Purging Break

I took a little break from my 40 Bags in 40 Days this past week.  I've been following Craft Snob and she has some great tutorials on making all kinds of different things.  The latest that I wanted to try was making fabric flowers and on Wednesday and Thursday I finally sat down to make a couple.  I now have something new to look for when I stop at the thrift stores...buttons!  :)

Because I know I'll be asked how I made this one, I took the time to take some pictures of the process when I made a red one the next day.  :)

Start by cutting out 8 circles of the fabric you want for the flower.  4 should be about 2 inches and 4 about 1.5 inches (you could easily make these bigger if you wanted a larger flower).  You will also need at least one (I used 2) 1.5 inch circle of felt to attach the flower "petals" to.

I chose to "singe" the edges of the fabric by holding the edge near a candle flame to get the brown/weathered look on the edges.

Then, you start to attach the petals to the felt.  Fold each circle in half and then in half again.  Use a smal dab of hot glue to attach the first petal.  I actually put another small dab of hot glue in the corner of the 2nd fold to keep it folded.  Start with the larger circles, then the smaller on top of those.

Now it's time to add a center to your flower. I just used some that I had on hand in my scrapbooking supplies. I prefer the larger sized ones, but a smaller button would look cute, too.Next comes the step for attatching the pin to the back.  I chose to make these into a pin instead of using for a hair accessory or on a headband because I don't generally wear stuff like that.  My girls will probably wear theirs in their hair when I make them some, but that'll come in another post.  :)  I cut 2 small slits on one side of the 2nd circle of felt.  I used a safety pin and put the felt thru the pin and then hot glued the whole thing to the other piece of felt.

These were a lot of fun to make and I'm excited to try some of the other kinds of flowers that Sara of Craft Snob has posted!

Day #7 - Fridge Freezer

My organizing and purging didn't happen until this evening.  Aaron & I went to Grand Forks for the day for some thrift store shopping and to get groceries.  The shopping was a success: Aaron got 2 pair of pants for work, I found an orange summer t-shirt, a silk scarf, and an orange/yellow/brown/black dress for myself, and a brown shirt for Hailey to wear under her Easter dress.  We spent most of the day in Grand Forks.  It's almost like we transported to a different part of the country because they hardly got any of the snow from a couple days ago.  You could see all kinds of grass and landscaping...things we were starting to see before our 20 inches of snow!
On Wednesday afternoon, some friends (& neighbors) of ours took advantage of the snow day to clean out their daughter's "too small" clothes and asked if we'd like them.  I've gone thru the clothes with the girls and of course, they wanted to keep almost all of the clothes, so that means that I now need to get out all of their "to grow in to" clothes so we can weed out some more clothes that they don't want.  That is definitely one thing I'm looking forward to when they stop growing...not having to sort thru clothes at least twice a year for all 3 kids!  So that project is ongoing for at least another day...meaning it's taken over the living room couch and the floor in front of it!  At least it's the weekend, so I can have the girls tell me "keep" or "give" since they don't have school.
Back to yesterday's project.  So, after getting the groceries in the house, I started to put everything away.  We usually buy a large box of the sliced cheese and then put it in the fridge freezer.  I haven't defrosted it for some time and yesterday was just the right time to do it.  I couldn't find a place for the box of cheese slices, so everything got taken out and put out in the entry until I defrosted the fridge.  It's so nice to be able to get everything in there and actually know what's in it(sticks of butter, chocolate chips, homemade bread from Gma, juice, etc.)!  Here's a photo of the after (I forgot to take a before).

Another day

I'm so far behind on my 40 days!  Today was going to be another day of purging, but the winter storm last night changed those plans.  We got about 20 inches of snow!  The kids and I were outside this morning shoveling a path from our front door to the garage.  Then, Hailey and I went back out to help shovel over at Gpa & Gma's.  Actually, Hailey helped Gma shovel and I walked around taking pictures.  I tried to walk in the shallow snowbanks, but it was up to my knees!
After uploading my pictures from today, I decided to do some organizing of the older pictures on my external harddrive.  When uploading pictures off my cameras, it automatically files them by date taken.  I decided a better way to file them would be to organize them by day, month, and then year.  It's been a project that needed to get done and I finally made the time to do it today.

Lexi & Jacob waiting for Gpa to push some of the snow out of the way so we could shovel.

Looking toward our door from by the garage.

Funny snow cover up in the tree.

Go for a ride?  :)

You can see the river from up by the barn which means it's time to watch for flooding!

Perfect weather for icicles!

Day #5 - Kitchen Pantry

I tackled the kitchen pantry this afternoon.  I knew there'd be a lot of stuff throw out and I'm actually surprised that I fit all of that stuff in there!  I started by pulling everything out and putting it on the table.  I actually checked expiration dates as I took the stuff out so that I'd hopefully have enough room on the table.  I still ran out of room, but it was when I got to the paper products, so they just got put on the counter and were the last out and last put back in.  I also remembered to take some photos of the before and after, but the before was after I had emptied a few of the shelves (I forgot about it until then).

The stuff from the first couple of shelves (minus the expired food)

I look forward to actually being able to find things and to not have to worry about them being expired when I do!  For the day, I got two big bags of trash/expired food, filled up the thrift store bag from yesterday, and have a small box of food for the local food pantry.  I'll be dropping that box off on Tuesday when I head into town to help with the Fruits and Veggies program at the school.  Tomorrow is Sunday, so I'll be taking the day off.

Day #4

This whole purging the house thing would be a lot easier if I could ship my kids off for the remainder of the time.  I would never do that, but it's a lot harder to do  this when you have 3 children needing you or something as soon as you get started.  The girls didn't have school today, but I was determined to get something done today, so after lunch, they were sent to their room to finish cleaning up their bookcase while I set to work on one of the upper kitchen cabinets.  Jacob was content to have some time to himself playing with Thomas, Percy, and Emily on the tracks his set up in his room.  He even put himself down for a nap!  :)

The cabinet I worked on today was kind of the "junk drawer" cabinet.  It housed the extra batteries, tape, envelopes, certain kid crafts/toys, tons of bubbles, etc.  After a little organizing and moving the bubbles to the entry closet, it looks great!  The kids' crafts/stamps are on the top shelf; bottom shelf has the extra batteries, envelopes, tape, and our budget binder (which was formerly on the counter).

So, tomorrow is another day of balancing my kids and another day of cleaning.  I'm thinking I'm going to tackle the pantry tomorrow.  There's probably quite a bit of expired food and stuff in there that just needs to get out of our house.  The pantry is one part of the house that I have previously worked on, but it's been quite a while since I went thru it.  I'll try to remember to take a before picture this time.  :)

Bag total:

Trash: 1 grocery bag

Goodwill:  Part of 1 grocery bag

Day #3

I'm a little behind on posting an update on my cleaning progress.  At some point on Monday, our internet stopped working so my plan for posting about the day after the kids were in bed were delayed until now.  The internet was still not working all day yesterday, so I was happy that it's up and running again today!
So, day #3 was dedicated to the kitchen countertops on the other side of the kitchen.  This side looks pretty good now even with the few extra things sitting on it waiting for me to find a place in the cupboards when I get around to cleaning them out.
I started out by taking all the stuff off the counters and just piling it on the kitchen table.  Then, before I moved the microwave, I cleaned that out.  Best trick ever: 2 cup glass measuring cup half full with 1 Tablespoon vinegar.  Place in microwave and "cook" for 5 minutes (or long enough to get a nice steam in the microwave).  Then, I used the sponge for the dishes and pretty much just wiped out the splatters.  It was so slick and I don't have to worry about any "chemicals" being left behind in there to cook in our food.  I also tried the lemon juice trick (just google it), but it didn't work as well as the vinegar.  And, the vinegar didn't leave the house spelling like pickles as it was just a small amount and the slight scent disippated (sp?) quickly.
After cleaning the microwave inside and out, I moved on to the upper kitchen cupboards.  I washed down the outside of all my uppers.  I'll have to do some washing down when I get to cleaning out the inside of the cupboards, but at least the outside looks clean.  I also washed down the fridge and got rid of a bunch of magnets that I either didn't like or that the kids have destroyed (the free ones from business).
I also have two bins sitting on the counter with some craft stuff for the kids.  This is only part of the crafty stuff that I have for them, but it was nice to get rid of a few things in those.  Then, the Christmas cards.  Yes, I still hadn't gotten rid of this years Christmas cards we received.  They were all piled in once place (with my purse on top).  I'm not a saver of that type of thing, so they pretty much all went to the trash except 3 if I remember right.  Perhaps after I do the dishes today, I'll take some pictures and post them so you can see the clean and organized countertops.  Perhaps.  :)
Today was somewhat of a challenge.  The day started out well, but then my son wasn't feeling the greatest.  The poor little guy was running to the bathroom almost every 20 minutes.  I'd just get going again on the kitchen when he'd holler from the bathroom, "Mommy!  Can you come wipe my butt?"  His little bum is so red and he cries when I have to wipe him. :(  Thankfully he was doing better yesterday and so far today.  Now his little bum just needs to heal.  Thank God for bananas!  :)
Yesterday was a day off as Little Man needed some Mommy-time.  It was nice to just hang out and chill with him.  That's why I'm a SAHM!  Now, working on the motivation to do some more cleaning today, but have to be done by 3pm as my oldest has an eye doctor appointment today.

Bag total for Monday:
Trash: 2 grocery bags
Goodwill: 1 large bag

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