Organizing Gift Wrapping Supplies

Hi Everyone!  This is a simple little post on organizing gift bags and wrapping supplies.  There are many cool options in this arena and some day I would like to have a wall mounted or door mounted system, but this project was free!  I just used an organizer I already had on hand and this is a simple system if you are short on space and want to keep everything in one container.

Here's is the organizer.  It is specifically made for gift wrap, but I have everything in it.

Step 1: Get everything out where you can see it and start purging.  Do you suffer from the "must keep every gift bag I'm given" syndrome.  Do you have gift bags from years ago and still haven't used them?  Or worse yet, small pieces of wrapping paper.  I do this at Christmas time for stocking stuffers.  Now is the time to throw it out, or recycle it if you can.

Step 2: Sort gift bags, ribbons, and bows into categories.  Put all the birthday bags in one pile, Christmas bags in another, baby shower, etc....... Next, find the larges bag and stuff all the smaller ones inside of the big one for each category.  This will save you some sorting the next time you need a gift bag.  For bows, stick all of them in one bag, a zip lock bag works great for this.  Do the same thing for tags, and ribbons.  If you need a bag that is larger than the freezer zip lock bag, the dollar store actually sells "larger" zip lock bags.

Step 3: Put everything back in the organizer

Step 4: Tuck it away where its convenient, but out of sight; mine lives beside my piano.

I hope this hits your organizing bug!  Many blessings to you! - Home Centered Girl

Watermelon Lemonade, A Porch, and Two Rocking Chairs

Hi Readers, I so appreciate you checking out my blog.  A busy home school year has not left me a lot of time to dedicate to this website, but I am hoping to change that this summer.

I hope you had a wonderful Father's Day and I thought I would share a drink that we had over the weekend that is so refreshing!

Do you enjoy strawberry lemonade?  You are going to love this!  Seriously, this drink calls for a porch, a few rocking chairs, and a summer evening; which is exactly where my husband and I were on Saturday night.  It's a wonderful and fresh sweet treat.

Here's the recipe, I adapted it from Paula Deen's plain lemonade recipe on the foodnetwork.com.

Fresh Watermelon Lemonade (makes 10 Cups, which is a little over a 1/2 gallon)

1 C. fresh lemon juice (about 6 large lemons)
1 C. sugar (for even sweeter lemonade, add an extra 2 TBSP.)
1 C. hot water
8 C. cold water
2 C. chopped watermelon

First, dissolve sugar in hot water in a large pitcher.

Next, juice the lemons.  Prior to cutting the lemons in half for squeezing, roll them on the counter, with pressure, to release the juice inside.  Next, cut and squeeze over a bowl.  To get the seeds and extra pulp out, I pour the juice over a small strainer/sieve into a jar.

Next, add lemon juice and remaining water to the sugar mixture in the pitcher.  Now you have lemonade (easy, huh?).

For the final step, use a blender or a food processor to liquefy the 2 C. of water melon and 1 C. of your fresh lemonade.  This fruit blend will make enough for two full glasses of watermelon lemonade.  **You could increase the amount of fruit in the blender if you are wanting to make more glasses.  Since I like a little bit of it at a time with the hubby, I generally only make enough for two glasses.  If I wanted the whole pitcher to be watermelon lemonade then I would probably use 6+ Cups of melon, but remember, you will need a large pitcher!

Pour the blended lemonade over ice in a glass and then top off with more fresh lemonade.

Store the large pitcher of lemonade in the fridge for future rocking chair refreshments.  This recipe would also be wonderful with other fruit (strawberries, blueberries, peaches, etc...).  Enjoy!

Many blessings to you - Home Centered Girl

Kids Cabinet - Organizing Crafts, Coloring Books, Legos, Etc....

Hello Everyone!  This one is for the parents and grandparents out there.  If you have kids around then you know how coloring books, crafts, markers, paints, games and legos seem to appear all over the house (especially legos; I think I'm going to be finding them for the next 10 years).  In my attempt to get these items all in one place, I cleared out some storage in the "office" area of my kitchen and dedicated a cabinet to the kids.  This was a quick organizing project and its all at kid height.  I used some plastic bins from IKEA for this project that were very affordable.

Here is the mess:

Here's what I used to coral everything, I think these were a total of $3.00 including the lid:

These bins are a great size, stack easily, and the lid comes right off.  A baby could take the lid off, which is nice for small kids because you don't have to open the bin for them.

Next, I made picture labels for the front of each bin.  I found clip art that matched the content of each box, laminated the picture, and attached it to the inside of the bin.  If you have a non-reader in your house, picture labels make clean up easier.

For the "Craft" bin, I used zipper zip lock bags for small items such as pom poms and stickers (side note: these bins are also the perfect size for wide mouth canning jars, if you would prefer them over plastic bags):

Here is the area I started with; its a hodge podge, junkish looking cabinet:

Step one is to clear it out and clean the area:

Next, load it up with kid stuff:

The other items found more appropriate homes in the kitchen.  I do still keep place mats for the table down here because I like to have the kids help set the table for meals.

I think I should address an organizing rule that I am "kind of" breaking.  Good organizers generally keep like items in like spaces.  For example, an office would have office supplies in it, not canning supplies.  I am keeping kid supplies in the kitchen for now.  I don't see this as being a forever home.  Hopefully, we will have better storage in the play room and these things will move there at some point.  For now, I needed a place the was easily accessible to kids, on  the first floor, and this was the winner.  Sometimes you do what works for your family.  The total cost for the project was $12.00, using the new bins from IKEA and supplies I had at home.

I hope this inspires you to tidy up all the kid "stuff" in your home.  As I am writing, one of my kiddos is using one of these bins for a painting project.

Thanks for reading!!!  Many blessings to you - Home Centered Girl