Valentine's Gift Idea

Last year I saw this on Pinterest and decided I needed to make one for my husband for Valentine's Day.  This is so simple to make.  I bought a picture frame at the Dollar Tree and painted it silver.  Then I printed out the words "I Love You Because..." on grey paper and framed it.  The glass works like a dry erase board, so I just change it up every so often with a dry erase marker.  He LOVES it.  Who doesn't like hearing nice things about their self? 

I've also seen these done with plain scrapbook paper in them and a cute fabric flower or two glued on to make a cute, girly dry erase board for menu planning, scripture of the day, favorite quotes, to do list, etc.  Another idea would be to print a blank calendar and change the month and dates each month.

Wishing you lots of love this Valentine's Day!

Molly

What Do You Do with Your Kid(s) Artwork?

I have piles and piles of my daughter's artwork that I hate to throw away, but I'm not sure what to do with. There are a few art projects that I have actually done something with and I'm so glad I did. 

I made a binder with all the art projects she did for preschool this year (we homeschool, but you can do this with what she/he bring home too - I included some of her Sunday school pictures too).  I just slipped the projects into sheet protectors and into a 3 ring binder.  This works great for things made on an 8 1/2x11 sheet or smaller.  Construction paper (I discovered) is too large for a binder.  So, all her construction paper projects are stuck in the folder part in the back.

Once I realized construction paper is too large for a binder and that it fades over time, I decided to buy a large package of scrapbook paper at Hobby Lobby.  It's almost as big as a ream of copy paper and it's about $10 (so a little more than construction paper) but it's also more like card stock weight. Nice thing is it doesn't fade and fits nicely into the binder - so it's worth the extra few dollars to me. 

Some of the special pieces I framed.  We have two pieces hanging on my daughter's bedroom wall.  They are her first painting and her second drawing (first drawing went to the grandparents).  I love seeing these all the time.  It's a reminder of how far she's come in her artistic ability and it adds color to her walls. 

If they weren't her "firsts" I would probably change them out every month or so to change it up, but since these are firsts, they are staying. 

A friend of mine staples or tapes large pieces of construction paper together and tapes the projects into her "books" so that she can fit all different sizes of artwork into the books. She said her daughter enjoys going through her books and looking at all her artwork. 

What do you do?  I'd love to hear your comments and get a few more ideas...I currently have a basket on a bookshelf and a drawer in a dresser packed and these projects need an organized, new home :)

Busting at the Seams with Art,
Molly

Makeover Monday: Plastic Bag Container & Snack Container (Recycled)

Do you ever feel like you have plastic bags coming out of your ears?  I certainly do.  We use reusable shopping bags but even so, there are times we forget them and those little plastic bags accumulate quickly.  I use them for our small trash cans in the bedrooms and bathroom.  The only issue is that they are so bulky that I keep them in the basement which isn't very conducive to actually getting the bags in the trash cans before something gets thrown in them. 

In addition, I go through a lot of creamer and recycle the containers, but I wondered how I might reuse them. 

I saw something similar to this on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try.  I wanted to make them pretty, so I used an idea from Little Birdie Secrets when she made labels for soap dispensers. 

Here are the original containers...

I took the label off the coffee creamer container and then printed up some new labels.

I attached the labels with mailing tape to make the labels waterproof for washing. I like that the snack container has my girls' names on it so that I can bring it to the nursery at church and they won't wonder who it belongs to.

I like the black and white with the red Folgers can.

Cut a + in the top of the coffee can.

Here's the +

And, see how bulky these bags are?

Guess what, all neatly stored in this container.  Cute and Space Saving...win, win. 

Now I have bags right in the bathroom vanity so it's super quick and easy to change the "trash bag" on trash days :)

Another use for the creamer container, wash one out and use it to store homemade salad dressing - nice easy pour spout. 

Note: I just emptied a Tum's container (actually my husband did - anyone know how to cure heartburn naturally?) and decided it would make a great snack container as well.  It's a bit smaller in size, so it's a good snack size and it has a larger mouth so the square pretzels that I buy will pour out of the lid easily.

Reusing Containers!

Molly

Organization TIP: Keeping Track of Borrowed Kid's Clothes

If you're blessed like me, you have friends who pass along their children's clothes for your kiddos to use.  This was the case for me with both daughters.  The first one was given clothes to borrow from two different friends, one of them labeled all the tags so when it came time to sort through them and give them back, it was very simple. 

This time around, I was given some clothes to keep for my sweet baby girl and some to borrow.  I thought I would remember what came from where (because I'm usually really good about that) but I have found that because I'm now focusing on three kids instead of one, I'm much more forgetful. So, when I was putting away the 0-3 month clothes I thought that maybe I wouldn't use the borrowed clothes for 3-6 months to avoid confusion in another 3 months.  But, I did it, I peeked at the borrowed clothes for the next three months and they are SO. CUTE. (thanks Mandy) so I decided I'd have to come up with a plan for getting all the clothes back in the right place.

I thought about labeling tags, but there are so many clothes and some tags are missing or hard to find.  So, here is the solution I came up with.

I took pictures of the clothes that were borrowed so I have a quick visual inventory when the time comes to pack them up to give back to my friend. Pretty clever if I may say so myself :) 

I grouped like clothes together: dresses, rompers, two piece outfits, etc. and took pictures of 3-4 outfits at a time. 

Now I'll not only know where each outfit belongs, I'll also be sure none of them went missing. 

Getting Organized...

Molly