Plastic Bags

I have an abundance of plastic bags. Ok, not any more, I tackled this problem and thank goodness! I wish I had a before picture to show you how awful my broom closet looked.  Just try to picture no room for anything, and a ton(about a million) plastic bags all crumpled up everywhere, and you are maybe close to how it looked!

This is what I have after the fact.  I have one big container for the broom closet, a glass jar for under the bathroom counter, and I have an old Lysol wipes container for down in the laundry room.  Looks great right!

Now to show you how I did it! It is super easy.  Remember making paper footballs in high school?  Well that is all we are going to do, just out of plastic bags instead of paper.  This took me quite a while to tackle them all the first time, but since has been so much easier for our busy life and really helps me feel less cluttered.  Way worth it in my opinion!!

 Lay your bag out flat, and push out all the air.

 Now fold it in half. Pushing the air out again.(when you do this by moving from the bottom towards the top, you don't want to pop a hole in your bag). I typically use them for garbage bags, holes make them unusable.

 Tuck the handles in!

 Fold in half once more!

 Start by turning one corner over, to make a triangle, keep going in the pattern until you get to the top of the bag.

 Now that you are almost to the top, you are going to fold the last part into the top of the triangle.  Make sure you stop when one of your triangles bottoms is up that way you have something to tuck the end into!

All done!  Now just put in some wonderful Tupperware containers and you have them all nice and neat for much easier storage!

 I can now enjoy my nice clean broom closet!

New Van

This may not be huge to some people, but I have seriously wanted a minivan since high school(just ask my parents).  I finally have one!!  It was a bit dirty when we got it as they agreed to knock the price down from what it was already lowered to if we agreed to take it as is. 

 So my wonderful boys got to work on it this weekend and now it looks as good as it did pulling off the lot for the first time(at least I think so).  They didn't wash the outside since it was supposed to rain, but the inside is all sparkly clean.

Elijah had such a good time helping daddy, he was giggling and he stuck the vacuum to his face once(I didn't catch it on camera) He brought his cars outside too and when he wasn't helping daddy he was playing with cars, and watching daddy work.

 He took a small break to drive the car.

And of course you have to turn the radio on while you're working!

Storage Room

Our storage room has been an absolute disaster(that is an understatement by the way) for over a year.  We kind of threw everything back there while we tried to get the main room done.  Needless to say it was very difficult to sort through things and try to find stuff when we needed it, and I always dreaded having to go in there.

This weekend we spent our time down there.  We pulled every last box out of that room and went through it.  Man did that feel good.

Our dumpster outside is now full and they don't pick it up until Friday morning.  We got 4 garbage bags of junk out of there, emptied 10ish cardboard boxes that we can now throw away.  We also managed to empty 3 containers-which we can put to use for baby clothes as this one grows out of them.

All in all a very productive weekend.  This also helped clean out the main room a bit.  We started organizing some things in there, but are still working on it.

Sorry I should have taken before and after pictures so you could see how far it really came.  The transformation is truly amazing. And both hubby and I are so excited to have so much junk gone.  Although not all the junk is gone.  My faithful hubby looked up everything and I mean everything, that we were going to throw away and if we could even make $2 on it, he listed it on Amazon or Craigs list.  We shall see if any of it sells!

Well that was our weekend-how was yours??

Kitchen Happenings

Today was a very productive day, which always makes me a very happy person!

First, I went grocery shopping (I was out of creamer for my coffee and that makes it an emergency).  Got all that put away, looked around my kitchen and noticed how messy I have been letting it get.

Second, because my kitchen was trashed I got to work cleaning it.  I mean really cleaning it.  I cleaned the oven, the stove top, all the counters.  I washed all the containers and everything that sits on the counters.  I put everything in my new canisters that I made awhile back with the frosty labels.

Third, I organized all the counter space and cabinets so they made a bit more sense based upon where other things were found in the kitchen. I really like the new feel of how it is set up. (I will add here in the last 2 years of living here I have rearranged where things were kept in the kitchen at least 4 times) I'm hoping this will be the last time, and it should be because it makes more sense than the last 4 times as to where everything is located.

Forth, I stained 3 cabinet doors (doesn't seem like a lot but that's all I can fit in one section of my house blocked off so no animals or babies get into it while it's still drying). 

Fifth, I stained the bottom of a long counter top that I have in the kitchen.  There are no cabinets underneath, so I just had to do the legs and then the bottom of the broom closet that it butts up against.  It looks really nice I must say.

Sixth, we put the flooring in.  Notice this one says we! Greg helped and I was so happy to have him in the kitchen with me. It had been a long day in there. (when I wasn't working on something, I was cooking the next meal, and washing the dishes!)  Eli helped me with the flooring as well.  He saw me patting it in, so we crawled around the floor and would pat all the tiles in as I would lay them down.  It was really cute, I'm wishing now I would have gotten the camera out for that!

Side Note- Greg did a wonderful job keeping Eli occupied so I could get some much needed work done, and I greatly appreciated it.  He also got some sanding and muding done in the basement while Eli was taking his nap.  Also a huge plus, working on two projects at the same time! He is the best husband a women could ask for! I'm telling you, everyone should be jealous(except jealousy is a sin so maybe don't be jealous just be really happy for me that I have such a keeper)

Seventh, As you notice it is a bit late in the evening now, and I just finished putting up those three cabinet doors I stained at the beginning of the day.  I had to wait for them to dry so it was the perfect time to get them up.

And Last but not least, I stained two more cabinet doors so come tomorrow I could get those up, maybe. 

I may just take tomorrow off, and use it as a day of rest as it should be.  After all, I feel quite accomplished after everything that I got done today!  Keep your eye open for some posts of all the things I got done in the kitchen.  I'm tired now so this momma is going to bed, but I will post about at least the floor tomorrow!