Meal Planning

I've never really been too good at planning our meals in advance. Lately I have noticed that my repetoire of dinner dishes has become really narrow. I was bemoaning this fact to some friends 2 months ago in the hopes that we could all get together once a month to try out new recipes together...but that idea didn't go down so well. 

I decluttered the fridge door during the holidays

However, the most skilled chef among my friends, must have heard my desperation and organised to come around to show me how she organises her weekly meals and grocery shopping. She has great ideas and could write her own organising blog or book but is too humble and probably too busy with 3 kids and a family business.

This was my first week of ideas.

After planning my first week of meals my girlfriend then had a bit of a look through my pantry and said "You need to start here instead. You have so much food already!" So after she left, I re-jigged my meals. I can happily report that our family is now eating it's way through the pantry and freezer items.

I swapped noticeboards with my kids and put this one inside the pantry door.  I have since made some of the features un-erasable with the use of a permanent marker.

 Kid's Gallery

A steady stream of artwork comes home from school and Preschool, particularly with my my two youngest children.  Most are big enough for wrapping paper but thankfully some of the pieces are small enough to display on the fridge.

I  have also clipped A4 pieces to the wall in the kitchen. One display folder for each of my children.

I also put some new artwork into matching frames.

Other artwork is found scattered around the house.

Eventually I will get around to sorting through the basketful of other artwork that hasn't made it to the walls or fridge.

The Foreigners

We all have them. Things in our house that don't belong. They either need a new home to be found for them OR they need to be returned to their original home. 

Laura Wittman author of  'Clutter Rehab', collects these all and puts them on her "I'm Out of Here!" shelf near the front door. 

My book basket sits on the bedside table

As we rent, I can't add a shelf to the walls, but for now I am using the drawer of a retro stool near our front door. It will do for now, but I may use a larger box soon.

Both the box and CPU are supposed to travel to work with my husband this week.

I have started collecting the 'foreigners' and placing them either in the drawer or under the stool.

I am happy to say that the Susie Poole children's books were returned to the MOPS library today. The 'Feelings' 4 pack of books by Trace Moroney and the two teaching series tapes were donated to the MOPS library too. Alas I still have my friend's salad bowl (in a safer place)...perhaps I will just invite her and her family over for a BBQ lunch again this weekend!

Hidden Hangers

My kids came to dress-ups later than most. I have known children who will wear a Spiderman or Princess outfit 24/7, that's out and about and even to bed! Some parents have to bribe/coax their children out of their costumes just to wash them. I have two school-aged sons, and a 3 year old daughter in Preschool. It wasn't until my daughter hit 2, that dressing up became popular. My oldest, a son with Asperger's Syndrome still doesn't see the point unless it is Bookweek.

We have a lot of accessories that easily get lost in our larger dress-ups box. Most of them have been made by my lovely English friend De, who has a small business in the Blue Mountains near Sydney.

I used coat hangers, with some ribbon, to hang my daughter's collection of wings, gumnut hats and fairy dresses. Initially I hung these on the front of her bedroom door.

But it made things look cluttered. Then I found some great over-the-door hangers and re-hung things on the back of the door.

 I moved the raincoats and umbrellas from my bag rack to the back of the laundry door.

Then I put the backs of other doors to good use too!

My bags on the back of the main bedroom

Boy's dress ups

Lego Declutter

Yes...once again I spent some of the school holidays playing and sorting out Lego with my children. If you remember my last post in July 2011, I managed to sort the Lego into containers and labeled the tops. 

Since then the NEW Ikea catalogue for 2012 came out and I spotted some storage items that I thought could suit the Lego better. They are called RETUR and come in a handy 2 pack for only $10. They also come in a deeper bin as well.

So we bought 3 of the twin packs and 2 of the larger ones just to see if they would work...and I am so pleased with them that I will definitely buy more next time we hit Ikea in Brisbane.

I also photographed the blocks and created laminated labels for easy reference. So far it is working with the kids putting things away.

Alas school returns tomorrow and so today was spent getting ready the school clothes, polishing shoes, signing of notes and replenishing of stationery items.

and a bit of a tidy up!

I also decluttered the bag rack and hat hooks. From this...

to this... 

 

and made them personal.

 

Declutter #4 Paperwork

I had to tackle a few more clutter projects this week. The paperwork kept piling high and not getting filed. So whilst I had a day to myself I tried to sort it all out and pop it into the filing cabinet. 

But in order to get order sometimes you have to pass through Choas Central. And you may have a looooooooong stopover.

Sorting mail as it comes in has always been a problem for me. I needed a system to help me from piling unopened mail. My first school Principal told me to keep the round filing cabinet handy (he meant the BIN!) when you go through the mail. So now I keep 2 Ikea tough bags by the front door. The top one is for mail that has our personal information and needs to be shredded, The bottom one is for paper and cardboard rubbish that can go straight to recycling. But I still need to find a nice round one for plastic rubbish and other non-recyclables.

I have organised my 3 baskets into Catalogues (we don't get many of those living out of town) , in-coming mail and out-going mail.

Inside the doors are my files trays marked 'File', 'Wait', 'Do' and 'Read'. The red plastic sleeve contains all the 'Bills to Pay'. I have another yellow one for 'Medical Receipts to Claim'.

The two drawers are for those nick nacky things, like sunglasses, business cards, spare keys, pens and watches, that need a home.

Charming Cushions

About 2 months ago, my aforementioned online quilting group, had a charm square I-Spy swap. Well all submitted 5" squares and then received different ones in return. I sent these in.

and I got back ones that I hadn't seen before.


One of the ladies from Facebook asked me to make her 3 kids a large throw cushion each, and so I used up some of the new swap fabrics and some from my stash.

Boy - 8 - sport fan

Boy 6 - truck fan

Girl 3 - anything girly

My three kids are the same age and gender, so it was nice to go with familiar territory. As a large size 24" cushion, they will get plenty of use, whilst looking great.

Back of girly quilt...gorgeous drill fabric

I Love I-Spy Quilts

I have two nephews and this year i made them both a quilt. The oldest just tuned four and I decided to make him an I-Spy quilt using some of my stash. 

His bedroom has blue tones and he is also a big aeroplane fan, and so, earlier in the year, I had been collecting fabric to match. It was helpful that we had a road trip to Mudgee, Katoomba and Sydney in April and I could visit a few fabric stores in person.

So there's some Dr Seuss, pirates, wilderness, bugs, owls, Nemo, Diego and Castle Peeps.

I also pieced the back...

with some really cute tone on tone prints and leftovers.

Earlier this year I made my first I-Spy for my own son who turned seven. I followed a pattern from a 'Quilting' magazine that my mum had. It only took me 16 days to piece together during the summer school holidays.

I collected some older-boys fabrics and went for a green theme. My mum had given me all of her leftover children's fabrics and a pack of 'Wilderness' fabrics that she'd ordered from 'Keepsake Quilting' in the US.

A simple green backing...I hadn't yet discovered piecing.

I have my single-bed + sized work quilted by a lovely lady in Ipswich Queensland named Judy Speikjer. She has a long-armed machine but does the FMQ by hand. She is so talented and consistent.


I think I love I-Spy quilts because it's eye-catching, fun to collect, fussy cut and piece.