Warning: Replacing a water heater causes decluttering / reorganization

 

The water heater was here before we were and we have been in this house for 18 years. It was a real workhorse until recently. Then the water was only warm . .  and only for about 20 minutes at a time. We started having to calculate showers, dishwashing, laundry, etc. So after much discussion and debating and fretting by me, Pete with the help of our neighbor changed out the water heater.

Awhile back we had our garage enclosed creating a laundry room / large walk in pantry and, beyond that, a very large storage room guestroom. Something you might not know about me is I am one of those crazy couponers – I stockpile something when I find an awesome deal. So the thought of something happening in the Water Heater Changeout causing water to gush and flood because I am paranoid about my precious foodstores gave me heart palpitations!

So I emptied half of my pantry. I boxed and bagged all the food and moved the shelves and everything into the spareroom. Let’s see the before:

 

So here are the messy before pictures. There were wire racks full of empty glass canning jars mounted on the walls at either end, the cart taking up a good chunk of space and even though I work hard to keep the metro shelves tidy (I use tiles as “floors” and lots of shelfy dividers and baskets and bins), it just comes off looking kinda overstuffed.

Soooo, you can probably tell I hit a couple of deals – the oatmeal was ridiculously cheap after coupons and the chips after the buy one / get one sale and the coupons were crazy cheap!

To the right is the foodstuffs and the water heater. To the left is the laundry center and the non food stuff – serving pieces, cloth napkins and placemats, kitty litter box, drawers with spin art machines (I have 3 – shuddup!), electronics kits (we have 5 – shuddup!) and other stuff.Yes, I have 3 feather dusters- my nice Flylady one (that no one but me is allowed to use!) and 2 others for the kids to use.

 

I emptied the food side and he replaced the water heater (awesomely, by the way! Nice to have hot water again!!) and the we put the shelving back and reloaded them- purging and rearranging. But then the laundry side felt unkempt. Can you see where this is going? I purged and rearranged that side little by little until the pantry feels so much better. I am happy to walk in there now.

Here are the after photos:

 

Getting rid of the wire wall racks and the cart freed up space for the vacuums. Purged and rearranged. There are actually *EMPTY* baskets! See!?!

 

To the other side- also got rid of the wire wall shelving and the plastic drawers, shifting the catbox over (and yes, that is a wicker placemat being used as a litter catcher). I labeled the baskets that I hadn’t labeled before and got rid of a lot of serving pieces we really were using once ever year or two. How the heck did I end up with so much paper product (have wayyyy too much paper plates and plasticware)

I labeled each of the baskets and went through them (ugH!). Cleaning the pantry snowballed into cleaning out the hall craft closet (post coming soon) and the house looked quite a mess for awhile. It is slowly looking better.

I am disappointed that my wall racks and shelfy organization bits have not sold on craigslist. Next project is to clear the flat surfaces – the island (there are 2 baskets of stuff awaiting “repair”), the diningroom bookcase (kid projects tend to fester there), the top of the scrapbooking cart (a microwave cart that hold all my paper gear – I moved it next to the table so I could clean it out and sort and purge but now the top is full of clutter).

Semi FAIL!

Sooo, I got this shrinky dink printer plastic. And the thought I had was keychains or luggage tags. I already had some cell phone lanyards on hand (and now no ones phone has the little spot to attach them to anymore so I am looking for alternate uses for them! I got mine cheapy cheap off ebay).

I resized and printed the photos- took a little trail and error. You gotta use photoshop or something and reeeeeeally lighten them up.

 

Then I trimmed (using my scrapbook trimmer) and punched holes (used my cropadile) And shrank them in the toaster oven.

 

But the holes closed up too much so I gave them another punch with the cropadile.

I tried threading them on keyrings and broke a couple so I switched to small binder rings and just stacked them on, then clipped it to the cell phone lanyard and added these little keychain clippie thingies.

  

I had read about coating them and tried it- I used a clear spray paint I had on had. See the two photos below – at an angle you can really see the clear coat. It seemed like an unnecessary step with extra dry time.

 

I gave them away and they were well received. I clipped mine to my keys. Aaaaand then they started breaking. CRAFT FAIL! When I checked back in with the gift recipients they reported the same thing and no one was using them for anything now. Argh! 

I still think this has potential. Maybe earrings or a pendant – something with less handling that keychains. Also I am not talented enough but I do think a black pen carefully ran around the edges would class it up a but. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, I also had wanted the kidlets to write their names on the back but somehow forgot about that in the frenzy of the crafting. I make super tiny shrinky dinks (using a circle punch and #6 recyclable plastic because it comes out thicker) and have them write their names and date on them and I attach them to xmas ornaments (my hope is years and years from now it will help separate the collection so everyone can take “their” ornaments when they move out on their own).

Easy cheesy homemade gift idea! Post It holder!!

  

This is one of those crafts that is sooooo easy and doesn’t need a lot of directions.

Pick up a few of those clear acrylic angled frames. Cut scrapbook paper to fit.

Stick the post it pads to the outside of the frame (I used glue dots to do so) and stick small photos on the paper. Insert paper (play with photo placement if you are as spatially challenged as I am) and there you have a gift to brighten someone’s work cube!

This one was last father’s day I think.

Pay It Forward

Do you volunteer?

Is there a cause you feel passionate about?

I am a cat person. There have been times where I cared for a lot of cats at once (let’s just say for about a decade I had over 20 at one time and leave it at that). I have always had an indoor scaredy cat – basically an indoor feral cat who hides and rarely comes out and barely tolerates me (and that is only because I can open the catfood tupperware container!) for as long as I have lived on my own. I know this kind of cat needs a safe environment and would not make it outside of my house. My current scaredy cat is an 18 pound black and yellow tortie who waddles away as fast as she can whenever she spots a human and she hides under the sofa all day.

Once a month my wonderful husband uses a day of his hard earned vacation to stay home and watch the kiddos so I can volunteer. I help out a group who does free spay neuter clinics for feral cats. Every two weeks they fix about 20 – 25 cats.

Feral cats might not be cuddly, they might hate you, but, you know what, that’s fine. We still trap them and fix them and tip their ears so everyone knows they have been fixed. While they are knocked out they get shots and medical attention. I work in recovery. So I keep an eye on them and monitor their waking up, give them fluids (yep, I poke them with a needle) and (what I think is a cool perk!) get to pet a wild animal as it sleeps.

We have saved cat lives.

Follow your passion. Volunteer even in a small way. And it will renew your spirit and make you happy.

 

Signs

A sign (translation: no naked little sisters) I found that the 13 yr old had made.

The vehemence of the NO part of the sign cracks me up.

What would you buy with 100 bucks??

Well, the 7yr old would get a bunch of electronics apparently. I just wonder what the other kids in class wrote.

Recipe Re-Run

I know I have posted this before but it deserves a re-post. We have been making this almost every day! They kids love to make sandwiched with it. Unfortunately it makes a small loaf and my math skillz are not up to calculating how to increase it (without having a breadmaker overflow issue). I like this with tomato bruschetta for breakfast. I have been using rosemary from my neighbors’ gardens (because I killed mine when I moved the pot to the other side of the yard). I chop it fine using my pampered chef chopper thingie. I am saving the stems (sticks?) because I saw Marth Stewart used them as skewers for something and I wanna try that. I make this on the speedy setting and can have a loaf ready in 2 hrs!!

Jo's Rosemary Bread - courtesy of Allrecipes.com

· 1 cup water

· 3 tablespoons olive oil

· 1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar

· 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

· 1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning

· 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

· 1 tablespoon dried rosemary (note: I am using fresh)

· 2 1/2 cups bread flour

· 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

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Homemade Gatorade??

Saw this and had to try it.

Cue angels singing! This stuff rocks! I doubled the recipe and used a whole pkt of kool aid mix and poured it into an empty orange juice jug. Yay!! I plan on saving the few gatorade bottles in the pantry so I can refill them with this stuff.

So I used:

• 64 oz water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 packet unsweetened Koolaid

I also used the fake salt instead of regular – more potassium and we had it on hand anyway.

Spray Painting a Knife Block

  I love wood and I love spray paint. Usually I do not paint wood but . . . I saw this idea and then everyone in the blogosphere was doing it. Always late to the party, I had to try it, too! I had found this pampered chef knife block at a yardsale ($2 I think – I *know*! I was thrilled!!) and thought if it came out ugly I would just find another knife block at the thriftstore or yardsales. They are pretty easy to find.

So, I spray painted it using Oil Rubbed Bronze and it looks good! I’ve been using for a couple of months now and it is fine. No chips or anything. And no, I did not even sand it a smidge – just washed it good and set it in the sun to dry.

I sprayed the bottom (I thought it was the easiest way to paint the bottom edges), then just sprayed and flipped and sprayed some more. I gave it pretty good coverage and no clear coat. Love it!!

  Yes, that is a plate (glued to a candlestick) cakestand.

Yes, those tomatoes are from our garden.   Yes, we have wood laminate countertop and backsplash.

And yes, the ORB painted block looks much better than the old blonde tone wood did.

. . . . . . . .

And this basil is thanks to Julia and this is the second little bunch to root for me. I tried to plant the first one in a pot outside and it died within days. I am a horrid gardener. Anyone wanna tell me how to grow this outside? There are sooo many roots on these!! And all I do is change out the water ever couple of days.

 

Woodworkin’ in the Shed and Rescuing a Vintage Buffet

  When we got the new carpet in the living room we took a look at our tired cheap old plain entertainment center and decided it was time to let it go. We had bought it in a rush after the last time the house flooded and we were ready for a change. See, we are saving up for a flat screen TV as a family X-mas present and knew we wanted a vintage, long, real wood, something to go under it and also knowing our living room is HUGE and, well, *HUGE HUGE*, scale was something to think about. Selling our entertainment center proved harder than we thought and we ended up giving the sidepiece to a friend and free-cycling the main unit. No one is buying entertainment centers nowadays.

On Craigslist (duh! where else??) we looked at oodles of buffets and sideboards and record players and finally found a kinda banged up buffet that had been languishing on CL for over a month. Asking price was 80 and he took 40. It was at his friend’s house and the friends wife (or girlfriend, I cannot recall) wanted it outta the spare bedroom. Woo-hoo! Score! We loaded it into the truck and squealed the tires as we drove away (not really, but I was all smile-y and thrilled and doing the happy dance in my seat –while Pete rolled his eyes at me but thankfully he saw the potential in the piece, too!)

It sat in the shed for a couple of month and then Pete got to work. Sanding and sanding and more sanding, teaching the kids to sand by hand (child labor laws do not apply at our house!), gluing veneer and puttying the patches that were too far gone to resuscitate. Then he used a maple wiping stain and a bunch of clear spray finishing cans that I always pick up at yard sales and cleaned the handles – which are kinda like shells and are either Bakelite or some vintage plastic and it looks great!

We moved it into the house and I love it and think it would look great in the dining room if we decide it does not work in the living room! It matches the table and looks great under the dining room window! But for now the plan is to have it in the living room.

Stay tuned for the other piece of furniture Pete is refinishing at the moment – it was a craigslist freebie!! A vintage radio/record player cabinet!! The plan is to put the two pieces side by side (they do not match perfectly but we are hoping they will look good together) and the radio cabinet will house the electronics – the cabinets are a smidge wider than the buffet’s cabinets- and the buffet will house the DVD’s, games, etc and the dream TV will look nice hanging on the wall above the two gorgeously refinished vintage rescued pieces.

sugarfree chocolate pie!

http://genaw.com/lowcarb/chocolate_truffle_torte.html

Found this and have made it 3 times now. The kids dig it- although they eat good sized pieces!

Yummy!!

quick oven bread

I saw this link and have been making it quite a bit – some more successfully than others. It is really yum fresh from the oven and comes together in about 20 mins.

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Crafting with candlesticks

  I have been busy making these lately. I saw this craft making the blog rounds and was inspired. Then it became something of a passion and now I would say we are entering addiction territory. The recipe is simple: plate + adhesive + candlestick. Buuuuut the plate can be a small saucer or dish or bowl or platter. The candlestick can be tall or squat or something else (I have used a vase, a drinking glass and more!). Alot of folks on the web are picking up candlesticks at the dollar stores- trust me, get one without wax on it if you get it from the thrift store. It will take you longer to remove the wax than to make one of these! The plates, saucers, bowls, etc I have been mostly picking up at the thriftstores for under a buck each.

  The adhesive is supposed to be E6000 but I happened to have an opened tube of Plumber’s Goop in the shed so I used it and it has worked like a charm. Both are washable (although I hand wash not dishwasher for these) and stable. They do stink so proper ventilation, ok, people?

  You turn the plate (or bowl or saucer etc) upside down and then take the candlestick (or similar) and neatly glob or squeeze the adhesive onto the candlestick and adhere it to the plate. I sorta use my finger widths to judge if it is centered because some of the backstamps are not in the center. I put another plate and a weight on top to help it adhere well and give it a few hours before turning it rightside up and letting it sit for another day or two to cure.

Any clue what the base on this one is?? It is a ceiling fan light fixture!! I found a set of 5 at goodwill. They are gorgeous with cut diamond pattern and etching. And they nicely work on the larger charger sized plates.

  I have them all over- on my dresser to hold earrings etc, one on hubby’s dresser for change, one by the sink to hold bits and bobs, a big one on the island with fruit. The plan is to give them to some teachers at the school for val day (even though a couple have xmas poinsettias on them). I store them upside down on my pantry. I used them at the holidays and the varying heights make a nice display on the buffet.

       But I think I will be making these for awhile. Can you see one holding a cupcake as a birthday gift, or cookies (wrapped in plastic wrap) or in a bathroom with a bar of soap (not with my kiddos around but it would look cute in someone else’s house!). The only downside seems to be that my taste is vintage floral and glass and that might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

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Valentine’s worksheets

Here are some valentine worksheets for you to enjoy. I have some of these colored, cut out and taped to my livingroom windows. Cute!

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

Enjoy!

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