Craft Room Re-Do

Over the past week, I've been posting items on Craigslist, so we could clean out the house a bit, and get some room. Declutter, declutter, declutter! Yesterday, 3 large items were picked up- SWEET!

This wound up clearing out an entire wall in the Craft Room/Den/Man Cave. I call it the Craft Cave. Nick just grumbles about me taking over his space. He forgets that when we bought the house, he said, "Hey, honey, we should find you a desk to go in here just for your sewing machine." This was before I said, "We could get you a desk for in here, as well, and you can make this a man cave!"

So, clearly, he offered first, and while I didn't use it for a good year, my craft desk has always had a home in there. The desk had, unfortunately, been taken over before I moved my crafts in there. The drawers had all sorts of fun stuff in them- diapers from when my niece stayed over for a few nights, our taxes from last year, junk mail, hermit crab stuff, video games, video game paraphernalia, and a lot more junk. It took me a full night to de-junk my desk.

But now, my desk is my craft zone. Because we cleared out so much stuff yesterday, I talked Nick into helping me move my craft area to the other wall. I have more space. I also may have commandeered his shelving unit for my own needs. I have a ton of space for storage now! I love, love,  love it!

It's not all done yet. I have a lot of stuff to sort and move, and stack, and what not yet.

Also in the family news this week... last weekend, the microwave cart apparently cracked. No one told me, they thought I'd get mad (I got this cart off Freecycle about 5 years ago, at least, along with a few others). It's a cute one, but oh well, right? We left it as is- the microwave was listing backwards, but it was holding. Then, during the week, we sold our 20 gallon fish tank, with fish. It was situated on another microwave cart turned fish tank stand.

Well, we hadn't had the chance to move the stands around, and last night, Gilly went to use it, and it broke completely. -sigh-

Nick shifted the stands, and we looked at the broken one, and decided- I can totally fix that with some kick butt glue! So, I have it glued right now, and setting. I'm going to add some more glue in a bit. From there, it'll store something lightweight on the top, but it has a shelf under that, and a doored section under that with 2 shelves. Plenty of awesome storage space for me!! Yeah!

My next hope? Replace my lamp. It does it's job, but that room is dark. The light fixture on the ceiling is just dark, and only holds 1 bulb, max of  75 watts, so that room is always dark. I have a lamp on my desk that is huge, and because the base is so fat, it creates shadows where it sits. It also takes up a lot of space, so I'm hoping to find a candlestick lamp for my desk. Being cheap, like I am, I'll check Goodwill before breaking down to buy one.

Maybe 2 candlestick lamps. I hate how dark the area is at night. And yellowish. The ceiling light gives off a slightly yellowish vibe, and the lampshade on my lamp does as well.

Now that I've rambled for long enough, here are some photos of the work in progress of moving my craft area.

Before:

 

  

 

 (This was after organizing it better... yeah, it's still a freakin mess, I know)

After:

 

  

  

  

  

(yeah, I know, it's messy again...)

And all this with the help of...

 

(yes, I occasionally indulge in a drink)

Also, just to show my stance on cleaning... I found this yesterday at Michaels. I fell in love, because, it is just so accurate!

 

My new slogan.

It's Time To Clean

In the days leading up to Christmas, I was on a bit of a crafting frenzy to finish things up before Christmas. Then, about 2 weeks later, I broke my tailbone. Needless to say, my craft area is a DISASTER. Capital D intended. OMG, I can't believe how disorganized it got!

I currently share my craft area with my husband. He has a TV in there, and his computer. His desk, the TV, and my desk take an entire wall up. We also share it with a large exercise machine we don't use, so it's on Craigslist right now. Then there are some more book shelves, and a bunch of JUNK.

We have two very large items on CL, though, and I am really hoping they sell fast, so we can get rid of them. If we do, I plan to try and talk him into re-organizing the layout of the room. It needs to be done better, for a chaos stand point.

Gotta get rid of the crap in there, and organize what is left a lot better. I also need to sort my books, and take a bunch into the local book swap store, because I'm almost out of credit there. Now, technically, I get full value of the book I trade in, and then I pay $.95 per book I buy, with the full value of the book being taken from the credit I have in the store. Only, last time I went in, I must have taken 15-20 books, and it was my first time. I left the store that day with 6 books, and yesterday with 4, and I don't have enough for another book right now. Bah. I have plenty to trade in, but seriously, one thing at a time.

I went in to DT today. I seriously, seriously need to stop doing that. I came out with some ideas and, of course, a handful of items. The majority of the trip was focused on cleaning supplies, and things to clean with- microfiber dishtowels, one of those dish scrubbers where you fill the handle with soap, etc. The kids are almost entirely in charge of dishes (man, I'm a meeeeean mom!), and they have this irritating habit of going through a full bottle of soap in about 2 weeks time. Way too fast. So, I showed them this, filled it, showed them how to use it, and told them to use that instead of adding soap. We'll see how that works.

-sigh-

Back to cleaning, organizing, and tossing old stuff away. I seriously have a huge problem with saving scraps. And when I say scraps, I don't mean something that will actually be large enough or long enough to make something. I mean tiny triangles of ribbon left over, or half an inch of fabric. I'm tossing all that today. Cathartic.

I took photos of my DT finds, and fully intended to post them to show you, so you could all ooh and aaah, and come up with your own ideas on what I plan to do with them. Only, the camera is all the way in the craft area, and if I go back in there, I may not find my way back out.

Wish me luck!

Making Cleaning Safe & FUN!

I had an idea last night. I wish I had had this idea years ago, when my kids were younger. Kids and cleaning chemicals are not the best combination, right? Young kids (I think under 3) should not be able to get at cleaning chemicals at all. But, I'd say by the time they're 3-4 years old, they are old enough to understand not to drink chemicals (in most instances, obviously every parent should be the judge on that, depending on what the child is like).

It's around this age that kids really want to mimic Mommy, and cleaning is still fun for them. While cleaning chemicals can look pretty in their bright yellows, blues, greens, and even purples, they aren't exactly something kids should be playing with just yet, either.

So, here's my idea- make a safe cleaning kit for kids, so that when it's time to clean, they can use their own "products", while Mommy uses hers (Or Daddy!).

What You'll Need:
1 Clean Spray Bottle (to avoid confusion, I do NOT recommend reusing a cleaning chemical bottle)
Stickers
Permanent Marker
Size Small reusable rubber cleaning gloves
Vinegar
Water
Colorful Scrub Brush
Micro Fiber Cloth
Bucket or Tub

Decorate the bottle & tub or bucket with stickers, and write your child's name on each item in big bright letters. Fill the bottle 3/4ths with water, and 1/4th with vinegar. The vinegar won't be harmful, if accidently ingested, and will give the water cleaning properties, and make it more of a deodorizer.

Make yourself a kit, while you are at it, and explain to the child(ren) that Mommy's kit (or Daddy's) is just for the grown up's, and the child kit is just for the kids. Put them away side by side, and when it's time to clean, everyone can help out!

The dollar store sells all of the supplies listed above in fun, bright colors. The spray bottles are opaque white, but have bright colored spray nozzles.

Organizing and Cleaning

While I want nothing more than to sit back, watch a movie, and make something, I'm going to be disciplined today. No, I don't mean I'm in trouble. I mean, I'm going to MAKE myself start on my resolution of cleaning and organizing better.

On today's list is the easiest room to start with- my bathroom, which is also, incidently, the smallest room in the house. And probably one of the most cluttered. I have no more counter space. I have stuff filling all available spaces. Time to toss the almost empty bottles of stuff I've been saving for 2 years. Time to get the dirty clothing out of there.

Once my bathroom is done, I'm planning to start organizing my craft area. Pack away the Christmas crafts that never got done (Christmas themed, and while, yes, I could keep it out and work on it, frankly, I'm sick of Christmas crafts), and try to make space in there.

A side effect of doing this- I need to sort out books on my book shelf. I have a lot of specific books I keep, because I re-read a lot of stuff. However, there are a lot I don't plan to re-read at all. There is a used book shop in town, so I'll start sorting them out to take in to the shop. That will feed my book addiction nicely, because then I can pick books out for just $.99, instead of $1.99 or $2.99, or even $3.99 for some of them.

So, to recap:

1. Clean & organize bathroom. Put wire shelf in below the sink. Sort & discard half of the magazines (there must be over 100, they take up an entire shelf in my bathroom).
2. Sort & organize crafts by what they are. Pack away Christmas ornaments, and Christmas crafts. 
3. Sort the book shelves. Set aside all books I no longer want, for the book store. Relocate the books on my craft shelf (it used to be a book shelf, but I need the space, darnit!) to the new space on the other shelves.

Will I ever get it done? I hope so. I have a reward in mind. Tonight, the theater in Lansing is showing "The Christmas Carol" on IMAX for FREE to facebook fans. I'm a fan! I am! Mostly, because they do 1 movie every WED for free to fans.

I wanted to go during the day, but the only showing is just a smidge too close to allow me to arrive home before the kids get home from school. Nick said I can go tonight, though. But, I want some serious work done first.

Wish me luck! And no- you will not get photo updates, cause it IS -that- messy.

De-Clutter My Life

We bought our home in 2008, and moved in at the end of June. We had lived for several years in a tiny rental house up north with 3 very small bedrooms. We had moved from there to live in a rather large apartment with 3 good sized bedrooms and 1 large bedroom, where we lived for 1 year.

Still, the house was huge. The apartment was 1500 square feet, and was a lot bigger than the 900-ish square feet of the house we had lived in for years. The house we bought is just shy of 3000 square feet. To say it felt empty is an understatement.

In order to fill in space, I began to troll Goodwill. In our new town was a wonderful treasure called an AS-IS center. It was filled with the cast off's from 15 area Goodwill shops. Items that didn't sell. The prices are rock bottom, nothing in the store costs more than $3.79. Most children's clothing is $.29.

When we lived up north, there were yard sales galore, every summer weekend. When we moved to Lansing, the area was too spread out to find many good concentrations of sales. I mostly stopped looking, it was a waste of gas to go from one to the next.

In this town, there are some from time to time, but not like up north. Goodwill has replaced yard sales for me. I have always loved thrift shops, but the Goodwill up north was over priced, and didn't always have much in. I would go in once in a while, and most the time, leave empty handed.

Not so down here. Down here, I go in several times a week, sometimes, and always leave with something. Multiple somethings. Bags of somethings.

I tell myself it's frugal- why pay $19.99 for a new pair of jeans for my teen, when I can find designer jeans in like-new condition for just $.99? In reality, is it frugal if it's something I wouldn't have bought in the first place?

Our home very quickly filled to the point of being overly full, by a LOT. In fact, most rooms have stacks of clutter in the corners, on top of things, against the walls. Too many things.

So, for 2010, I want to declutter. To do this, I'm setting aside 1 day a week where Nick and I (and not the kids, because that doesn't work, they don't toss stuff away) sort through 1 room. We'll declutter it by sorting trash from donations, and clean it by organizing it as best we can.

Any donation items will go straight to Goodwill (where they likely came from in the first place) that day, so as not to be taken back out of the box. Clothing is a huge one. We have way too many clothes. Anything that doesn't fit, anything with rips or stains, and it's gone. Get it out of my house! I have clothing baskets everywhere!

My hope in doing this, will be not just that I have less stuff, but that it will be easier to keep my house clean, and decluttered.

Another thing I'm going to do is limit my Goodwill visits to once every two weeks, with a small budget on how much I get to spend. Hopefully, this will make me more choosy on what I pick up, and how much I spend, and how many items come back into my home.

Cleaning...

I am not a house cleaner. I never have been, and likely never will be. I hate cleaning. Worse yet, I hate cooking in a kitchen that isn't spotless. 3 kids doing chores helps with the cleaning aspect, but man, they really don't "clean" when they clean, if you know what I mean.

So here it is, 9:30pm, and I'm cleaning. I went out to make something, and got just grossed out by food crusted on the stovetop, and clean dishes that weren't clean, or taken care of when they were clean. -sigh-

There's my deep dark secret. I'm a housewife who ignores the house part of the equation. So, the kids are busy sweeping. I'm past counter tops & stoves, and on to gutting and re-organizing cupboards. Plastic has taken over our kitchen. Too much plastic. All the "toss away" but really reusable crap is being bagged up, and dropped at Goodwill tomorrow.

Any lids without a bottom, or vice versa is like wise going to Goodwill. Countless plastic holiday straws, cups, and paraphernalia.So, all my serving dishes, which had a single small shelf, are being moved to the huge corner cupboard that was over taken by plastic containers. No person in the world needs that many plastic containers. We don't use that many at one time. It just seems like whenever we know we'll need some, we pick them up. Well, no more of that!

-sigh-

I hate cleaning. Back to the grind stone.