High Five for Friday!

Here we are again, linking up with Lauren. Be sure to pop over and visit her blog too.

1. I (Niki) got a highlight, trim and eyebrow wax on Monday! It feels so good! I am in love with my new spring hair. I even tried a curly situation. I like it a lot!

2.Plus. Also, I (Niki) have been on spring break all week. That means getting a lot of things taken care of, including naps. I went for my fun doctors appointment, the dentist, the oncologist, you know, the usual.

3. I (Shannon) ordered these adorable water bottles! So now I am drinking chugging my daily water goal in style! Plus they were featured on our idol's blog...over at Iheart organizing.

4. We dyed eggs with the kidlets over the weekend. It was soooo much fun! We even managed to maintain a little {OCD} control. The kids loved it!

Disregard that Alfalfa hair. I have no idea what happened and I am not talented enough to photoshop it out.
So let's just pretend it's not there, mkay?

5. The boys and I took awesome silly face pictures. You might have seen some on our Instagram.
Look at us. We're so cute! I am trying to be more "in the moment" with my kids and to be a more present parent.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Linen Closet

Tuesday I shared with you some of my linen closet inspiration. I have a $0 budget so I will be re-arranging baskets and bins from other parts of my house.

This is where my linen closet started.

Ugh.

Double Ugh.

My ultimate goal is to completely get rid of this whole situation. However, I don't have anyplace else for a lot of this stuff. And we like to stock pile. So, something will have to give.

I started with your general sort. I stuck with a stays in the cupboard, stays (but somewhere else), toss and donate. I can't think anyone would want half used products or ratty towels, so I am not selling anything from my linen closet.

This is my linen closet completely emptied out, ready to be loaded back up.

Here it is after I put stuff back in. I have an empty shelf! What the heck?

Disregard that baby on the washer. I swear he's safe there.

That is due to this pile of goodwill stuff! That's not even all of it! I am very proud of myself. :)

Here is a good old fashioned before and after! Because who doesn't love those?

Also. I bought some plastic bins that will be making their way in here this weekend. This momma had a busy week of appointments and stuff, so they didn't make it yet. Stay tuned. :)

Did you participate in the linens and loo challenge? Share your ideas and progress with us!

Spring Cleaning {part two}

I'm still trudging away at my spring cleaning. Yeah, I know I just have a small apartment. But I don't have a lot of free time between my three jobs and being prom sponsor. I have to go in small sections, a little at a time. Plus, I got a little bit distracted and threw in a little re-arranging too. But I think that's okay. I would fully support re-arranging once a month if something isn't working out for you.

Here's what I've accomplished since I last checked in.

*Some serious sanitizing- kitchen, bath, and trash cans. (clearly this should be done more than once a year)

sanitize your nasty bathroom trash can. eww.

 * Took a time out for a five minute craft to use in my new "office space". Reused the shoe box from my most recent pair of running shoes to hide some of the clutter. Nothing fancy, but it does the job.

* swapped out our flannel sheets for regular ones. but I could probably stick with the flannel for another month.

* Windows, baseboard and trim got wiped down. This also included cleaning up the patio door. Those slider doors get nasty at the bottom! eww!

*I moved my "office" over to the kitchen area. We moved the dart board over to the corner of the "living room"- yeah that's right, we have a full sized dart board in our apartment. This is meant getting rid of my favorite old dresser that was previously stashing all my craft and office supplies. Still working on a new storage solution for that.

The office reorganization kind of turned into a much larger project than I anticipated. oops.

old home

new home

And here's what my lists are looking like. Things are slowly getting checked off. wahoo!

There's still time to grab your printables and play along with us! Click here to go back and grab them!

Linen Inspiration

This week I am tackling my linen closet. It houses everything from extra sheets, shampoo and cleaning supplies. I am not sure where I want to go with it. Its just a big wooden free-standing cupboard. My long term goals include painting it (inside and out), and maybe changing up the shelves. But for now, I just want some organization that works for us, and allows me to shut the doors.
So, I turned to my favorite place for organizing inspiration, Pintrest. You can follow Shannon and I on Pintrest, if you want. Sometimes we pin cool stuff. :)

I am loving this zero budget linen closet from Fox Hollow Cottage. She also has some great inspiration from other places to. Check her out if you are redoing your linen closet.

The blog Design Build Love has a 30 days to an organized home challenge with specific linen closet challenges. I love that she has a doable before and after. This is closer to what mine will look like. :)

There are many things I like about this linen closet from A Sort of Fairytale. I love the cheerful, colorful baskets. I love that they are from the dollar store. The whole make-over cost about $20! I could handle that. I also love the use of the back of the door storage. Also, this linen closet houses a lot of the same things that mine does, so that makes it easy for me to translate!

What linen closets are inspiring you lately? I can't wait for my revised linen closet to be done. I have already started with my initial purge. I didn't take a picture, but it filled a whole garbage bag!

My new {mini} menu board

Before we moved to our apartment I had this {diy} menu board hanging in the kitchen:

I was so impressed with myself for making it {read about that here} and I was super disappointed when I didn't really have anywhere to hang it in the new apartment. whomp, whomp.

So I have been living without a menu planning board for the last six months. I have a calendar that I roughly planning my meals out with. But I like the weekly format displayed nicely in the kitchen.

So I was home (to my parents') and remembered that I had this baby from when I lived there. Clearly my momma was not doing any meal planning so I snatched it.

It's nothing fancy. Just a fun piece of scrapbook paper and the word "dinner" cut out with my cricut. and then covered with contact paper (since it didn't fit through my laminator). ps. I chose dinner over supper, because dinner fits nicely without those below the line letters :)

I then made these quick meal cards in Excel.

I went with a simple tone on tone chevron to keep the background simple since my "menu board" was a bold print.

I just printed, cut, laminated, and cut again. Easy peasy. I left a few blank ones for me to try new things and for the old favorites that I have surely forgotten.

I just used these cute magnet tacks that I already had to stick them on to the fridge. I thought about labeling clothes pins with days of the week to clip them to, but decided against it for now. I might decide to do that later? We'll see how this works out.

And then in a burst of genius, I realized that I could stash all the meal cards into the clear plastic case that the magnet tacks came in and stick them on top of the fridge- along with the bf's giant tubs of protein powder. I love useful trash!

Such a simple project and yet it makes me smile every time I go in the kitchen. It solves my menu board dilemma without taking up any space. love that! 

What genius ideas have you come up with lately? Any projects that you've had to "re-do"? Share with us, we love the inspiration!

High Five for Friday

Here we are again linking up with Lauren at from my grey desk to share our Friday Five!

1. Jen from I heart organizing tweeted us!! AAHH!(can you see the star-struck look in our eyes???)

2. Niki got the second order of Girl Scout cookies! (I swear I haven't eaten 2 boxes) #thatsalie
3. I (Niki) went shopping the last couple weeks and have gotten some fun new stuff. I bought a few things from a Facebook swap group, and some from Kohl's. Expect to see some soon!
4. My computer is fixed and ready to be picked up! Hoooray! And the best part, Alumi get their computer fixed for free! #studentloandebtuptomyeyeballs

5. My car is getting fixed finally (from when I got hit in December) and I'm rollin a Buick for a while. #stylin

This is my #mixitupmarch outfit. When I wore this top the first time I wore it with the coral sweater. This week I wore it with a black cardigan and the coral scarf. I think I like the mix it up version better! What about you?

have a great weekend everyone....and don't forget about our spring cleaning sale in our etsy shop! Save 20% on your entire order. And if you haven't grabbed our spring cleaning printables, do that too!

Spring Cleaning Checklists

Shannon made some awesome spring cleaning checklists. Have you downloaded yours yet? If not, go here.

I downloaded mine and printed them. I printed one for every room, except the office. We don't have one. I also printed 4 bedroom pages because we have 4 bedrooms in our house. I needed to have one checklist for each bedroom.

I also printed out a couple blank ones. They are for specific areas I want to declutter like the coat closet and toy closet. I don't have any extra cool rooms, like the library or media room. But if I was cool, and I did, I would use them for that.

Also, I had to cross out some things, and change some things. For example, I don't have any carpet in my room or Carter's. So I switched that to sweep and swiffer. Other things like clean mirror, I just crossed out since I don't have one in my room.

So, if you haven't already, go download your spring cleaning printables, because they will only be free for a limited time! Share with us your spring cleaning plans. I am finishing mine next week when I'm on spring break. What about you?

Plus, more good news. We are having a spring cleaning sale in our etsy shop too! Save 20% on your entire order!