Meal Planning & To-Do List Printables

As I mentioned before, I'm trying to get more organized in 2014. One way of that is creating a meal plan and to-do list. The meal plan seems to be working (kind of) well so far. It's a new process for our family so it's taking some time getting used to having an actual meal plan. This is especially true when we really don't feel like having what we planned to have! I should also point out, that we don't really make anything ahead of time, unless I'm making my freezer meals. So it will take some time to make it work 100%.


Our to-do list is going good though. We are typically using it for chores only. This is very helpful for my husband to see visually what should (and needs) to be done on any given day. It helps keep him on track and has allowed us to share the chores more equally between us.
I thought it would be a good idea to post them for you to use. I hope they work for you just as they are for us. I will likely add more printables as I put more systems in place so be sure to follow and check back often :)  

 

Organizing Under Your Kitchen Sink

It's the beginning of the New Year and it's the season for resolutions. I don't typically say I'll do this or that this year, but one of my major goals for 2014 is to organize my house from top to bottom. I started on this journey in 2013 and have had some good successes with it, and it looks like I am starting 2014 off on the right foot.

This past weekend I spent some time organizing under my kitchen sink. There is really no way to make the space under the kitchen sink look pretty, but you can get it organized. 

All I needed for this project was the same bins I used to organize under my bathroom sink (click here to read that post), shelf liner, and my trusty label maker. I went back to the dollar store for the bins so this costs me less than $10 to do!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It's so easy now that I don't have any boxes or bags to go through to get to a garbage bag or to find a sponge. Now that everything has it's place, even my toddler can help put things away where they belong or find things easily enough when he helps us tidy up.

It's still not that pretty, but the shelf liner really added a nice touch, along with the pop of yellow. However, if you have a way for me to hide the pipes, please share! 

If you need help organizing or have a space you need help with, please comment below as I'd love to help find a solution and post it on my blog.

Happy organizing!

Organizing Your Utensil Drawer

Thanks to Alejandra from Alenjandra.tv, I have discovered an awesome new way to organize my utensil drawer! I probably shouldn't be so happy about organizing utensils, but it has been fabulous not having to search for the items I need. It's all at my fingertips - literally.

The product is DrawerDecor by KMN Home and retails for about $29.99. I picked mine up at Solutions.

The DrawerDecor system is actually a relatively new product of theirs, only launched about a year ago. The kit itself contains a silicone base with small dividers that all work together to keep your utensils in place. Even as you open and close the drawer, they just wont budge. They are also very easy to clean with only a damp cloth.

They have a few colours to chose from, but as soon as I seen it in blue, I knew I had to have it given that it's my favourite colour.

One of the great things about this product is that you can cut the mat down to size to fit your drawer, which is what I had to do. And although you can absolutely fit more utensils in your drawer without this, you don't have to fight to get the drawer open or have to move several things around to get to what you need. Once I bought the DrawerDecor it actually made me realize that I had way too many utensils in my drawer, a lot of which I didn't use or that I barely used, so I was able to purge a lot of the items.

Here's my before and after.

I really can't believe the difference. It just looks so pretty that I could almost stare at it all day. I just love the pop of blue.

I would really recommend this product to anyone. If you happen to pick it up or are currently using it, let me know what you think.

Oh, and be sure to check out Alejandra's website for some awesome organizing tips and video's!

Happy organizing!

*This post is of my own opinion and I am in no way affiliated with KMN Home or Alejandra.tv.

Organizing Under Your Bathroom Sink

I've had my bathroom sink organized for several months now, but I wanted to show you how easily and cheap creating a nice, organized space can really be. It's nice to see everyone in the family making use of the space, and when your items are organized, it's easy to put things back where they belong each and every time. It's very refreshing when you can find things without having to sort or search high and low for them. Plus, it saves so much time.

For this project you only need two things; stackable bins and a label maker.

The stackable bins I used are from the dollar store and they were only $1.25 each. I used 8 in total.

Then all I did was label each bin and sort my items into each bin before putting them under my sink.

For my bins, I have one side for my feminine products and the other side for hair tools, hair products, razors and cotton swabs, and travel and sample sizes.

I left a couple of items in the centre of my sink, like the extra hand soap and extra box of cotton swabs.

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. But the best part - it cost less than $10 to do.

Now if only I could figure out a way to hide the piping.

High Five for Friday!

What a week! I'm not sure about everyone else, but this week has just flown by! I'm very excited for the weekend so let's recap my five favourite things that happened this week shall we?

1. I made homemade Vanilla Extract last weekend. You can view the post here. It's coming along really nicely and the colour is really starting to turn. After a week, this is what it looks like.
   
   
   
   
   
   2. I got my hair cut! When my hair starts bugging me; that tells me it's time for a cut. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures yet, but it's basically a shoulder length bob. I absolutely love it.
   
   
   3. I spent some much need quality time with my sister. It has been a while since we have just simply hung out or went shopping and it's so nice when we're able to get together. It's hard in our daily lives to keep up with the one's we love, so I am so happy we got the chance. I have a three year old, and she has a three year old and a 4 month old so she's got her hands full! 
   
   
   (Yes, we were pregnant at the same time during our first pregnancies - it was awesome!).
   
   
   4. I spent some time organizing some of my laundry room cabinets. I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I finish something like that, and it did turn our great if I do say so myself. I'll be blogging about organizing different spaces soon, but here's a sneak peek at  what I accomplished in my laundry room. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   5. Tonight we are going out with friends to try a new local restaurant; it's called Shenanigan's. This is the time of month I look forward to quite often as we have a monthly outing where we go to a different local restaurant (no chains) to see what it's like, get a feel for it, try something different, etc. It's been a fun experience and we've certainly found some amazing places. We call ourselves, 'Fooding Hamilton'.
   
   
   Besides, who isn't up for a little shenanigan's every now and then?