Operation: Get it Together version N.2

A big part of Operation: Get it Together for me is getting my children on board with maintaining our household. I have been looking at all different kids of chore charts, online on paper and even apps. But they were all to complicated. I have 3 kids, and several chores that need to be done. I thought about a rotating schedule, but I couldn't really make that work. I thought about switching jobs every week, but didn't really like that either. My kids get bored easily. :)

I ended up with a Chore Jar. I'm sure there are tons of them all over the internet, and I know I have pinned a few. But I wanted just the things that were important to me right now.

I decided to go with 3 categories: Daily, Weekly and Extra Credit. Each of the kids has to pick 2 or 3 daily chores a day. They get completed and at the end of the night they are put back in the jar. Each kid gets to pick 1 or 2 weekly chores. They get put back on Sunday night. Extra Credit are things that the kids are not normally expected to do but can do to earn some extra money, or at my discretion.
I had Shannon whip me up some super cute chore chart cards:

I printed them, and Shannon cut, laminated and cut again. I want them to last for a while.

 Then she made me a super cute label for my container:

I had planned on putting these in a cute mason jar. But it just didn't work out that way. Shannon raided my shelf of extra storage and found this fun green container from Dollar Tree. I just printed this, cut it out and Mod Podged it on my container.

Right now we can't find the lid to the container, so there is no picture of that, but used your imagination for now, I will be back to add a picture when I find the lid!

We have started using it. The kids each pick 3 green chores (daily) and 1 orange (weekly) every day. They love the job of wiping the fridge and freezers, and it pays 50 cents, which they love even more! My fridge has never been this clean. So far, we have done a pretty good job of maintaining our house.

Look for our customizable chore jar kit in our Etsy shop soon!

How do you maintain your household? Are your kids doing chores? At what age did you start them? Any helpful hints to get me through this?

April Challenge: More Spring Colors

So, it's a week into April and we have not introduced out new challenge. #fail

Shannon and I both noticed that we have not been supporting the fact that spring has sprung. We have challenged each other to wear more spring colors. We have tons of saturated, deep jewel tones. They work on both our skin tones. However, it is spring. Time to lighten up.

Oh yeah, those pants are size 6. Be jealous. :) Disregard the dirty mirror.

I have started integrating more spring into my outfits. You can follow our #ootd (outfit of the day) posts on instagram, if you want.

This was my Easter shirt. I LOVE it.

Have you brought spring into your wardrobe yet? Bust out the pink, purple, yellow and green! It's time for our outfits to reflect the new spring weather.

Share your spring outfits with us. We would love some more inspiration!

Linens and Loo Challenge Recap

We have been following along with Jen's linens and loo challenge this month. And we are happy to report that our bathrooms have benefited greatly from this! We love our pretty new drawers and organized spaces!

Here's the last quick organizing project that I snuck in. The medicine cabinet. It was getting a little scary and just needed a few minutes to purge outdated and unneeded things and get everything back in order.
Here's where I started:

eeek! Not sure how I can even find my toothbrush in there??

So everything came out and got sorted into a few piles.
stays here-back in cabinet.
stays-but goes somewhere else
trash
Nothing too complicated. Nothing from my medicine cabinet is going to be sold or donated. Who wants half used shaving cream??

Everything got a good wipe down. I even toyed with the idea of adjusting the shelves... since we rent, I didn't want to risk breaking a shelf or not being able to get it back in or something silly like that.

before                                  after

 after                                before

after                                before

Want to check out what else we have accomplished this month?? (We thought so!)

Niki's 15 minute bathroom clean up

Niki's Bathroom Drawers

Shannon's Bathroom Drawer

Niki's Bathroom Drawers part two

Niki's Linen Inspiration

Niki's Linen Closet

Don't forget to pop over and enter our spring giveaway!! Just click here to go to the post.

ps. We're linking up here:

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!

Challenge: Bathroom Drawer

As we have mentioned, we are taking part in Jen's bathroom challenge. I started with my washer and dryer and now I moved on to the top drawer in our vanity. It was a catch-all drawer and it ended up a toothbrush drawer, it's intended purpose (in my mind anyway). While the baby was in the tub today I plopped down on the floor and started sorting. I knew it wouldn't take long, especially if I broke it down drawer by drawer. So during the next bath, I will do the next drawer! Small chunks are much more manageable for me.
This is how the drawer looked when I started:

Ugh.
That is all.

I just started sorting things out by categories. Oral care items, make-up, hair stuff, feminine products, bandaids, garbage and so on. I knew that I was only keeping oral care in this drawer, so I kept them closest to the drawer. That's how my brain works.

I gave the drawer a good wipe down with water, a Chlorox wipe and then water again. I found a couple of cheap-o white plastic bins that I already had. It's not what I want, nor did I have any pretty drawer liner. But I knew I needed to just git 'er done. So when I find the perfect drawer liner or dividers, I can just swap them out.

This is what my drawer looked like when I was done.

Aah. Much better.

Now tonight, when the kids go to brush, or my husband is ready to floss, it is all easy to find. Are you participating in Jen's bathroom challenge? Hook us up with your projects for inspiration.

Fifteen minutes of {organization}

This month Jen at I heart organizing is tackling the linen closet and the loo. And you know how we feel about Jen. We are pretty much soul mates.
Now, in my house, the laundry room is in the bathroom. It is super handy, most of the time. However, when you have guests over, and only one bathroom, its not as much fun. I decided to start my bathroom challenge by tidying up the laundry area.
This is what we started with:

So.. there is a lot going on in there. Let me break it down for you:

• Clean laundry
• Dirty laundry
• Scale
• Empty laundry baskets
• Dryer sheets
• General bathroom business
• Thirty-one tote drying from after swimming

Really all this needed was a 15 minute tidy. I'm not sure it even took that long (not including folding the laundry).

Here is what I ended up with:

This is what I did:

• Took the clean laundry out to the living room to fold
• Stacked the baskets up neatly
• Put the dryer sheets in the cupboard above the washer
• Wiped off the washer, dryer and piggy bank
• Put away my big thirty-one tote
• Picked up and distributed all the misc. things

So, not a huge difference, but it makes me smile when I walk in the bathroom. I love that my argyle pig is one of the first things I see, not a giant pile of clean laundry. I have big plans for this room, hopefully I will get most of them accomplished for you this month! We have long term plans for this room, but for now I just want to make it a little prettier and a lot more functional.

Are you joining Jen in her organization challenge? Share your plans with us.

Pantry Pare Down Part 1

Jen's pantry reorganization has prompted me to spend some time clearing out the clutter in our most used room, the kitchen. Our pantry is just one tall cupboard with 4 shelves and a smaller cupboard on top. I am just starting with the 4 shelves for now. The cereal cupboard will have to wait for a shopping trip. Everything I am doing today, I am doing with stuff I have on hand.
This is what my pantry looked like before. Just a bunch of stuff shoved in when we came home from the store or get done cooking.

I started on the top shelf, just taking the stuff off one shelf at a time. That way if I wanted to stop partway through, I could. And in fact, I did.
I digress, here is all the stuff I got out of the first shelf:

This is after I condensed some things and threw away out of date things.

This is stuff that was on that shelf that didn't belong.

I got out my trusty Method Anti-Bac and wiped down the shelf. Nice and clean and ready to be reloaded.

Then I put all the top shelf spices back in. Nice and neat, spices only.

And now, a lovely before and after. Its not much, but it's progress! So here goes!

So... Are you participating in Jen's challenge? What kitchen organizing have you been doing? Share with us, we love all the inspiration we can get!