My daughter's thrifty laundry room re-do

Linking up to the party at Mimi's Tray of Bliss Premiere of her brand new Five Star Frugal Link Up 


My daughter is a busy working mom with 2 little ones and another son due this spring.  To get ready for an even busier season of life, she is doing a multi week home de-clutter and organization challenge Facebook group thing.  The first weeks assignment was their kitchens.

This week's challenge was the laundry area.   

I don't have a complete "before" photo but here are the highlights 

First, she had some boxes she wanted to use for children's art supply storage. She thought about covering them with fabric but my fabric stash didn't have enough of any coordinating fabrics for all 4 boxes.

Then I remembered all this roll gift wrap that I bought at Hobby Lobby at least 5 years ago. The rolls are very long and the paper is almost too sturdy for one time gift wrapping.

Since their laundry room was already painted gray, she used the the black and white prints.

I think the covered boxes look so pretty and they really hold lots of stuff like glue and crayons and tape.

The only thing she spent money on was for these new laundry hampers.  She added their photos to help with sorting. 4 year old Elizabeth even told 1 year old JJ where he was supposed to put his dirty laundry. 

These hampers have a solid shelf on top that should be a good surface for laundry folding.

Their washer and dryer is not new, just cleaned off and decluttered.

She moved her heat press to the cabinet between the 2 appliances - its a perfect fit too. She uses the heat press to add custom designs to clothing and accessories.

 This space on the wall was damaged from an old rack. They didn't have any of the gray paint so they painted a big almost black square there to use as a faux bulletin board.

Here's the AFTER in one photo.

Really nice job I think! 

Monday to - do list ........

Good morning everyone! It is cold foggy month in Oklahoma so I will mostly be doing things indoors today. I started my week's to do list last night, I think it will keep me busy all day.  There are a couple of items from last week's list that didn't get done and had to be rolled onto this list.  And I need to add "clean stovetop" to the list as my morning oatmeal boiled a bit over.  

I know some of you are saying "ewwww" right now. Sauerkraut is one of those foods that people either like or they can't stand.  My husband and I like it, especially this German kraut from Aldi. I don't think they carry it all the time but have it during their German week events. 

I'll be baking the pork loin chops with diced onion and the kraut for our supper. 

Oven meals are great on cold days like this, the oven cooks the food and also helps warm up the house. 

About my previous post, I had no idea napkins from old tablecloths would be so popular! 

They really were quick and fun to sew. One son claimed the set of 12 and the others have been promised to my brother's girlfriend. 

About the size I use for napkins, I like about 17 inches.  On a reuse project like cutting up tablecloths, you just about have to let the fabric decide though. 

Have a good Monday everyone! I hope to get as many boxes checked on my to do list as I can. 

Sewing- napkins and baby cloths

I've been cleaning out a closet and got rid of several tablecloths that didn't fit our table but I kept 3 sort of vintage thrifted tablecloths even though  they didn't fit our table either. I thought about cutting them down into dish towel size but I am not really in need of more dish towels right now.

Then my son mentioned he wanted more cloth napkins. So yesterday, I cut the 3 tablecloths into napkin size and finished off any edges that needed it. 

I left the sewn edges in tact so some of the new napkins only needed 2 or 3 sides finished off with narrow hems. I first ironed them and then machine stitched. They were a quick project, 

There are 4 in the first stack, 6 in the middle stack and 12 in the last pile. 

It was the biggest of the 3. It had a repeating design of this big fruit bowl so I tried to center one on each napkin. 

I don't know if my son will think these are cool or hokey. But if he doesn't like them, we will use them.

My other sewing project used 3 little flannel blankets from the thrift store. They were really too tiny to swaddle a baby but I bought them because the fabric looked brand new and the color is fairly gender neutral. 

I cut them into rectangles and rounded the corners, then sewed them up into burp cloths. 

4 of them are a good size for a burp cloth but the 5th one is pieced from the scraps and is a bit small. But maybe it will be used by an older sibling on a baby doll when the new babies arrive.

My craft room has no shortage of supplies to continue with similar sewing projects. Hopefully I'll get more done soon! 

CVS this week

I recently found a YouTube channel that spells out her bargain deals in detail. She shops at a number of stores and I like the ones she does on CVS as that is the store I concentrate on

She posted a video yesterday of her CVS deals,  I think she bought over $300 and paid for it all with Extra Care Bucks and got back more Extra Care Bucks than she spent. 

http://youtu.be/BeuejaCCziI

So after I watched it, I organized my coupons and went to CVS.  I am very happy with my deals though I spent $38 but I got items we really need.

I got 7 packs of diapers ( they are all little sizes for the 2 future grand babies)

6 bottles of Bayer low dose aspirin

3 bottles vitamins

3 boxes band aids

And the little cans of butter cookies were on clearance for 75% off. 

All their Christmas and special toys were 75% off and I looked hard but only got my husbands favorite store bought cookies from all the clearance aisles.

I used coupons on everything, some were in yesterday's paper and some were printed from coupons.com, I also used some ECBs from last week, quarterly rewards, beauty club rewards and a mailed $5/15 and some coupons from the in store scanner.

My receipt says I saved $104.58

And I got back $25 ECB for my next shopping trip.

If you are interested in great deals like this, look at the YouTube link and look at other stores she shops at if you don't have a CVS. 
LASavings8 on Youtube

http://www.iheartcvs.com/ I Heart CVS is another site you where can see the current and next few weekly CVS ads. 

happy shopping everyone
and for you who don't or can't shop CVS,  I'll be back with non-shopping posts soon. 

Snow Tree - use what you have project

I packed all the Christmas things away yesterday. I left one tree up because I want to decorate it for Valentines. But it is just the first week of January and it still seems a little early for pink and hearts.

So I had the idea to do a snow themed tree since it is so cold! But I don't have any snow ornaments.

I looked on Pinterest last night for ideas and saw lots of cute ideas but I didn't have the needed supplies. So, I just went to bed and left the tree bare.

Then this morning, I thought about snowflakes and used my Cricut to cut assorted snowflakes out of white card stock.  I also found a box of clear glass craft ornaments that my daughter bought years ago (looking at the price tag, I am guessing in 2005)

I also got out a bunch of silver pipe cleaners and some beads.

The finished snow tree

We used white school glue and lots of glitter on the paper snowflakes 

My daughter and granddaughter swirled paint and glitter inside the clear balls. 

If you look close, you can see the silver pipe cleaner snowflakes my son made. 

I am really happy with this project that required no trips to a craft store. 

Later in the evening, our other granddaughter was here, she likes the snow tree too.