Halloween 2014

We love Halloween at our house.  I love seeing the excitement in my kids' faces when we bring out the decorations and do our family traditions for this holiday.

A few years ago I made this count down calendar and I bring it out every October.  Each day the kids take turns putting up a magnet as we count down the days until Halloween.

I painted 31 square wood chips from Hobby Lobby, decorated each one with a Halloween sticker and glued a magnet to the back.  The magnet board was from Target.  Using mod podge I decorated it with scrapbook paper, stickers and 31 circles for each day of the month.  Here's another view:

We made special treat bags for our neighbors and friends:

We filled cheap disposable gloves (found in the cleaning supplies aisle in Target) with candies, including Smarties for each finger, tied them closed with ribbon, then slipped a plastic spider ring on one of the fingers.  My kids loved making these!

Our front porch was decorated with pumpkins from the farmer's market.  I have never had Cinderella shaped pumpkins before and I love them.  So cute!  I simply placed smaller pumpkins on top and they are flat enough that they stay put.  To fill in the rest of my urns, I cut a garland from Hobby Lobby in half and wrapped it around the pumpkin, then secured it in the dirt with u-shaped nails.  I missed snapping a picture of my urn on the other side of my front door - that one has a blue Cinderella pumpkin in it.

Our Halloween was quite chilly and windy, but it did not stop us from enjoying every minute.  The kids ran from house to house to keep warm and went trick or treating for over an hour.  My daughter dressed as Hermione from Harry Potter and my son was Darth Vader.  Another fun Halloween night for the books!

Pumpkin carving tips

Tonight we carved pumpkins and it was so much fun!  The kids had a ball.  They designed their own jack-o-lanterns and for the first time we let them do the carving, too.  Here are a few tips ~

Tip #1: use a Magic Eraser sponge to clean up the outside of your pumpkin!

First the kids played around with some design ideas using paper and pencil.  When they were happy with what they came up with, they drew the designs on their pumpkins with crayon.  After they were done carving, there were still crayon marks on the pumpkin.  We tried wiping it off with a damp paper towel, but that didn't work.  Then we tried the Magic Eraser - it worked great!


Tip #2: use a drill to carve your pumpkin!

My husband used his electric drill to make a design on one of the pumpkins.  As you can see, it spells out BOO.  He made each letter by drilling lots of holes in the pattern of the letters, using the biggest drill bit he had.  It took about the same amount of time as carving the traditional way.  However, be warned that this is messy.  The drill went right through the pumpkin very easily, but it seemed to make it extra juicy!  You might not want to use a fancy or expensive drill for this, since it will get pumpkin guts on it!

Tip #3: use a flashlight instead of candles to light up your jack-o-lantern!

We tried lighting the BOO pumpkin up with candles, but because the holes are small-ish (about the width of a number 2 pencil), we needed something brighter - a powerful flashlight works great for this!  Just turn on your flashlight and position it inside your jack-o-lantern.  We propped the flashlight up on a small box so that it would shine out at the angle we wanted.

I will try to get some better pictures of all of our pumpkins over the next few days.  Stay tuned!

Just popping in!

My parents have been visiting us this week.  It has been wonderful to have them here and we have been spending a lot of family time together, therefore, I have had no free time for blogging.

Tonight my husband and I are taking advantage of the free babysitting and heading to the movies to see this:

This weekend I will hopefully have time to tackle some of these organizing projects I have been lagging behind on!  Happy weekend!

Clutter challenge ~ days 20 and 21

For a few days, I was feeling good about the progress I was making decluttering.  But, once again, I have fallen behind.  I suppose a really messy "before" makes the "after" even more good, though, doesn't it?

My office and master closet continue to be works in progress.  The truth is I have not been making them a priority the past couple days.  When I do have a spare moment, I would rather curl up with a book than go through my old things and make decisions.  Yes, I am procrastinating!

I know it will feel good to have my office and closet nice and organized, but what I have also come to realize is that I must make maintenance of these areas a daily task.  I need to get these areas to a good starting point, then maintaining them will be much easier and faster.

Clutter challenge ~ my desk

My office is a room in our house that was supposed to be our formal dining room.  We really don't have a need for a formal dining room, so this room has evolved from a playroom to office.  My kids use it, too, and my desk has become a catch all for things that don't have a home.  It can easily become messy in one afternoon and requires constant upkeep.

Here is how my desk looked earlier this week ~ before photo:

It is so overwhelming and frustrating because important papers often get buried in the piles on my desk.  I hate that feeling of not being able to find something that I need.  I waste a lot of time looking for things!

And here is my desk this afternoon ~ after photo:

I still have a lot of stuff on my desk.  It still is cluttered, but it is improving.  I will keep working on it!  I really need to tackle the entire room so that I can move more things off of the desk and store them.  I will share more photos of my office in a future post.  The entire room needs a good cleaning and decluttering!

Sources:
The desk lamp is from IKEA and so are the curtains, which I stenciled with fabric paint.  I found the desk at a local antique store for a steal - one of my most favorite purchases ever.

Touches of fall

My fall wreath ~ made with burlap and fabric flowers and a mini burlap banner:

This bread bowl was my grandmother's.  It sits on my kitchen table right now and I love seeing it every day and thinking of her.  I fill it with different decorations for each season.  Right now it has pine cones, mini pumpkins and a crow from Dollar Tree:

I made the red velvet pumpkin and used a real pumpkin stem that I saved and dried from one of our pumpkins last year:

Five on Friday ~ Star Wars birthday edition

It's Friday!  My favorite day of the week!  I am linking up with Five on Friday, hosted by Darci, April, Christina and Natasha.

This week I am sharing some Star Wars related birthday ideas.  My son's 8th birthday is coming up next week and we have been busy preparing.  Like many boys this age, my son is obsessed with all things Star Wars and that will be the theme of his party.

ONE

I found Star Wars plates and napkins at Party City.  They are sold out online but luckily my local store had them in stock.


TWO

My son is also obsessed with Legos.  He has been talking about the AT- AT Walker set for months.  The best price I found was on Target.com ($10 cheaper than the price in stores and also cheaper than Lego.com).  I have never spent this much on Legos before.  Is anyone else amazed at the prices of these sets?  They are marketing geniuses!


THREE

These cakes I found on Pinterest look amazing!

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FOUR

We have several of these Lego books already.  They come with a mini-figure and the pages are filled with all kinds of Star Wars facts.  My son loves studying them and they have inspired many Lego creations.

FIVE

In past years, I have loved making Halloween costumes for my kids.  It is so creative and fun for me, but this year my son really wants to be Darth Vader and after doing a little online research, I decided it would be simpler and cheaper in the long run (after adding up the cost of supplies and my time) to buy the costume this year.  Once again, Target to the rescue.  (This is not an affiliate post - I love Target and shop there regularly!)  The costume arrived in the mail this week and he has been playing with it ever since and perfecting his Darth Vader voice!

Enjoy the weekend!

Clutter challenge ~ motivation

Nothing seems to motivate me to clean and organize more than having people over to our house.  This afternoon my son had a friend coming over after school and suddenly I felt an urgency to clean that I don't normally feel on a typical Thursday afternoon.  I was dusting, doing laundry and picking up stray items around the house at lightning speed!  Maybe I need to invite people over more often to keep me on task!

Clutter challenge ~ huggable hangers

*One of my goals for this little blog was to post every day this month.  Since I missed yesterday, I am posting twice today.


I purchased a small set of huggable hangers, clips that go with them, and an accessory organizer for my master closet. I can see why the huggable hangers are so popular - they really do make a difference and I love how my clothes don't slide off the hangers.

Also, if you don't want to invest in the  matching clips to hang skirts and pants, I tested the hangers with some wooden clothes pins I had on hand, and they do work with these hangers, they just don't look as nice.

I am excited to continue working on my closet and post an "After" photo soon!

Decluttering vs Organizing

This is going to sound so obvious ~ but I realized that what I have been doing this month (and in the past when I tried to get my house in order) is focusing on organizing without decluttering.  I have had the goal of "getting organized" as one of my new year's resolutions for as long as I can remember.  Every year I think to myself, "this is THE year... I am finally going to get organized once and for all!"

The problem is that if I don't get rid of things and declutter, then I am just moving stuff around. Putting things away and creating homes for my stuff is good, but if I still have the same amount of stuff, then I haven't completely solved the problem.

My goal for this month is to declutter.  Truly declutter.  That means I need to throw some things away and donate things that still have some life in them.

This weekend I filled up two more bags of my old clothes to donate.  I dropped them off at Goodwill today when I was running errands.  It feels good to get more things out of the house.  I am slowly making progress.

This week we have an event or activity every single night.  That makes getting dinner on the table a challenge, as well as making sure homework gets done, piano is practiced and the kids get to bed on time.  When I do have a spare 15 minutes, I tend to use that time to read or watch tv.  Decluttering always feels like something I need a big chunk of time for, so I tend to put it off and don't make much progress at all during the week.  Some of the 31 days series I am following have smaller tasks that might fit into a 15 minute block of time (others have projects that will literally take me weeks... ahem, my master closet), so I am going to work on smaller tasks during the week and focus on bigger projects on the weekends.

My favorite organizing tip

My favorite organizing tip ~

Never leave a room empty-handed.

There is almost always something that needs to be put away, thrown away or moved to a different spot.  For example, when leaving the kitchen, grab that book that you need to put back on the bookshelf in the family room.  When you walk out of the family room, pick up the sweater that needs to be hung up in the bedroom.  When you leave the bedroom, carry the hamper full of clothes to the laundry room... and on and on and on.  It reminds me of the children's book: "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie."  Such a simple tip, but it has helped me keep up with the constant stream of stuff that flows through my house!

Nate Berkus

Just popping in on this Sunday evening to share a quote from one of my favorite designers, Nate Berkus.  I have watched him since he did makeovers on Oprah many years ago.  I loved his show on daytime tv and was so sad when it was cancelled.  I still watch the reruns!  I have also watched the different series he has participated in on HGTV.  I love his design style as well as his personality.


"The best interiors are the ones that aren't so serious.  Just bring things into your home that you love, and it will be interesting because it's personal."
                                                                                            -Nate Berkus


He has a line of products at Target and I am interested to see what's new for fall.

via Target

Clutter challenge ~ more thoughts on my closet

As I was reading the Living Well Spending Less blog this week, continuing to follow her 31 day series on decluttering, I came across one of her older posts on minimizing her wardrobe to a 40 hanger closet.  I loved this post - great tips, inspiring photos and she recommends the huggable hangers that I had heard so many good things about.

The interesting thing I noticed is that she has a large walk-in closet.  In fact, her closet looks like it's about three times as big as mine.  Huge!  And yet she only has 40 hangers.  She purposely limited herself to that number of hangers.  She also has some folded clothes on shelves in her closet, but she only has 40 hangers.

I realized something ~ I have been lamenting my small closet for years, dreaming of having a large walk-in just like hers.  But if I did have a large closet, would my clutter problem be even worse?  I'm guessing that it would.

The beauty in my small closet is that it gives me a limitation.  I would not have chosen this closet if I was designing my dream house.  But having this small closet might actually be a good thing for me.  It forces me to make choices and limit my clothes to the things that I truly like and wear.

Right now my closet is stuffed to the brim.  I can't close the sliding doors because things are spilling out and on the floor.  But if I get rid of the clutter, all my clothes will fit inside.  I counted how many hangers I have right now and I was surprised at just how many I managed to stuff into my closet: 114!  114 hangers!

It is easy to read blogs and look on pinterest and see huge, gorgeous closets, filled with beautiful clothes and accessories and feel a bit jealous.  I will never have a closet like that and my clothes are not fancy.  I am okay with that.  Today I will focus on the positive and feel grateful for what I have.

Free printable from City Farmhouse blog.

Five on Friday ~ 10/10/14

This has been a busy week and I am ready for a relaxing weekend!  I am linking up today with the hostesses of Five on Friday, Darci, April, Christina and Natasha.

ONE

I am continuing to follow a 31 day clutter challenge for the month of October with some of my favorite blogs.  I am on a mission to clear out the clutter and make my home a peaceful, organized place to enjoy.

TWO

My sweet husband surprised me and bought me the red plaid scarf I mentioned on my blog last week.  It was such a wonderful surprise!  Hmmm, maybe this week I should mention the sapphire and diamond ring I have my eye on?

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THREE

I am half way through the novel, "Goodnight June," by Sarah Jio.  It is a fictional book but the story includes the real life author Margaret Wise Brown who wrote the children's book, "Goodnight Moon," a favorite around my house, which I used to read to my kids every night at bedtime.

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FOUR

The leaves are changing around my neighborhood and the weather is supposed to be sunny and mild this weekend.  I am hoping to take some good photos of my kids with pretty colored leaves in the background.  My son recently lost both of his front teeth and I need some updated photos.  His smile is so adorable!

FIVE

There is an amazing giveaway happening this week from the Five on Friday hostesses.  SO many wonderful prizes.  Link up for your chance to win!  (Hope I linked up correctly, myself!)

Enjoy your weekend!

Clutter challenge ~ day 9

Today I worked on my closet some more.  (I feel like I could write this same sentence every day for the next week.  I have a lot I need to sort through!)

I tend to hang on to my clothes for years.  As I went through a pile of sweatshirts, I found some that were 20 years old.  Yes, you read that correctly - 20!  I wish I was kidding!  These sweatshirts were worn when I was in college.  They bring back memories, but I will not be wearing them again.  Some of them had stains, some were worn out around the wrists and collar, some were misshapen.  None of them were particularly flattering on me.  And yet, it still was hard for me to give them all up.  It feels good to make some room in my closet.

I am a sentimental person and am sentimental about many of the things in my house, including my clothes.  I can remember when I wore a certain thing, the occasion, who I was with.  I think about who bought it for me, if it was a gift.  So many memories.

Things that are obviously worn out are easier for me to get rid of, but the clothes that are still in decent condition are a little harder.  I am now facing the tougher decisions.  I have some clothes that are still in good shape, but I probably won't be wearing them again.  I am planning to pull all of them out of my closet and box them up.  If I don't go looking for them in a month or two, then I will donate them.  I need to clear out my closet so that all that's left are the things that I actually wear.  I want to be left with the good stuff - things that are in good condition, fit well and make me feel confident.

Clutter challenge ~ day 8

We have so much stuff.  I have been decluttering, but I have not made as much progress as I had hoped.  It is slow going.  I suppose it took months and years to get to this point, so it will take some time to clear it out.  I am slogging away, but not nearly as fast as I had hoped.  I tend to underestimate how long it will take me to complete a task.

Here are 4 bags of clothes in my trunk, headed to goodwill:

And here is another pile of kids' clothes - these will be donated to a local shelter that gives clothes to children who need them.  I love supporting their mission:

Now for some inspiration.... Pancakes and French fries blog did an organizing series in October 2011:

and again in 2012:

I find inspiration in so many blogs.  I love the William Morris quote, "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."  I am taking baby steps, but I am determined to get there!

My beautiful grocery store lilies on my kitchen window sill make me happy!

Mason jar vase is from World Market.

Clutter challenge ~ my master closet

I continue to work on purging and organizing my closet.  My husband and I each have our own closets, but they are very small and just have one rod and one shelf.  My husband does not have nearly as many clothes as I do, so I have been able to steal a bit of space from his closet for some clothes that are overflowing from mine.  I still feel like I need more room!

Another challenge is that I store some off season linens in my closet.  I'm thinking that I should transfer those to my husband's closet and try to use the space more wisely.

I read somewhere that a good question to ask when purging clothes is, "would I buy this today?"  If not, then get rid of it!

I have thrown out quite a bit and am still going through things.  I plan to buy some huggable hangers to help organize.  I have heard that these hangers are slim and take up less room so that you can fit more in your closet and clothes don't slip off of them.

A peek at the messy "before" state of my closet:

Lara at Overstuffed wrote a great post on decluttering your closet here.  I am falling behind on the clutter challenge because she has moved on to toys and electronics and I need to work on those areas, too.  For this week, my goal is to finish decluttering my closet, make a trip to goodwill and post some after photos.  See you soon!

Fall mantel

Today was a busy Monday... work, grocery store + other errands, supervising homework, piano practice and reading, cooking dinner, plus general picking up around the house and I did not actually get to work on my clutter challenge projects.  The constant maintenance to keep my entry way neat and tidy and my kitchen counters cleared off and clean is about all I can manage on some days and this was one of those days.  And to be honest, if you could see my kitchen counters right now, they are a bit cluttered...

My two biggest problem areas are my closet (let's just say I love shoes, scarves, purses and sweaters a lot... a lot, a lot) and my office.  I started on my closet this weekend and tomorrow I hope to continue my progress.  I was able to fill a laundry basket full of items to toss/donate and I can already see the difference that has made.  Pictures coming soon!

Here is a vignette that makes me happy ~ my fall mantel in the living room:

I love my mini pumpkins!

Clutter challenge ~ day 5

For your Sunday, here is some inspiration from one of my favorite blogs, Paige Knudsen Photography.  This blog post is over a year old, but I bookmarked it and refer back to it because it is so inspiring to me.  It includes some helpful tips, lots of beautiful photos and a video.  I love how she decluttered and now everything that's left has meaning and beauty.  When I look at the pictures of her home, it looks so peaceful to me.  Without all the visual clutter, I think you must be able to breathe a little easier and even think a bit clearer.  So inspiring!

via with permission from Paige Knudsen

Clutter challenge ~ day 4

I am working on my desk and office today.  Also, straightening the living room and catching up on laundry.  I don't think I will be able to keep up with the assignments from all of the organizing challenges I am following, so I will pick my favorites and keep plugging away!

Living Well Spending Less is focusing on the living room today and since that room is a quicker and easier project for me to tackle than my office, I went ahead and worked on that one first.

Before photos of a few cluttered areas in my living room:

1) The end table had stacks of magazines, some were over 6 months old!  The pile of books on the floor was all library books that need to be returned (by the way, The Brief Thief is a cute one for kids!).  The basket holds library books that we are still reading.  The play kitchen needed straightening.

2) The end table at the opposite end of the couch was being taken over by Legos!

3) And here's a close up of the small bookshelf that holds my kids' books.  Just needed a little straightening:

Here are the after photos in the same order:

I added a real pumpkin from our garden.  Love those cute mini pumpkins!

The Legos were put away so now we can appreciate the framed Halloween photos and there is even room to set a mug of hot tea (cold and rainy in Wisconsin today).

My daughter was a great help and straightened the bookshelf all by herself:

The room feels much neater.  In this case, most of the clutter was things that needed to be put away in their proper place.  A quick and easy fix for this rainy Saturday!

Five on Friday!

Happy Friday!

Here are 5 things I am loving this week ~

ONE

Getting organized with help from some of my favorite 31 days series.  Today I am working on my office, specifically my desk... in fact, I could easily spend the entire month on organizing this one room in my house.  It is such a catch all for things that have no place in our home.  I am determined to make progress on this!  Baby steps, right?  Hope to have before and after photos soon!


TWO

I love scarves and, since I live in Wisconsin, wear one almost every day in the fall and winter.  Most of my scarves are for cooler weather and I just saw this one at Target ~ it's the oversized plaid scarf in red and it's calling my name!

THREE

The leaves are starting to change in my town.  Love seeing the beautiful colors.  Love this time of year.  This is a free printable from the Free Pretty Printables blog:

FOUR

Today I am whipping up a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins from this recipe.  Life in Grace has the best recipes!!  Everything I've made from her blog has turned out delicious.

FIVE

My 14th wedding anniversary is coming up on October 7th and since it falls on a busy weekday, we will be celebrating by eating out this weekend.  We might be going to our favorite Indian restaurant (can never get enough Naan bread!) or perhaps trying someplace new.  Either way, can't wait!!

Clutter challenge - the entryway

Today the Living Well Spending Less blog gave the challenge of de-cluttering the entryway.  Coincidentally, I had started this project a week or two ago on my own, so I had a head start.  Our front door opens into a very small area, with the stairs to the second floor immediately in front of you.  There is no room for a bench or any other furniture.  We are fortunate to have a closet, which I was working on organizing.  (Unfortunately I did not take a before photo, so this before and after is not that impressive!)  Here is what I will call my "in progress" photo:

I try to keep only coats, shoes, cold weather gear and bags/backpacks in this closet.  The top shelf is the area that I started working on last week.  (Just imagine lots of hats and jackets jumbled up together on the shelf.)  I purchased 4 baskets from Target and mini chalkboards, also from Target (in the scrap-booking section) to label them with.

My baskets are labeled bags, hats, rain coats and snow pants and tied to the baskets with ribbon.  (The basket labeled "bags" is to the far left of the shelf, where the closet extends and is not pictured.)  Living in Wisconsin, we have lots of winter gear.  The blue and white polka dot baskets on top of the shoe organizer are labeled with my kids' names and are filled with their scarves, mittens, gloves and hats.  It is easily accessible for them and they are responsible for keeping those items in their baskets.

I was able to get rid of 4 pairs of shoes that were either worn out or outgrown & I reorganized the rest of the shoes.  We still have too many and they are overflowing the organizer!  Here is the after:

This closet needs to be straightened on a daily basis to keep it looking good.  My kids are responsible for putting away their own shoes, coats and backpacks (hooks for these are on the inside right of the closet).

Now I am going to light my favorite candle - Pumpkin Pecan Waffles from Bath & Body Works  - and work on the task of the day from the Overstuffed blog.  She suggested making a list of problem areas and specifically which items do not have a home, then prioritize the list and schedule a time each day to work on it.  I have a small chunk of time between when I leave my part-time office job and when my kids get home from school - that will be my organizing time.  Now to make that list!