Thursday, March 29, 2012

Happy Spring!! {snow??}

My husband and I dove into a very spontaneous bedroom remodel for our 8 year old on Sunday, so we've been a little busy in our very rare spare time.  I PROMISE to post pictures soon.  Or you can see sneak peeks on my Facebook page!

As for us here in Oregon, we were officially 1 day into spring and then SURPRISE!  we woke up to this:


I am one of those grown adults that still gets all giddy when I see white on the ground.  I LOVE it.. but only for a day or two.

Here are my children stationed at the kitchen sink just drooling over the white landscapes.


My kids were screaming as loud as they could "snow mom, snow" and I thought there was no way.  What is there some frost on the grass that has the snow like affect?  We heard nothing on the weather reports for snow!  But sure enough, I throw on my bathrobe, and there is was, not a dusting of snow, but almost 8 inches!!!   Record snowfall in Oregon since 1993!


I captured some pictures of that day.  The kids raced to get snow gear on, which I will add was far and few.  This mom had already started spring cleaning, and the snow gear that was getting to small was the first to hit the road!  Oops!  We made it work.  





We had so much fun playing in the snow, and then realized that since we did not know about this snow, we did not plan to be stuck at home.  So.. we packed up and went on a family hike to the grocery store, and stopped at our local Bi-Mart and grabbed a sled.



Right near our home is this footbridge that crosses the busy street.  We head there every year if we get snow.  So pretty much once a year.  Ha ha  The scenery was gorgeous.


And we start sledding!!!  That was AFTER we grabbed our Starbucks coffee.  You should also know that this blogger is a grande frapp. girl!  So there I am hiking through the freezing cold snow, with my iced coffee.  Yep, had to have it, even if it was 30 degrees out.






After sledding, and grocery shopping we headed home to find that our neighbors tree had lost a very large branch, just barely missing their fabulous white picket fence.  There were so many smaller sprays off the large limb that it had hoisted itself over the fence.  I would have been sad for them if the fence was damaged, it's one of the prettiest houses on the block!


And there you have it Spring time in Oregon!  Today is sunny, with random sprinkles and VERY high winds.  Tomorrow it could be 75 degrees out and then hail mid-day.  Gotta love Northwest weather.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

I Organized My Toiletries {so can you!}

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Oh boy am I happy or what!!   I am feeling so organized at this particular moment.

Take a look at this:


Sadly enough I do not have a before picture.  It wasn't horrible by any means, but nothing matched, and it just wasn't working for our family.

Last week I was getting ready for our big craft club event and realized that I needed labels on my kids' "wall pockets" and had been putting it off for several months now.  I quickly created these:



I could not be happier with them.  Then this week I spent some time helping a neighbor get her home organized, which then lit my own spark to get more organized!!

That's when the hall closet fell victim to my love affair of plastic totes and labels!

I quickly created labels in Microsoft Word,  similar to the kids name tags.  I printed them out on full sheets of label paper, and cut them out using my craft cutter.



Then I emptied the ENTIRE closet.  Nothing was left behind.  I also used this time to do a little spring cleaning, wiping down the shelves, dusting for cob webs, and even threw out a lot of stuff we don't use anymore.

I purchased the clear totes with red lids from on Amazon.  They come in a pack of 12,  however you can always get them individually.



I enjoyed this project way too much!  Who's next? 



 Once I got everything sorted and bins labeled, I moved down to re-stock my bedding bins.  I have had these since we remodeled and created this closet, and it will never change.  It works so much better having the bedding in bins, rather than trying to have them neatly stacked on the shelves.


The totes are from Ikea, and I picked up the chalkboard labels from the Dollar Tree.  Gotta love that!

OK, so wanna know the BEST part of this post??  I have created these labels for you to use too!!  For FREE!!!  All you need to do is click on the link below, and download the PDF!






 
Thank you for stopping by today.   Don't forget to follow me on Facebook and Pinterest, and you can find me on Instagram and Periscope @OneThriftyChick and on Twitter @JennJSheffler.



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Saturday, March 24, 2012

Fun Idea {Blogger jewelry fail}

It's not a complete fail...so let's start from the beginning.

Last month a friend and I took our two daughters to the mall and had some mommy/daughter retail therapy.  I dont know about you, but I hardly ever go to the actual mall, and NEVER go into JC Penny.  Well we happen to enter the mall through JC Penny, and made a quick pass through the jewelry dept.

I found a few fun things for soooo cheap.  I mean like $2 - $7 cheap!!  This whole post is because of this necklace right here:



Cute right?  It was $7!!  I got it home, and started thinking I could re-create this with washers from Home Depot!

So that next morning I set out to find some trinkets.  Later that day a couple moms (they are friends) from the school came over so the kids could play, and my bff also came over as well.  We kind of had a little impromtu big girl play date.  We whipped out all sorts of supplies to see what we could create....

Let's just say, it was fun.... but not all that productive!  Ha ha ha!  We did have some great laughs though.  Here is how it went....

Lot's of kids, wanting to create with us.....


 Big Messes.... oh Starbucks and Slurpees too...  maybe we should have had wine spritzers instead?



Fun trinkets....


 Random Creations....


Here is my personal creation!  I actually do kind of like it, and have worn it!


But I will admit... the BFF Heather won this craft off!  Hers turned out amazing.... she cheated though.  We were creating necklaces, she went the easy route and made a brooch.  I LOVE it!!


I will definitely give this another try sometime.  Maybe when there arent oh.. 8!!  Kids running around.... 



Be sure and stop by all of the link parties I like to play at, by finding the links on my side bar...  Thanks for stopping by!!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

My Lucky Day {A Vintage Treasure}

I have a few posts lined up, but then something happened today, and I am just too excited not to share.  Now you are probably thinking I found some diamond ring, or even a piece of gold, especially if you are a friend on Facebook!  Ha ha.. maybe I overreacted just a tad?

A few months ago I bought a whole bag full of these twiney/string rolls.  I loved the vintage charm, and as you can see I planned on putting them in a cloche on my mantel.


You can by these things by the bag full for only 99 Cents!!  Score!! 


Anyhow, as I was taking each of them out of the bag, I noticed stuff crammed inside of a few of the rolls.  Two of them had mini rolls (I was so excited at this point)  it was like a gift that kept on giving, even though I bought it myself... does that even make any sense? 

OK, moving on.... the third spool had what looked to be lace tucked inside.  I started to pull it out and realized it was really really crammed in there.  One I got it out, this is what I started to see.  Someone had started a project and placed it inside the spool they were using.  It was still attached to the roll!!


OK, so all jokes set aside... I squealed really loud.  I was actually pretty bummed that my 6 and 8 year old were the only ones home, and I knew they would not appreciate the beauty in this.... so where to turn?  Why Facebook of course.  I am sure most of you reading this probably just wanted to see what the hype was about. 

Look at this beauty....  it was 3 pcs all hooked together.  It looks like bunting, which got me instantly thinking.  What shall I do with this?


Aha!  Use it to adorn thy mantel of course....  I LOVE IT!!  (screaming from the rooftops)


It looks amazing next to the very rolls it was created from!!  Here is another close of look at my new love.


OK, so truthfully... did I overreact?  Would you like this find?  Or would you have tossed it out??


Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Free Condiment Organization {an office joke}

I am very well known in my office for saving all of the condiment packets from fast food restaurants.  It's true....  Why throw them away?  How many times have you been somewhere to eat and they forget your condiments??  There is nothing worse in my opinion.  

In our small office kitchen, we have a drawer that is dedicated to these little puppies:


Everyone is pretty well trained now to just toss in what they don't use.  It's actually quite funny to hear people joke about it, but whats REALLY funny is how many people go digging through there for stuff when theirs was forgotten.  So HA!

When we moved offices a couple years back, I actually packed these (well of course not these ones) up and moved them with us.  That really got the laughs going.

Anyhow, the other day someone was looking for soy sauce.  Of course it was "ha ha ha, Jenn probably has some somewhere"...  so I opened the drawer and started searching.  To my surprise I couldn't find any!!  What?  Or maybe we didn't have any?  Either way... I was left feeling a little UN-organized... I was sure there had to be some in there....

I took the drawer into my office and started this:


A little sorting turned into this:


 A LOT of sorting!  I was loving this.  All those bright colors and such organization.  I knew it had to stay this way.  I perused the office for something/anything to organize that drawer and came across these:


It was the best I could do.  So I measured the height of the drawer and starting cutting these paper cups down to fit inside.

I filled the drawer with the cups, and then loaded them up with every kind of condiment you could imagine!  It was pure organizational bliss, I could hear the choirs sing as the horrible florescent light shined down upon them!
 

But, can you believe I truly had no soy sauce???  But everyone is so relieved they will no longer have to search for packets again!
 

Thanks for checking out my cheesy, but fun post!!  Are you going to start saving these?  Do you already save them?  I want to know if I am the only crazy one!!  Please share!!