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

How to Grow A Vegtable Garden In Your Backyard

We love produce around here, and as a juicer, I go through a TON of fruits and vegetables.  Growing veggies in a small place is surprisingly simple.  You only need a very basic knowledge and sunshine.  It's so easy, and I'll give you an basic tutorial that will hopefully inspire some one out there to give it a try.

So here she is, our little backyard garden, starts laid out and ready to be planted:

This little piece of tilled land can put out a lot of produce; you'd be surprised how much.  Did you know a cherry tomato can literally give you over a 100+ cherry tomatoes (that's why some are called "sweet 100s").  It's dinner time, and you want some tomatoes for the tacos, just walk into the backyard.  Have I convinced you to try this??????  Here is a basic outline.

1. Land
You need a small plot of land.  You have a few options.  Option 1: you can do a raised bed garden, using cedar boards or, in my case, cement garden wall pavers.  This option is fairly simple.  You pick a spot, build (or buy) the sides of a box and fill it with dirt.  I would recommend putting down some weed/grass barrier if you are setting the box on grass because you'd be surprised what might find its way up through the dirt.  You do not want pressure treated lumber because it can leech chemicals into the soil.  Here's a picture of our sandbox, its the same exact concept (you can see the actual garden in the corner).

Option 2: plant directly in the ground.  You will need to prep the ground and there are different ways of doing this, but I prefer the good old fashioned method of tilling the land with a rototiller.  You probably don't own one of these, but you can borrow from someone, or I imagine they rent these things out.  First, mark the area with string and tent spikes, cut the sod (if there is grass) and till the land with the rototiller.  Depending on your ground, you may have some rock picking to do.  I survived this as a child, and you will too :). You can turn the land by hand, but its a LOT of work.

Make sure that where ever you place your garden, it is the sun most of the day.  

2. Enrich your soil
There are also many ways of doing this.  You can buy a bag of steer manure at Fred Meyers (I know it sounds gross, but this is probably the most simple method), you can use your garden area as a compost pile, throwing in veggie and  fruit scraps during the year, prior to plantings; you can get compost from anyone who has horses and cleans stalls (just be sure its "cooked" for a while or you will have a lot of weeds), I've even asked our local Starbucks to give me their used coffee grounds and they did.  There's over 100 pounds of Starbucks coffee in my garden (I joke that its my international garden because there are coffee beans from other continents in my backyard).  If you are buying soil form a garden center, it may already be enriched (talk to the garden center).  Even if you did nothing to the dirt, veggies would still probably grow.  Like I said, this is simple.

3. Select plants
You can grow from starts or seeds.  I like to do green beans from seed, and if I had space, I would grow corn from seed too.  The rest of my plants, I grow from little starts.  It's just easier for me, and because I'm not an expert, I generally don't fail with a start.  The little tag in the start will tell you how to space the plants in the ground, when to plant, and how long they take to mature; and pay attention!  Yes, one zucchini plant gets really big and will feed an army.  Unless you are juicing, you only need one.  Other plants like pumpkins and squash take up a lot of space and so they don't work well in a small garden.  I like to lay out my plants, prior to planting.  You can see that in this picture:

Here is what I have in my little garden: zucchini, green beans, yellow and purple potatoes, tomatoes, red bell peppers, yellow squash, mint, romaine lettuce, kale, butter lettuce, cucumbers, cauliflower, and nasturtium flowers (edible).  I plant the flowers around the edge of the garden for beauty.

4. Plant and Water
Here's the fun part.  Put these treasures in the ground.  With a start, its simple; just plant it in the ground.  With seeds, here's how my Momma taught me:

Lay out string that is attached to a stick, or tent spikes.  I used cooking skewers.

Next pay attention to the back of the package of seeds.  It will tell you how deep to plants them (which is generally VERY shallow).

Next, make a furrow with your finger, following the string so that your line is strait.

Next, drop the seeds into the ground (the seed packet will tell you how far to space them).  See the little white seeds?

Cover with dirt and water.

It may sound complicated, but after you do it once, it's pretty simple.  As you can see, the garden looks very sparse right now, but once all the plants mature, it will be full, with barely enough room to walk between the plants.

I hope your try it!

Please feel free to ask any questions.

Many blessings to you! - Home Centered Girl

Beautiful Color For The Porch, Planting Basics

Hi Readers!  Do you love to grow things?  I do!  I'm a nurturer at heart and love to nurture plants through out the summer.  Do you have hanging baskets at your place?  Have you ever wondered how to keep plants beautiful through out the growing season?  If you're a Gardner than you are going to know most, if not all of these tips and tricks.  If you've never tried it, but would love some color on your front porch, you may be surprised at how simple this really is.  I'll show you how to put together a basic annual flower pot for the porch.

Step 1.
Select your plants.  If you have mostly shade, then you need shade plants, if you have mostly sun, then you need sun plants.  At the nursery, just check the tag inside the pot and it will tell you what kind of sun it will tolerate.  You can plant a sun plant in the shade, but it won't grow very much.  If you plant a shade plant in the sun, it will wither and die.

Select your pot.  Almost anything will do as long as it has holes in the bottom for drainage.  If it doesn't have holes, then drill some in.  The pot I'm demonstrating for you was actually a big tin drink bucket from Target and my husband drilled some wholes in the bottom for me.  You can also plant directly in the ground, and many plants really like being in the ground.  (just ignore all the potting soil and garden tools on the ground in the picture :)

Now your on to soil.  Any old potting soil from a garden center will do.

Here's a tip on saving potting soil.  If you have a large pot and want to conserve some potting soil, put plastic containers in the pot prior to filling with dirt, like this:

Next, I arrange the plants on the porch and then use the same design in the pot.  Remember!  It's the beginning of the growing season.  These plants are going to grow.  Mine usually double to quadruple in size by the end of summer, so its okay to leave some space.

Add dirt, place your plants, and pack the potting soil around them.

Last step, water the "girls".  Always water after you plant.

You will need plant food.  You will need to feed these plants.  Ideally, you would do this once a week.  The potting soil you purchased likely has fertilizer in it, but you will need to start feeding soon after potting.  The most well known fertilizer is Miracle Grow.  You mix this "blue powder stuff" (getting technical) with water in a jug and dump it (more technical terms) on the pot.  It's good to give it enough liquid until it comes out the drainage holes in the bottom of the pot.  You can also purchase potting soil that has slow release fertilizer in it.  (I would still fertilize my plants regularly).

That's it.   

Now, one of the best parts of growing your own flowers, is that you get to cut bouquets for the house.  Did you know that women will release oxytocin when cutting flowers from the yard and arranging them in a vase for the house.  Cool huh?!?  Here is my first cut flower arrangements of the season. 

Thank you so much for reading!!  Many blessings to you - Home Centered Girl