Reclaiming Our Spaces: Organization Inspiration

I am currently up to my eyeballs in projects for our church's new Sunday school classroom, so I do not have time to organize an area of my home this week.  I will not leave you hanging though!  I'm going to open up some of my Pinterest folder labeled Organize right here for your organizing inspiration:

from iheartorganizing

oh em gee, You have got to check out Making It Lovely.  So. many. good. ideas. I die…

MadeByGirl

on IHeartOrganizing via The Lettered Cottage

From Simply Organized NWA

Reasons to Breathe

Traditional Kitchen by Millersburg Cabinets & Cabinetry Mullet Cabinet
*I mean to add this into my kitchen stat*

These are just a few pins, feel free to follow the board.  I add to it all the time.

Holly worked on her daughter's playroom this week.

Summer Bow Stock Up!

Is your daughter a bow head like mine?

Well, here's your chance to stock up on bows for your little cutie!!  

What a great deal, right?  Just click on the picture above to be led to their website to get in on it.

You're welcome.

Huge Floor Pillows Part One

My church, The Grove Church, is moving & right now, we are preparing the new location.  I get to help a little bit with the children's sunday school classrooms.  I love it because my children will use these rooms & I love thinking about all of the children in these rooms.

I am currently working on giant floor pillows for the new Infant/Wobbler room.  It has been a fun project!

I'm going for something like this:

via Mandy Made

So, I checked out Mandy Made's tutorial along with a few others to get some ideas.  

While searching Pinterest, I also came across a cool idea.  The idea was to use Walmart-type sacks as filling to make them more squishy; kinda like a bean bag.  It takes A LOT of Walmart sacks to do this when your floor pillows are 4ft x 4ft though, so you probably need to hit up Walmart for your project.  I went there (after hitting up my friends) & they let me take allll of the bags in the recycle bin!  They were also EXTREMELY nice about it.  They even offered me a ton of those blue Walmart cloth bags if I needed them!  I didn't, but wasn't that nice of them?  Yay Walmart.  

So. many. bags.

Here's the room it's going into:

Isn't amazing so far?  The woman who is painting it is a local art teacher that attends our church.  Don't you just love the dove she's painted into the clouds?  Beautiful!

Here are the fabrics I picked for the room:

Well, I am in the thick of it right now, but this a little sneak peek:

This is not filled up all the way, in fact, this is about the point when I realized that I was going to need a lot more Walmart sacks!!!

Well, ok, that's all for now.  I will post the reveal when I'm completely done.

Reclaiming Our Spaces: Files!

This week I took on a long put-off task; I organized all the paperwork that needed to be filed!  I have had several jobs that included filing as part of my responsibilities.  So, you would think that my files at home would be just so.  Not so!

What I have had is an enormous stack of papers with a a mental label, "to do".

So, I got together everything I could find and laid it on on the kitchen table:

I started making stacks to sort everything.  It helped me see what was there.

1)  To be filed: From there I broke it down further by what type of item it was to be filed & date.

2)  To be transferred to another location in the house by location

3)  To be thrown away

 I did it slowly all day.  In the afternoon, while the kids slept, I brought my party into the living room and spread it all out there:

 Finally finished!!!  I would like to go back on another day& streamline it visually, but I am satisfied that it filed away.  It is all easy to find & there is no crazy stack by my bed anymore.  Yay!!!

After I was finished all my work, we went into the backyard to play!!

Lovely summer day.

This week Holly worked on her entry.  Check it out!

Reclaiming Our Spaces: Organizing My Double-Duty Pantry

Today I decided to work on the pantry in my kitchen.  It's a double-duty pantry.  I use the top part for food items & the lower part for the kids' frequently used crafts, art supplies & activities.  

My little pantry was getting pretty crazy.  I had it well organized when we first moved in, but 2 bad habits got in the way:

1)  Holding onto items that needed to find a new home

2)  Shoving items away in the cabinet instead of putting them in a specific home

So, I took everything out of the cabinet & sat down to think for a minute.  "What do I really want to be in this cabinet?  What needs to be thrown away?  Given away?  What needs to find a new home?"

Here's what I ended up with:

So much cleaner, neater & easier to deal with.  I love that I know exactly what's in there & where it is!

Another clutter area CONQUERED!!!!

Holly worked on her closet this week.  That is on my to-do list as well!

Check out CleverHolly.com for cute, savvy organizing products!

Italian Bowtie Pasta Salad Using Tyson Foods' Sliced Salami & Pepperoni

- - -

Have you ever tried Subway's Italian BMT sandwich?  Well, it's pretty good & I wanted to recreate that  in a pasta salad! 

 I attended a demo at Walmart for Tyson Foods' Pepperoni Toppings.  She was also making a pasta salad a little different than the one that I was planning to make.  She was the happiest.  Lady loves her job!

She cut her pepperoni like this for the pasta:

Finished Product!

It was good!

So, I headed home to get my own pasta salad going.  I grilled my chicken:

Gathered my other ingredients; here are a few:

Italian Bow Tie Pasta:
1/2 box of bow tie pasta
4-5 chicken tenderloins
1/4 cup of Olive Garden Signature Italian Dressing
1/4 cup of Shredded Parmesan Cheese
6 slices of Tyson's Sliced Pepperoni
6 slices of Tyson's Sliced Salami
1/2 green bell pepper (diced)
1/2 orange bell pepper (diced)
1/4 cup of grape tomatoes (halfed)
1 tbs of dry ranch dressing mix (trust me)
1/8 cup of red onion (diced)
Dried (or fresh) parsley to garnish

-Grill chicken, then dice it & let it cool
-Cook the bow tie pasta (al dente) & let cool
-Dice the peppers, onions, tomatoes
-Slice the pepperoni & salami in 4ths (I found kitchen shears to be more effective, than a knife)

-Combine prepared ingredients with italian dressing, parmesan & ranch powder. Refrigerate for 2 hours
-Garnish with parmesan & parsley

ENJOY! 

The Tyson's Sliced Pepperoni & Salami were high quality & super yummy!  Such an easy dish to put together & take to a picnic or potluck!  I used them again today & made english muffin mini pizzas for my little kiddos.  They would be great in hot pasta or added to a salad too!


Find more recipes on their website.  Follow Tyson on Facebook & Twitter!

Check out my Google+ album for more pics here.

Barbie is Moving Event

Last Saturday we went to the Barbie is Moving Event.  It's a touring event to be held in 13 different locations.  It was completely free and such a special experience for a mom & daughter to do together.  Super cute.   It was set up in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, but it was darling:

My friend Molly & her daughter joined us:

There were lots of cute places to take pictures!

Inside the house, there were boas, tutus & crazy sunglasses for the girls to try on:

There was also an amazing runway for the girls to prance on.

My daughter in her getup:

Such a cute girl.

So precious to have girl time together.

My friend and her daughter decorating Barbie dresses that got to bring home.

Cute!

There were also Barbie Mega Bloks packs that they gave each girl to keep, but they also had cute little area to build something.  The girls were allowed to bring home whatever they built as well.  My daughter has not stopped playing with them since we brought them home.  They were a big hit.

On top of all that, there was face painting!  We didn't want to leave!!

They gave each girl a little bag to take home which had the Mega Bloks & also some brochures for other Barbie events like: The Barbie Dream House Experience & the Barbie Dream Cruise.  They both looked dreamy for a little girl. 

Super great day!