes later when this happened....

Hmmph! Apparently the suction caps were not up to the strain, so it looks like we'll have to screw it in. And if I'm completely honest, it is still sitting under the sink now, waiting for hubs to put it back. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that.

Anyway, I'll pretend not to notice and show you how tidy the bin area is now :o)

Oh, and over on the other door you'll find these two containers that I thrifted from the Ikea As-Is section over a year ago. They hold our shopping bags which we recycle to use in our bins.

The handle bags are a perfect fit for the kitchen bins, and the produce bags are perfect for the little bins we have in the bathroom and bedroom. It's a thrifty and slightly more eco-friendly option because we aren't purchasing bin liners!
So keep your eye out at your local Aldi for great affordable products, even if you do have to put up with 'lazy' checkout operators. I mean seriously, they get to sit in a chair, and you have to pack your own bags! I wouldn't have such a problem with this if they didn't give you a dirty look when you can't manage to get your groceries off their bench in time for the next customer coming through. Grumble over.

xo Cassie

* Amendment - Hubs screwed it in last night, hoorah!

17.6.11

Media {Organising} Frenzy!

I'm back. Sorry about that. Sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, and what I had to do did not involve blogging. But I'm back, and we can all pretend that that ginormous gap in proceedings didn't really happen, right? Good. Just don't check the dates on my posts.

Now, I do have a few little posts up my sleeve after a serious day of catching up, but I didn't think it was fair to welcome you back with a little drawer overhaul, or quick thrift. So instead I'm going to share a project I'm rather proud of, and I'm even going to break my personal rule of not showing a project until it's finished, because I can't wait any longer really.

Some time ago now, I read Jen's Media Mania post over at I Heart Organizing where she showed us how she stores her discs. I was inspired to do something about our cumbersome black media folders, and although it took a little time to find the right solution just for us, once I found it I was excited to start!

On a trip to the Reject Shop (the same time and place I found my fabulous birdcages!) I scored these disc sleeves and storage boxes. All up, $18! Pretty sweet when you consider some media storage would set you back at least that per box.

This is where everything was being stored; two huge disc folders that I couldn't really find a place to hide, and one media box for the photo discs we've accumulated. I was pretty happy back in the day when I got ruthless and turfed all of the plastic cases and put them into the folders, but after years of lugging the folders around, I was ready for something far better!

Disc 1, done (He is such a funny man).

Only a couple of hundred left to go...

The process started off slow, fiddly and confusing.

But before long, I picked up the pace and was able to start making alphabetic piles.

And then, all of the movies were done! Hoorah! Looking so neat, and far less cumbersome.

But, to be honest, I got bored of it all pretty quickly. So after another week or two, I got my supplies back out of the garage and picked up where I left off with the music and photos. With all of the sorting finally done, I got to move onto to 'prettying' it all up, as you I do.

Enter my super cheap, super yummy Easter Egg packaging. Well, I mean, the egg was yummy, duh. *Thrifty Tip Come Easter time, just buy enough chocolate to get you through an Easter Egg hunt with the littlies if you have them, and then save the gorging for the post Easter mark downs!

The box for my egg was just too lovely to discard, and I love to thrift packaging. They spent all the time and money making it pretty, why chuck it out?!

So I salvaged the bits worth keeping, and planned my attack.

Pretty patterned paper....

Ugly stock standard label.....do you see where I'm going with this?

Yeah you do. Template it up baby!

Perfectly pretty.

Now, I am lucky enough to have a super talented mother (check out her blog here, she's got lots of that talent that she's willing to share), who was a super talented Graphic Artist at one point and still has a few of the old supplies laying around. Being an only child, I scored her rare Letraset collection when she was ready to part with it, and it just happened to be perfect for this project (and for a girl who doesn't own a printer).

If you aren't familiar with Letraset, basically, you rub/transfer each letter on piece by piece. Some might say, tedious? But I really love the effect, and if you've read my Laundry Makeover post, you already know that I prefer hand stitching to machine sewing! Some things in life are best kept simple :o)

Fabulous fit!

 Don't those little labels just pop!

Very chuffed with myself, as if you didn't know.

All so neat and tidy. Now I have got the option of filling out the great Movie Inventory list I downloaded during Jen's free printables month, to organise these discs even more, but for now I am perfectly happy to flip through at my leisure and save inventory for another rainy day...
xo Cassie

6.6.11

Sunny Side Up Please!

I suppose I should stop adding images to my Pinterest  long enough to do a little post! I just created a new board, 'My Personalised Ikea Catalogue' where I am adding all of the items I plan to acquire for our home, such fun to shop without spending any money ;o)

I love posting my projects, but it is always so time consuming and I get frustrated with time-sucking-technology more frequently everyday!

But today, I want to show you the new colour creeping into my home (and threatening to take over my penchant for Turquoise!).

I picked up this little birdie at Typo on my last visit. At $2, he was a steal!

But he needed some colour, and after rifling through my paint collection, I settled on this yellow :o)

I instantly feel happy looking at my little yellow birdie, and he was just the beginning of a new love affair with sunny tones!

Who doesn't love ornate frames?

I had filled these two frames with prints off an old surf tee. I'd held on to the tee for years because of the print, but not the style. One day I got somewhat ruthless, and decided the top had to go. But not before I salvaged the whimsical deers! I love that they have a soft texture to contrast with the cold metal frame, but with sunshine on the mind, I thought I could warm the frames up a bit too!

I like to keep the price on some of my thrifts, because even though it might seem strange or tacky to some, I like to remember where I got them and for how much. I protected the deers by shoving some paper into the frame, and got started...

Now while I am sure that some primer and spray paint would have been far more suitable for these metal frames, I didn't really want to head out and spend any money, so I went with the acrylic paint I already had, keeping in mind that if soaked in water, I can remove this paint fairly easily for future projects.

Already looking bright and cheerful!

It took quite a few coats after this to get the finish to an acceptable standard, but imperfection is a price I'm willing to pay!

Oops. B4 really shouldn't leave his toys grey goat lying around, tsk tsk!

Ta Da! I'm in sunshiney love! I heart that the deers stand out even more now, and the frames certainly POP out from the brickwork wall.

Also, inspired by my lovely new blogworld friend Johanna (she actually inspired me to paint everything in sight after I saw some of her home projects) , I painted this little jar for a unique candle holder :o) I may have painted it because it was the only other thing I could get my hands on at the time...




You'll have to wait a little while to see how the floating shelves look now, with this fresh splash of colour, but while you're waiting why not pick up some paint and give something in your home a fresh coat. You'll be amazed at the difference it makes, and like me, you might find yourself falling in love with a new hue!

xo Cassie