Bathroom Organization

So one of the challenges on the 14 week Organization Challenge is bathrooms. I tackled the master bathroom a day earlier than the actual start of the challenge week, but I was on a roll.

I watched a video by Alejandra Costello that inspired me to try taking everything off the bathroom counter.

Here is the before:

Pretty chaotic in my opinion and not the best thing to greet you first thing in the morning. Oh and the diet coke was for the project...it does not greet me first thing in the morning.

After some cleaning and organizing:

Now Jason's stuff is on his side of the counter. Too bad we only use one sink....which drives me CRAZY. I love the feeling of calm that comes over me when I walk in now. Just like Alejandro said you would feel. I should take pictures of my drawers, they are organized as well. It doesn't take me any longer to get ready in the morning than it did before, but the mental impact that happens with being cleaned and organized sure is amazing. 

This is obviously underneath the cabinet. I didn't take a before picture, but this is a drastic improvement. I added the door basket.

While working on the bathroom, I decided to tackle the shower.  I found a bathroom pumice stone at Bed Bath &Beyond. We have really hard water here, so the shower has never really been clean. I scrubbed one side of the shower with this pumice stone. Can you see where I haven't finished yet? The results are pretty surprising. It does take some elbow grease. I did the shower ceiling on President's day and that made a pretty big difference. I need to continue working on the shower and figure out how to seal it so it doesn't get that bad again.

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As mentioned above I decided to add pictures of my drawers. They are organized as well. And I put everything back as soon as I am done using it. Been doing this now for almost 2 weeks. It gets easier and easier and I love the feeling knowing the isn't cluttered.

Organizing Challenge-Bedroom

As I have mentioned I have been slowly working on an Organizing Challenge.  Here is the checklist if anyone is interested.

I haven't done  the challenge in order, but I am trying to do something at least every week. If it takes me longer that is okay too.

I worked on our bedroom a little while ago. And while we could use some furniture, and flooring and wall decor I am happy with it for now.  I am seriously considering taking the bed frame apart as the mattresses already sit on the floor because you would need a small ladder to crawl into bed if we had the frame fully set up the way it is intended. I am thinking about just doing a padded headboard, but we will see if I can talk Jason into the idea.

I didn't take a lot of before pictures, because I just forgot. In this one you can see my beside table (the right side).

 New bedding from Bed Bath & Beyond

 I love our little kinetic sculpture sleeping away on the bed. Surprisingly Jason doesn't seem to mind the pillows and I love the way they look.

 The 3 bags by the antique high chair were recently taken out as they were donation items. See what I mean by needing some furniture.

I use a chest as a bedside table at the moment. I was using just the top of it and thought let's try something different. The chest was empty, so I figured I would open it up and use the tray inside. I actually really like it. I got a little mail sorter to hold my phone and tablet while they charge.
The bottom of the chest has magazine folders holding some magazines that are sorted by name. My goal is to go through those magazines every few months and get rid of ones I no longer need or want. In this process I recycled probably 20 magazines. I was a little embarrassed by this to be honest.


Master Bedroom Inspiration

Below are just some ideas of things I am tossing around in my head for some wall decor in our room.

The  first 3 pictures below are using ceiling medallions on the wall. Ours would be painted white of course to contrast the walls.

LOVE these!

with our initials of course

all in white-maybe on one side of the window or the wall by the bathroom

Or some type of mirror. Most of these ideas are just for above the bed. I have some other ideas for the other walls around the room as well.

Organizing Challenge

I decided to do this organizing challenge I found on Pinterest. It is the Bowl Full of Lemons 14 Week Organizing Challenge.

I did Week 1: Kitchen challenge, though I didn't clean out all the cabinets and wash them like she asks us to. I did go though our pantry and redid that.  Below are the AFTER pictures.

I also wanted to work on our tea cabinet which was a disaster in my opinion. There was tea behind tea, behind tea. Not to mention all the different strainers we have that don't stack well.
Here is the BEFORE:

'

Here is the AFTER:

I found the best thing for all the boxes of tea!  It is the YouCopia Tea Stand.  You can see it on the bottom right. It helped a lot.

I still have another cabinet I want to go through. Hopefully I can do it this weekend, since it is a long weekend. it is our corner cabinet located right next to the tea cabinet. We will see how that goes.

Week 2: Laundry room.  I worked on the Laundry room last summer and have maintained it rather well. So I focused on the metal shelves that were in the laundry room. I hate having them in there, but they are there for the foreseeable future and I need to make them work for me. 

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Still have some stuff to work on, but it is better.  The top 3 shelves still really need some help.

 I really want to install base cabinets and some more upper cabinets. But I know Jason and I will differ on that. He will want to make them, and  I want them before I move out (which isn't going to be anytime soon).  

I have ideas on ways to decorate the room, and need to start doing little things down there.  

In this process I also found a great Facebook Page that is tied to this challenge. It is a great place to go for support, encouragement, decor and cleaning questions, along with other things.

Pinterest Challenge #10

I am going to say this is a Pinterest Challenge because I learned about the book while looking at a particular Pinner on Pinterest.

Becky|Clean Mama is amazing and I love her book! It is a book that has natural cleaning recipes, using vinegar, baking soda, essential oils, etc. I love the idea of cleaning my house but not using all the nasty chemicals  to do so as they do make my asthma unhappy.

Her book- The Organically Clean Home

This book is amazing! It is divided up into different sections like Kitchen, Bathroom, Garage, Laundry, etc. I have been trying a couple of recipes out of the book since I got it and have been very happy with the way it seems to work, but even more importantly my lungs are happier while I am cleaning since I am not using the harsh chemicals.

So one day I decided to wash down the bathroom cabinet in the Master Bathroom. The pictures don't really do any justice to the actual result, but you get the general idea.

Before

After cleaning and polishing

The results aren't well seen in the pictures above the the color is richer and the wood just looks happier.  

If you are looking for a way to clean your house without all the chemicals, you need to check out her book.

Pinterest Challenge #9

Okay,  this whole blogging thing....I kind of suck at it. I am not good of updating things on a regular basis. But for those of you who do read this collection of very random things, thank you for putting up with me.

So I saw this pin on Pinterest about removing the black marks on your dinner plates. I thought I love that idea as my plates are covered in those. But then I had this little voice saying to me, "those marks are on there for good, good lucky trying to remove them, hahahahaha".  Well needless to say, I tried this little tip and I can say that the voice that was laughing at me is now silent. There was success!


Here is a bowl that I tried this on:

Before-see all the little black scratch marks

After

I say that is a success! I used Bar Keepers Friends like mentioned in the pin. I have used this product before on pots and have always been happy with the results, but this is the first time I have tried it on something different.

I also did a plate and another bowl, but didn't take pictures. The results were just as impressive on those as well. So now I am slowly going through my entire stack of plates and bowls a few at a time and scrubbing them down. I use the Weiman Cook Top Scrubbing Pad and really like them.

So if your plates and bowls have those annoying little black scratch marks, give Bar Keepers Friend a try! Our Bed Bath & Beyond had the powder canisters for $1.99 each.

Pinterest Challenge #8

Okay, so I have fallen off the wagon at bit. I think about doing a challenge, but there is just no motivation to do something.  Just in a slump right now.

I did make a recipe last week that I found on Pinterest. I thought it was rather yummy.

Spinach and Sausage Pasta- The inspiration

My attempt:

Supplies for Dinner

Served with lots of Parmesan Cheese (yummy) and cantaloupe and honey dew

I added some yellow, red and orange bell pepper and some grape tomatoes for color and flavor.  I used tortellini noodles instead of penne pasta. I got it on clearance at Safeway, and I liked the flavor the cheese in the tortellini gave the dish.  I think it would be neat to try with different pasta (there are lots of  different tortellini options) and sausages would be good.

Naw Ruz Celebreation and Pinterest Challenge #7

So this activity was actually before I decided to to my Pinterest Challenge, but I am including it because I got the ideas from Pinterest. Every March the Bahai's of Moscow hold a Naw Ruz  [nouˈɾuːz] celebration.  This marks the last day of the 19 DayFast which started March 2nd and the beginning of the Baha'i New Year.  Naw Ruz always falls on the First day of Spring, though there have been times in Moscow it has been snowing, this year it was actually decent weather wise.

This year I decided to tackle the table decorations. I am actually very happy with the way they turned out.

First the Pinterest Inspiration pictures:

Such a cute piece

Baha'i Nine-pointed star

Now for my result- I combined the idea of the above two. The flower piece is a Mason jar filled with green tissue paper, pipe cleaners and paper flowers from the American Girls Collection Paper Pad. Creating the Nine-Pointed stars was interesting, and not something I recommend doing after your normal bedtime. It is amazing how complicated rolling paper can be when you are tired. The jars have little ladybugs, butterflies and bumblebees on them as well. Overall I like the way they turned out. I used one of the American Girl Felt Flower Bouquet Kit to make something to hang on the door people walked through. I think it turned out really neat and it was nice to have something on the door. However, the stickers that come with the kit aren't really strong enough to do anything so I would recommend hot gluing everything together. I did the flowers with hot glue, but used the stickers to stick it to the base. I need to go back and hot glue everything together as well as make the other one I purchased. I don't have a picture of the felt bouquet all done. If I remember to take one I will try and remember to post it.

My Version

Transportation of  Center Pieces-not the easiest thing.

Door Hanger-not put together

The Venue-Schierman's Event Center

I also created a banner that says "Happy Naw Ruz". The banner hung behind the food tables. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was very nice to have a little something on the walls. I got the Letters and Shapes from Shanty-2-chic.com. I printed them on brightly colored card stock the tied them together with some ribbon. I want to see about getting the banner laminated for future use.

Banner

Here is the cake, well cupcake cake to be exact that was the centerpiece of our dessert table. It was yummy, but I felt guilty being the first person to take a cupcake and breakup the beautiful artwork Safeway did. However that guilt went away when I tasted it.....it was delicious.

Naw Ruz Cupcake Cake

We also had Safeway do a little cake just because.

The Sweet Adeline's provided some beautiful music.

Sweet Adeline's

Peter and Jolie Haug graced us with singing some Red Grammer songs, of which singing along is required.

Check out one of my favorite Red Grammer songs "I Think You're Wonderful"

Pinterest Challenge #6

I made Cinnamon and Sugar Bananas and Strawberries to have with some left-over Jambalaya. I didn't let the Coconut oil heat up enough so they aren't really 'fried' but I thought the flavor was really good. The cinnamon and sugar formed a nice syrup over the bananas and strawberries. I will make again but be a little more patient with the cooking process or method. I of course forgot to take a picture of my attempt, so all you get is the picture from the Pinterest Inspiration. Sorry about that. Overall they were yummy and I recommend trying.

Pinterest Inspiration 

Cinnamon and Sugar Bananas

Pinterest Challenge #5

I had a Delta Delta Delta event to go to and a treat was requested. So I made these. The pearl is one of the Fraternities symbols. These took about 30 minutes total to assemble and I thought tasted quite good.

They are Vanilla Wafers, whipped cream frosting (not homemade) and Sixlet pearl candies. I tinted the frosting, but I think even leaving white would have been pretty then the pearls would have really shown up. I also think using a thicker frosting like butter cream frosting and actually using an icing bag to pipe the icing would make them turn out prettier, but I had neither and am still pleased with the results. Plus they tasted yummy.

The Pinterest Inspiration

Pinterest Challenge #4

I used a new application called Waterlogue. It  allows you to turn pictures you take with your smartphone or tablet and turn them in to watercolor creations. I think the application works better with pictures that have lots of varying color, but overall it is fun and a puts a new twist on photos.

The Pinterest Inspiration- just beautiful

My attempt:

Original-taken June 2004

playing with Waterlogue

canola field taken Summer 2013

Playing with Waterlogue

I have seen some pictures where the color is just amazing and it is frame worthy. I haven't figured out all the tricks or anything yet, but it is a fun application to play with. It is available for both Android and Apple.