Totally Organized Tuesdays: Gift Wrap Station

I am sure a lot of you have seen the gift wrap station from Better Home and Gardens. I wanted to do something similar with my mess of gift wrap to get ready for all the wrapping I would be doing for the upcoming holiday season.

I bought this Over the Door Organizer through Amazon and got busy putting it all together. The racks are all adjustable so you can put as many or as little as you want and place them however you want. Some of my wrapping paper was very tall so I could only put two shelves.

At the top, I store my scissors, gift tags, tape, and christmas ribbon (I have a designated place for all my other ribbon).

Only problem with this set up is that the bottom wasn't tall enough to keep the wrapping paper from falling when the door swung open and close.

I was just going to take a bungee cord and put it across the top. But  my husband being the genius that he is (shh don't tell him I said that) cut out the bottom wires of one of the shelves that I wasn't using and now all the wrapping paper stays in place.

It also gave me a great place to hang my tissue paper.

As for my gift bags, I hang them on a command hook in my craft room closet.

Now I just need to tackle wrapping all the presents I  bought on Black Friday.

The fabulous parties I am linking up to:

Lil Luna
Organize and Decorate Everything
Crystal and Co.
House of Hepworths
Delightful Order
Gluesticks
Tatertots and Jello
Be Different Act Normal
I Heart Naptime
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons
Let Birds Fly
Somewhat Simple
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
320 Sycamore

I am Thankful for...

On Facebook I have been posting a new thing I am thankful for everyday since the beginning of November. I thought I would also share the list of things here.

I am thankful for healthy children. They may be sick at the moment but I know it will eventually end, not everyone is as lucky.

I am thankful that I get to stay home with these guys everyday and read books about Elmo, all because my husband works very hard for us.

I am thankful for my husband who turned 30 years OLD today.  I taught the babies to say "dada old".

I am thankful for the time I get to spend with my children individually. The other one is running errands with Daddy. They act like completely different children without their partner in crime...no digging, no getting into trouble, they just sit and play contently.

I am thankful for this guy who made me an aunt for the first time. He acts so silly and was making his little cousins laugh a bunch yesterday. I am also thankful for all my other nieces and nephews, he just so happened to be the one I saw yesterday to get a picture of.

I am thankful for glue guns so I can make pretty wreaths like this one I made last week. Now I need to get busy on the second one. More on this wreath later.

I am thankful for the rain! I never thought I would want rain so much but with the ongoing drought that we have had since the spring, any rain is greatly appreciated.

I am thankful for my home. After one year of house hunting, more drama than you could ever imagine, and lots of prayers said, we finally found a house and it couldn't be a more perfect fit!

I am thankful for french toast and homemade pumpkin spice lattes. And for the person who invented the espresso machine.

I am thankful for sweet Lucy whose birthday is today. She turns her back to us when we ask her how old she is...a lady never tells ;)

I am thankful for my friend Jessica who whipped up these cakes for a special baby boy( my cousin's baby) at the last minute.

I am thankful for good healthy eaters. He chose a handful of lettuce over a bowl full of m&ms that was on mimi's island. I'm just saying...I probably wouldn't have done the same lol. But then again he hasn't had the luxury of tasting an m&m yet so he isn't quite sure what he is missing out on.

I am thankful for naps. The boys rarely take them anymore but they definitely need them. Notice that he is not in his bed, has destoyed his room and those trucks and gas tanks are not toys that would be decor for his room. Still thankful for the naps though even if they are only 30 minutes.

I am thankful for crockpots. You can forget about it and it never burns, a plus in my book.

I am thankful that the boys will always have each other. They fight all the time but if someone else messes with their brother, it is not okay with them. If one is hurt, the other one always knows the right toy to bring them to cheer them up.

I am thankful that I can do things like going to a restaurant alone with the babies and actually get to eat my food. There were many times when I thought that would never happen because of them pulling me in two different directions. Now they are pretty self sufficient.

I am thankful for Elmo who is keeping the boys occupied. Thanks Marla and Landry for the Elmo toy!

I am thankful for Saturdays where we are all at home. Finished decorating the big tree and then we watched Cars 2 snuggled up in my bed. For the record the boys only watched about 15 minutes and that was the longest they have ever sat still and watched a movie so I was impressed.

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for and I will share the rest of the this "I am thankful" series at the end of the month.

One Week

In the period of one week my boys have learned how to...

Use their pottery barn chairs to climb on the kitchen counters.

The next day we finally got barstools for our island, the boys can now climb on the barstools to get on the island. They broke a jar that was on the island.

Mad that I took away their chairs so they couldn't get on the counter, they learn how to use their little monkey feet up against the drawers and get to stuff far back on the counter. Grant brought me a Dr. Pepper can that he had spilt trying to get it off the counter. I am cleaning up the mess and he comes to me(not crying)  with blood all over his mouth, hands, shirt and legs. Needless to say I am freaking out trying to figure out what he did. Where was his cut? Well it looked like a small paper cut on his finger ( I am sure from the can he had snatched), he just bled a lot and spread it all over his body to give me a mild heart attack.

As if that is not enough...

They learned to climb up the side of their highchairs and get in them, not because they want to eat but because they want to be able to reach the cords to the blinds that I put up out of their reach.

And for those spots that don't have drawers to climb, they have their cars. It is all good until the wheels move away from the counter and they fall.

But we are all still alive to tell of it, so I guess it was a pretty good week.

p.s. boys if you are reading, mommy could really use a boring week next week. 

Totally Organized Tuesdays: Kid's Closet Edition

My boys have spent the past few weeks playing in their closet during naptime instead of ya know napping. We don't have toys in their room so pretty much the only stuff they have to mess with is in their closet. So I thought it would be a good time to get everything organized and move it all up and out of their eye level.

This is Gabe who is taking a nap on his chair, but not before he tore up his room and those trucks are not toys that would be decor from his window sill and don't even ask me how he was able to reach it. Oh and also note that he is not in his bed.

I did have these bins on the bottom shelf but since I had to move them up higher and wouldn't be able to see what was in them, they needed to be labeled.

I didn't have any t-shirt vinyl at home and was too impatient to wait and order some online, so I used regular vinyl and cut it with my silhouette. Are you wondering how I got it to stick?

- I applied the letters on to the fabric bins.

- I saved the backing that I peeled the vinyl off of.

- Placed the paper backing  on top of the letters and then took a low heat iron and pressed it for about 30 seconds.

- Do NOT move the iron back and forth, the letters will move from underneath the paper.

- Be careful not to leave the iron on too long because it will melt a hole in the fabric.

This will not work on something that would need to be washed. This could be removed if you want it to be but it sticks enough to where it won't just fall off. It's not perfect but it works.

Their shoes are at the top. And because we live in Texas I have to keep their summer clothes and winter clothes out at the same time because one day it's 90 and the next day could be 40.

The majority of their books are downstairs in the reading nook of their playroom but we keep some upstairs for bedtime stories.

So there you have it, this is how I "Gabe and Grant proofed" their closet.

Here are some other closets in my home:
Master Bedroom Closet
Junk Closet
Cleaning Closet

The fabulous parties I am linking up to:

Lil Luna
Organize and Decorate Everything
Crystal and Co.
House of Hepworths
Delightful Order
Gluesticks
Tatertots and Jello
Be Different Act Normal
I Heart Naptime
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons
Let Birds Fly
Somewhat Simple
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
320 Sycamore
Spring Into Organization Link Party

School of the Momma: Yellow

Yellow was the first color the boys could say.

Yellow is also the color of one of their favorite characters "big burrrr" and in case you don't speak baby that is Big Bird.

We played with yellow balloons. Balloons are always a hit at our house.

We made a yellow tornado bottle using water, a few drops of  dish soap, a few drops of  food coloring and some glitter. I hot glued the top on so that they wouldn't be able to drink it.

Of course we did our muffin tin meal again. I apologize in advance the picture doesn't look the least bit appetizing. I couldn't find my camera so this was taken with my phone.

Lamp Makeover

My craft room has very little natural light which it makes hard to see when I am sewing ripping out stitches. I decided I needed to get a lamp but couldn't find one that I loved. One day while at my moms I decided to take one that she was going to trash off her hands. I have a whole shelf in my closet of my mom's junk that is waiting to be repurposed.

Here is what it ended up looking like when I was finished with it:

It definitely wasn't anything pretty when it started but I liked the shape of it.

I knew I wanted to spray paint it. Because electrical stuff and spray paint don't mix, I taped off the cord with painters tape and I also took a grocery bag and taped off the part where the light bulb goes.

My lamp was part brass and part wood so I put a coat of primer on first so the paint would adhere to it better. Then I put several coats of cherry red spray paint.

I found a plain white lampshade at Target for around 10 bucks.

I planned on putting little rosettes like this one on it but I ended up not liking the way it looked on the shade.

So onto plan B...ruffles.

I tried to take picture of each step in making the ruffles but well that wasn't easy to do so I will just give you the basic steps.

- Cut the fabric to the length and width you want. Mine was 2 inches wide.

-Set your sewing machine to the loosest tension and the longest stitch.

- Using extra strong thread(this is VERY important) sew a straight line down the center.

- Take the top string and pull it cinching the fabric all the way down to the bottom until you get it as ruffly( pretty sure I made that up) as you would like it.

- Then knot the strings at both ends so your ruffles stay in place.

I then simply hot glued the ruflles to the lamp shade.

This lamp only cost me around 10 bucks.

lamp: free

spray paint and primer: I already had

fabric: I already had for another project

lamp shade: 10 dollars

I love it and I think it has a lot of spunk. My husband was less than thrilled with it and wanted to make sure it wasn't going in a room where he would have to look at it often. So I think I will make another just for his nightstand ;)

The fabulous parties I am linking up to:

Lil Luna
Organize and Decorate Everything
Crystal and Co.
House of Hepworths
Delightful Order
Gluesticks
Tatertots and Jello
Be Different Act Normal
I Heart Naptime
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons
Let Birds Fly
Somewhat Simple
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
320 Sycamore

Totally Organized Tuesdays: Junk Closet Edition

If you have been reading my blog  for awhile now you probably remember my Junk Cabinet from my old house. Well apparently having a whole cabinet full of junk wasn't enough so we now have a junk closet.

There is a reason there isn't anything on the bottom shelf and the bottom two rows of the over the door shoe organizer. That reason would be these little guys. By the way, if you are building a house and have kids....get round door knobs not the oval ones. The child locks don't work on them....just saying ;)

I needed a spot to put all the little stuff that doesn't have a home so I grabbed this over the door shoe organizer at Target ( who says it has to be for shoes?). For example, the boy's craft supplies, scissors, tape, glue, label maker, screw drivers, and hammers. I also added diapers and wipes so when I buckle the kids in the car and forget I don't have any diapers, I won't have to go upstairs to get them.

So we would know what is in each pocket and where to put it back I labeled each pocket. I took clear name badge holders cut scrapbook paper to fit in it and attached it using a clothespin. To make it easy to change up the labels as our needs change, I wrote on the name badge instead of the paper so it can be wiped off.

The baskets on the shelves haven't changed  since the junk cabinet at my old house. I have a basket that holds camera accessories, phone accessories, batteries, light bulbs, card. games, and scentsy stuff.

I love that this closet is full of JUNK but looks anything but JUNKY. I think I am going to take the same concept and work on my craft closet because it is JUNKY!

The fabulous parties I am linking up to:

Lil Luna
Organize and Decorate Everything
Crystal and Co.
House of Hepworths
Delightful Order
Gluesticks
Tatertots and Jello
Be Different Act Normal
I Heart Naptime
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons
Let Birds Fly
Somewhat Simple
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
320 Sycamore
Spring Into Organization Link Party