Tackle It Tuesday - Jewelry Storage

In February I'm working through storage & Organization for all appearance related items.  Last week was make up.  This week was jewelery.  I still have my closet, dressers, and nail care to go.
This is all of my jewelry, gathered up from no less than 4 rooms and 8 locations around the house.  I know, I know.  But when there is no good system for storage, things can get out of hand quickly.  I've tried a few systems over the years. One of the large jewelry cabinets hidden behind a full length mirror, craft boxes to sort earrings, regular jewelry boxes...  so far nothing has worked well for me. 

After sorting it all out, getting rid of about half, and putting the items I'd like to save, but know I will not wear right now (gold hoops will come back in favor eventually - but for now, I really only wear the silver ones..) in that white craft box to pack away, I came up with this solution:

The key to the success here is location, location, location.  :-)  All of my jewelry is now stored beside the mirror I use to get ready each day. I tackled this project last Tuesday  - and although it's only been a week - I am in love with this.  Before I would set jewelry on the cabinet right outside this door, all the time.  I'd take off earrings while sitting on the couch and let them on a stand, etc.. but this is so conveniently located that I haven't set jewelry anywhere but away where it belongs for the past week.  Awesome.

I don't wear the pins frequently - but to keep it easy to access them, the burlap is hung on picture hooks.  (Cup hooks would work too) so I can pull the entire thing down, remove the pin I want, and put the entire thing back up there.

The necklaces hang on a $3 tie hanger (belt hanger?  I don't know for sure what it is!) that I removed the hanger from.  I found it at Dollar General.

My earrings are on an old chain that is broken and tarnished.
Then in the little flip down drawer on our medicine cabinet, I added some scrapbook paper to the back, then inspired by the bottom photo of this post, I found mini cupcake liners in my pantry and used them for holding the earrings that will not hang over a chain well.  While in the pantry, I noticed a thread holder - a very old metal one - on my sewing desk, and I stuck that in here to hold rings.

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Photos that inspired me:
I love all the old frames re-purposed to frame jewelry.  

Right now my bracelets are stored in two small baskets hanging on the wall - but I might eventually do this.  

I think I'm in love with the luxury of this much space just for accessories.  I love all the different containers here.

I doubt this would be too practical - but I've always loved metal graters, so it amused me

If you had the space, this would be a pretty cheap and quick option.  

Another take on the frame idea - She has a silver one on her site too, and she shows you the thrift store dog photo she started with.  :-)  I love that she used a kitchen towel from the Dollar Store for her backing material!  http://www.320sycamoreblog.com/2012/03/shoe-jewelry-organization.html








Valentines Project - Button Heart on Canvas

Decorating For Valentines Day 2015

 
The inspiration piece came from here:

I had all the materials on hand, but I did buy some extra red buttons, because I didn't want to use up all the red ones in my button collection.  Which sounds silly, but if you have an awesome button collection, you know exactly what I mean.  :-)
It would probably be best to paint the canvas white first, but I was using an old canvas and the black covered what was already on there.  :-)
To evenly space the lines, I covered the top with painters tape, then removed every other strip.

Because it is painters tape, it peeled right off without hurting the paint underneath at all.  
It really made this super quick and simple

Then I used a cut out of a heart and outlined it in glue, to form the heart
On the original she used a red burlap heart behind the buttons - but I didn't have red burlap on hand, and I was ok with some of the background peeking through.





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An Index of My Crafting Posts
https://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/p/crafts.html

Tackle It Tuesday - The Medicine (Make Up) Cabinet

I didn't realize until I was done that I never took a before photo.  Just imagine ALL of this stuff, and a whole bunch more, crammed willy nilly in this cabinet.  It took me way too long to find anything, and I ended up throwing out more than half of what was in here.

 

Some scrapbook paper in the back, and a few minutes thinking about what I actually use and how I use it - and this is  much more functional space.  As I type this, it's been over a week, and it's still neat and nice.  

 


Menu Planning

How I Plan Our Menu

1. Set Basic Themes
  • Monday - Sunday leftovers re-purposed.  (Roast for Sunday dinner becomes beef pot pie, or beef vegetable soup.  Roast chicken or turkey becomes pot pie, or chicken/turkey gravy over waffles, etc).  If there are not leftovers to work with, this usually becomes my chicken day.  Some sort of chicken breast recipe.
  • Tuesday - Taco Night
  • Wednesday  - Crock Pot Night (I'm out of the house a lot on Wednesdays with BSF) & salad.  
  • Thursday - Pasta night.  (In football season, this is so our son has pasta the night before the games.  It became a habit over the years that has stuck even out of football season).  
  • Friday - Pizza Night - which is usually homemade calzones.  I buy provolone, mozzarella, sliced ham & pepperoni all in the same aisle at Sam's club, then bring it home and section it all into "portions" for calzones, and freeze it all.  Because Thursday night is pasta night, I can often set some sauce aside Thursday to dip the calzones in on Friday.
  • Saturday - Soup & Sandwiches.  Saturdays are often so chaotic, I like to have a soup on the stove or in the crock pot all day.  
  • Sunday - We have big traditional Sunday dinners here.  The rotation is usually Roast, roast chicken or turkey, pork loin,  lasagna.  The lasagna is served with salad & garlic bread, everything else is mashed potatoes & a veggie, often stuffing & applesauce too. 

These are not set in stone, and change as needed - it's just the basic template I work from.

2. Create Pinterest Boards For Each Theme
As part of of my electronics decluttering project in February, I am trying to find the best way to store my recipes electronically.  I still haven't come up with a good solution.  But for recipes to try, pinterest usually works great!  I have a board for each theme above, where I pin recipes I might want to try for Pasta night, or taco night, etc.
Pinterest Boards:


3. Create a Menu Calendar in Google Calendar
I've tried a variety of apps, notebooks, and pretty gadgets for menu planning..  but google calendar just works best for me.  It's helpful to see our schedule when planning our menu.  This is what January looked like - 
I uncheck the box beside menu so it doesn't show up on our calendar most of the time - except on the widget on my phone that shows my agenda for the day.  (I have two seperate calendar widgets on my phone, on different screens  One screen is a month view of our calendar that takes up an entire screen.  The other is my "daily" screen that has my agenda, my daily to do list (it resets every morning) and short cuts for our grocery list, to do list, and my husbands to do list.)

4. Set Taco Night & Pizza Night as repeating events on google calendar.
     This just saves me from entering them over and over.  They automatically repeat every week

5. Go through the pantry, open the freezer, fill in meals that use ingredients we have on hand
There's so much food in our freezers, and we need to rebuild our savings, so using what I have is a priority right now.

6. Fill in the blank days, using Pinterest Boards for extra inspiration as needed
This is rarely a needed step, this time of year. I'm more likely to try new recipes in the spring and summer, when more produce is fresh and local.  Winter is more of a "clean out the freezer and pantry" time of year for me - but an occasional new recipe is nice.

7. For meals that need prep ahead, set reminders in google calendar.  
If we're having turkey for Sunday dinner, set a reminder to pull it from the freezer a week ahead, Thursday I pull the calzone ingredients out of the freezer to thaw, etc.  Reminders set in google calendar pop up on my phone screen when scheduled.

8. Add ingredients needed to Out Of Millk
My favorite shopping list app.  I can add items on my phone, or on my computer.  https://www.outofmilk.com/

9. Keep ingredients on hand for some basic meals that can be made in minutes on nights that don't go as planned.
  • Hot sausage & pierogies
  • Jars of Ragu sauce, spaghetti, meatballs & frozen ravioli (quick pasta, or meatball subs)
  • Toasted Cheese & Tomato Soup
  • Sausage or bacon for Breakfast for Dinner