OMF 31 days l.o.v.e

For the last 27 days I have been following along with Becky at Organization Made Fun’s 31 Days to {cheaply} Organize Your Home.

I have been so inspired to do & even complete a few projects around our home. Thought I would share how I use few of the ideas that Becky has had during the last 27 days (I’ll also share from the next 4 days, but I don’t know what her ideas will be over the next 4 days. I know they’ll be good though).

Cardboard Boxes

So cheap! So easy to get hold of! I have used cardboard boxes almost all over the house. Click here & here for a couple of projects I have done with cardboard boxes in our lounge & new ‘landing strip’ area. I have also used cardboard boxes to store & organise things in our pantry.

Rubbish bins (aka Trashcans)

I use a rubbish bin to store my supply of potting mix next to my potting bench. I buy potting mix in large bags, because it saves money & I always have potting mix when I need it.

Labels

I am obsessed with labels! I was given a label maker for my birthday last year (or was it the year before, or Christmas…..can’t really remember) & I may have gone alittle nutso labelling. I also make my own labels in my craft room as well as on our ‘landing strip’.

Op-Shopping (aka Thrifting)

I am only a fairly recent convert to shopping op-shops. I picked up an old suit case which I use to store sheets in our master bedroom & a toast holder to hold letters that need to be opened & sorted.

 

Re-purpose Furniture

I have had a shelf unit with a storage chest underneath since I was an early teenager, it has been a piece  of furniture that has floated around the homes that we have lived in (and its a heavy piece to be moving around!!) not really having a purpose. One day it hit me, use it to create a ‘landing strip’! I used cardboard boxes to store all the junk associated with a household ‘landing strip’ (bags, seasonal clothes, etc..). Check out the transformation here. I’m not done yet, still want to add some hooks for coats & I have alittle more clutter that needs sorting. But I’m happy with it so far!

5 days worth down! Lots to go. I’ll be back with another post soon.

Link Parties

Tech free zone

I have totally admitted to being a tech head, I love having the latest technology and I use gadgets & apps all the time during the day for a range of things (click here to see my most used apps). I have been reading & listening to a series that Apartment Therapy did in 2010 called the 20/20 Fall Home Cure. I have enjoyed this series so much I have bookmarked it in my browser.

The cure is 20 days & 20 projects to completely change your home. Click over to the page for the 20/20 fall home cure & watch the videos. I have just finished watching all the videos & found that I really enjoyed doing the very easy daily projects. And I love the way I have changed in the way I feel about my home. That can only be a good thing!

Day 14 was all about doing a Media fast. Scary, difficult, impossible! A few words that came to mind before I started watching the day 14 video. But after watching the video I sort of had a rethink…..and thought that it was a very good idea. Turning off from the technical world & letting your mind relax, actually sounds good! But I decided to take things alittle further. A whole media fast room!

Every morning for at least 30mins I take time to spend on my relationship with God. I take time to pray & read the bible. Until recently I have been doing this in our bedroom, but it hasn’t felt right. I get interrupted & feel in the way when WH is home & is trying not to disturbed me but needs to get ready for  work. So I have decided to move myself into our guest room / music room. But the state of the room didn’t really reflect the carm, comfy feeling that I wanted. And the main reason would be the bookshelf in the room.

It was mostly used to hold all the junk that didn’t really have another home, it also held stuff for tax time & all our instruction manuals & warranty information. Not an organised piece of furniture. I thought about what I would like this bookshelf to actual do. After thinking for a couple of days I decided that an actual bookshelf was the best use for this bookshelf, I know, I know, smart thinking. Also this room since I wanted it to be a place of media fasting would be a good reading place. So I took everything off the bookshelf, sorted through it all and found new homes for the stuff that needed to stay in the house. Then I moved alot of our book from our bookshelf in the lounge dinning area and filled the new bookshelf.

I am so happy with how the bookshelf looks now. I have always struggled with styling bookshelves, I don’t think that I am particularly good at it. But I really like the way that this bookshelf has turned out. So much so that I find myself just staring at it when I am in the room. I really enjoy sitting in this room every morning, to pray & doing my bible reading. I still have things to organise, more projects to come! This is going to be a great media free space, my brain is going to love the relaxing & resting it’s going to get here.

Busy, busy, busy

OMG! I have been soooo busy. So sorry that I haven’t blogged for awhile. I am in the midst of planning an event for our Church based on the reality TV show the Amazing Race. We are holding it this coming weekend, so as you can imagine things are getting crazy! I can’t wait.

I am also in the midst of completing a project I started ages ago! Yeah for finally getting things (almost) done.

I am talking about the organisation & decoration of our TV unit. Since it has been awhile since I began this project things have changed with what I had planned, but I’m fine with that.

Here is where I left things

When I decorated the boxes for my “landing strip” project I still had loads of book paper left (may have bought too many books from the op shop, they were cheap!), and one day I was staring at my unfinished TV unit boxes and I thought that if I covered them with book paper as well then they would go with the boxes that I had just finished.

So far it has been three days of glue, cutting & folding. But I am almost there! Yeah, yeah. yeah! I totally promise that I will show you all finished result, I can’t wait to finish covering the TV unit boxes with book paper as I have come up with a fun idea to label them (WH still can’t find the DVD he wants when he wants it, sorry honey!!!).

Dating WH

I have been married to this wonderful husband (WH) for alittle over 6 years now.

One thing we have always tried to do regularly is continue to ‘date’ each other. We were pretty good at the dating thing before we got married, we started dating when I was 14 years old. But it is amazing how quickly you get into the habit of not making an effort just because you live together all the time. So we put dates into our calendar, to make sure  we put our relationship before the rest of our busy lives.

Our dates aren’t usually fancy, but they all share some important things. Firstly, we are together;

Secondly, we do something particular. Like shopping (yep, WH actually likes going shopping with me. Lucky girl I know),

eating somewhere, go hiking or doing a photo shoot (WH is an amateur photographer). Sometimes  our dates are as simple as going out for hot chocolate (neither of us drink coffee).

And lastly we do whatever we decide to do somewhere particularly nice. Not just going to the same places that we would go to for everyday shopping, etc….

Our dates are something that I really look forward to & value. And I know that this time together will be something I value even more, when we decide to have kids.

Cardboard Box shelf transformation

I love a good series and one of the bloggers that I follow Becky at Organizing Made Fun is doing a series called 31 Days to {cheaply} Organize Your Home.

I have really loved reading about simple was to organise that don’t cost the earth (and can be free in some cases!), and as anyone who reads this blog regularly will know when it comes to my budget for organising our home it is generally always $0. So this series has really been something that I have been enjoying.

Day 2 was all about the humble cardboard box, I was inspired to use some old boxes that I have lying around to organise a bookshelf.

Yep, I know serious help needed here. Half my problem was that I didn’t know how I wanted to use this shelf unit, I have had it since I was in High School (10 years plus!), it has this great storage box on the bottom that we are currently storing board games, backpacks & some towels (we got sooooo many towels when we got married 6 years ago, we still have a couple of sets stored). I finally decided that I would turn this into a ‘”landing strip” of sorts.

I really like how uncluttered and more simple things look now, things are still far from finished but I am very happy with how a few boxes have really helped to store & organise the things that we need here.

Once I decided that this shelf unit would be used as a “landing strip” (a place where I can put my handbag and my WH can put his wallet, keys & everything else he carries to work and around everyday) all the frames & things had to move somewhere else in the house (don’t know where that will be yet, I’ll let you know when I figure that out!).

Boxes are something that we aren’t in short supply of around here, we still have all the boxes we moved with when we moved in (5 years ago!). I have a hard time throwing things away, but I am glad for that here. Once I found a couple of boxes that would fit the shelves I cut them in half & ended up with four boxes out of two. I wasn’t going to leave them looking like boxes, I was going to cover them with plain paper & paint/spray paint them. But I remembered that I had some book pages left from this craft lift project, so decided instead to cover the boxes with book pages.

I was going to show you how I covered my boxes in book pages but my cousin Talia over at Number 19, did a great tutorial when she decoupages a lazy susan with music paper. So click here to see how to decoupage.

Once I finished covering my boxes with the book paper I attached some labels (I can’t remember where I got this labels from, put check out websites like The Graphics Fairy for great vintage labels (and other images). And I was done!

Still quite a bit to do, but these boxes are certainly on the right track. I’m a happy girl.

Tech-head techie

Last Sunday at church one of our Young Adults came up to me with this smile on his face, earlier in the service I had gotten up to make an announcement about Youth Group & had taken my tablet computer up  with me  since all the info I needed was on it. I really don’t like using paper, it’s a environmental thing & I just find my tablet more convenient (don’t have to find a pen or scrounge around for a piece of paper).

Anyway…..he came up to me and said ‘your such a techie’. I must admit I looked sheepishly at him & said ‘yep, I l-o-v-e technology!’.

I have always loved technology, my Mum is the same way which is defiantly where I get it from.

I wanted to share with you a new app that I just downloaded, it’s called Pixlr-o-matic

 

This app allows you to easily edit your photos with cool vintage & retro looks. You can get the app for Android or iOS you can also use it on your computer. Upload pictures from your computer & edit away. So much fun!

 

I am also an organisation nut (ok so not a shock….but I have to admit these things. If only to myself). And technology for me just goes hand in hand. Especially with apps again!

I am using a couple of apps for helping me stay organised & on track during the day. I used Task List – ToDo List to create & check off my daily tasks.

I can create multiple lists (I have 3 one for my blog, one for personal stuff & one that is related to my work). I can set day & time that a task needs to be done & even priorities my tasks.

I am also trying to find an app for keeping track of my regular chores, doing laundry, cleaning bench tops, making the bed, etc. Right now I am using Chore Checklist – Lite, I only downloaded this one this morning so I haven’t had a chance to set it up or play around yet. So I’ll have to get back to you whether this works how I want it to or if I go with another app.

Both myself & WH also use Google calendar, it syncs with all our electronic devices that have calendars on them. That way we both know what is happening with the other person & only have to enter an event once on one calendar.

 

What technology do you use in your everyday? Do you enjoy using technology as I do?

Small but mighty organisation

I have been going through our bedroom trying to make it a space that is restful, peaceful & above all else organised!

This weekend my bedside table was in my sights. I don’t know what it is but if I can close it then I have a tendency to stuff a whole lot of junk in & not think about it. I think that I get that from my parents, as much as I love them when we were growing up if someone was coming around to our house we would pick up everything in the main part of the house & throw it in the closest room with a door that you could close. For years I use to do the same whenever people would come over to my house, close the doors to those messy junky rooms, even if they were our bedroom!

So the draw in my bedside table was pretty full, problem was that it was full of stuff that I actually wanted in the draw. But with a few things that we had lying around the house I was able to organise & streamline my little draw. Making things much easier to locate (especially in the middle of the night when I need something in there!).

Believe it or not very thing that was in the before photo is still in the after photo, it is amazing how much stuff you can fit into an organised space.

I used a box from some chocolates that my WH brought home for me at some point (lucky me!), the box from a sewing kit that I got in amongst the toiletries you get in hotels & a couple of small pieces of non-slip material (love that stuff!!).

This was such a small space to organise that it only took a couple of minutes to do, only took me alittle longer because I took photos. To date this would have to be my favourite organisational project I have done in our home so far.