Filofax Malden A5 in Grey! My New Friend

I have been trying to do things electronically for years and not loving it. My iPhone deletes my old appointments after a few months so I cannot remember when I went to the dentist last etc. Of course, if the battery dies you are out of luck anyway. I used to have a planner back in college and it worked wonders for keeping all my dates and agendas, to dos and such together in one place and I just threw it in my backpack and went off.

I have been wanting to get back to those days for some time now and ran into a lovely group on Facebook that does paper planning. When I found the Filofax website (they are like me, British... my dad is from the Cayman Islands and I was born their too, and my mom is from MD) I was thrilled with the site. I, however, in my crazy internet search fell in love with the grey color which is discontinued. So like any good planner, I stalked every website known to man until I found it. Finally, the elusive planner was mine on Ebay for just slightly more than you would pay for a new A5 from the Filofax site so I deemed it a success. I tracked that package like a mad woman! It was coming from Austria mind you so it had a few places to stop before it came to me. The expected date came and no Filo. :( Then, it arrived, two days late. I was SO SO SO excited I may have petted it.

Now, I am the owner of 1 A5 Malden, waiting on the delivery of a pocket Malden and a personal Malden. I also have a few Daytimer Malibus in various colors. This planner thing is truly addicting!

Here he is in all of his grey glory. Yes the pictures look more black but he is a dark shade of grey to begin with.

 The Malden is a super floppy planner with pockets galore. It has a large pocket (which you can see a white paper folded in half peeking out), 4 credit card sized slots, a second 1/2 size large pocket (where you can see my post its peeking out) and a zippered pocket. All of these pockets are on the left with a pen loop. I have a nice mechanical pencil in that loop right now.

 In the very front is what we call the dashboard. I used scrapbook paper and traced the plastic dashboard that came with the Filofax. I then punched it using a Rapesco punch (from Amazon) but you could use a single punch as well.
Rapesco Adjustable Diary Punch 66-P

 I used month tabs from Girl at Work (from the container store, also found on Amazon). These are stickers that can be removed and used a second time. I originally used the diary that came from Filofax but decided to create my own pages so I took the dividers tabs off and put them on these pages.

Girl Of All Work LLC Peel and Stick Tabs (GWO713a)

I used the original Filofax dividers to trace and create my own dividers. Here I used Bazill cardstock I purchased from Michaels. I then laminated them and used a label maker with black ink on clear tape to make my dividers. I chose a rainbow effect for these dividers.

 I like to decorate my weekly pages. I have found that the week on two pages works well for me. This past week was fruit week. I found these adorable fruit stickers at Michaels the other week and only ended up using a little bit. My washi tape (the paper tape at the top and bottom) is from an etsy seller.
https://www.etsy.com/transaction/157620967?ref=fb2_tnx_title (the shop is called Mind the Wrap)

I really haven't stuffed him too full yet as I haven't printed out my monthly diaries past March and I have not yet put in a cleaning schedule or other cute printables I am saving to my computer.

I did get a cute charm at Hobby Lobby when they had their 50% off sale two weeks ago and added it to my planner using a cell phone lanyard (also purchased at Hobby Lobby).

I will say that using a paper planner has been great but lugging around an A5 (which is 5.5. x 8.5) has been rough. When my personal and pocket come in the mail I will try and see if those will work as portable planners and then this A5 will become my go to planner at home. I have heard you can really stuff these babies full but I don't like clutter so we'll see how full he gets.

Labeled Glass Pantry Jars & a Vinyl Transfer Tutorial

I love all things labeled and pretty. If I had more time to a day I'd have everything labeled in my entire life but alas my OCD must go untapped since there are only 24 hours in a day and I need to sleep some time, or so my husband says.

I originally had these Tupperware organizers but wanted a more sleek, updated look where I could clearly see when I needed more ingredients instead of the little peak a boo window.

I found these great glass jars at Target. The largest ones (they hold a gallon) are a little under $6, the medium size around $5 and the small ones are under $5. I purchased a bunch of each a little at a time each week. Yeah, I totally go to Target every week! I LURVE Target just a little! Oh and I got those blue cups for our camping trips for around $2 on clearance! Score!

I washed the jars and let them dry thoroughly. Can't have all those cute ingredients gunking up the bottom can we?

I purchased really cute custom labels from Say It on the Wall, since I have yet to get my Silhouette Cameo. Anyone listening and wish to purchase one for me, my birthday is in 2 1/2 weeks! :o) You will also need your favorite music like my Glee station on Pandora Radio.

It is really easy to put vinyl on anything. First, rub with all your might, or a Petco gift card so that the vinyl sticks to the transfer paper. Then slowly at an angle peel the vinyl off the backing.

 

Situate the vinyl and transfer paper combo to the glass jar. 

Press with fingers on top of the vinyl. Then slowly, very slowly peel the transfer paper off, pressing the vinyl down if/when needed.

I pressed down on the vinyl again after the transfer paper was off just to make sure it stayed down and was secure.

Then just fill with your favorite ingredients and place somewhere really cute.

The orange scoops are freebies I've gotten from Tupperware parties. They don't measure but they are great for filling a measuring cup or just dumping things in. I never always measure  my rice, don't you?

Hope this little tutorial helps and happy vinyling. :o) That's a word right? Ha Ha.

Organizing the Pantry (again)

It seems like just yesterday I was posting about organizing the pantry. HERE is the old post about just such a thing. Actually it was a little over a year ago. I have organized it since but nothing too crazy.

This time I pulled out all the stops shelves. The house was originally designed to have the laundry area where the pantry is. Strange enough, with an open floor plan that means in my dining room. The lovely people who first built my house (not me) changed the idea and had the laundry area moved into the 4th bedroom and the bedroom redesigned into a laundry/huge extra random closet. The old laundry area then became the pantry.

This isn't horrible except the shelves are so far apart you can't seem to utilize the space well. Honestly, it totally stinks!

Three huge shelves just doesn't cut it. Look at all that extra room between shelves! Time for a change!

Step 1: Clutter your entire house kitchen with all the things from your pantry while you demo. Do it during something fun like on a Wednesday night after church and two days before something major (like report cards due at school). :o)

Step 2: Grab your hammer! This is the really fun part, DEMO! Take out all your pent up aggression issues out on the shelves.

Step 3: Stand back and realize you didn't think about patching holes or painting and don't really have time for it. Ooppssyyy!

Step 4: Tell yourself you will paint behind there later but right now this has to be put back before your family strings you up.

Step 5: Begin shelf reassignment. We had some old shelves we had purchased from Lowes to use in that extra closet that we also ripped out (more on that later) and had placed these shelves and the track system in the garage. They were quickly re-purposed.

Step 6: Cut down the 2nd shelf so that you can have one seamless shelf the entire pantry wide.

Step 7: Quickly put everything back and call it a day.

It still isn't 100% perfect because I just can't find a solution for bagged items that are large. What do you do when you snag a great coupon deal and get 6 bags of Chex Mix or Chips?

I was able to put many small items into these great containers I bought at Wal-Mart. They were about $12-$14 each but I saved so much room by unboxing items I purchased from Amazon and placing them into the drawers. Each drawer then got a label from my label maker so my husband kids knew where everything was. I was even able to make room for my extra candles (they are in the left container, bottom two drawers), my plastic silverware and extra napkins (bottom drawer on the right organizer) and all those annoying drink packages and tea bags.

With the extra shelves and the items more compact, I was able to bring my cookbooks into the pantry where they freed up an entire 12 inch cabinet in my kitchen to put dish towels and extra ziploc baggies.

I will be posting more on these cute glass jars tomorrow! So what do you think of the pantry now? Is it horrible that I didn't patch and paint first?

A Snow Day, the Death of a Dell, Diy Continued, a Little Girl's Closet and Crayon?

The title says it all! I've had one of those days. If you haven't noticed the Dell died.  It actually kicked the bucket last night but I was in denial until this morning. The hard drive is currently at our local computer repair shop so they can rip some important files off of it but the rest of it is toast. Adobe wanted to update last night so my husband let it reboot except it didn't. The fan came on but it just wouldn't start. We left it alone all night and came back in the morning to try again (after our snow day was called, YEAH!) and it was still dead. So my brother took out our hard drive and my husband and brother took it to the shop.

Thank God we had our $1,000 emergency fund (we are following Dave Ramsey) so we took some of it out and purchased a new CPU. We got a Emachines for $339 after tax at Best Buy. I didn't think that was too bad.

Then my brother wanted some furniture I was getting rid of so he decided to work on some DIY projects for me. When we redid the kitchen we never finished fixing the soffit since I changed the layout of the cabinets. It was missing drywall in a few spots. My brother started in the corner and worked his way around.  Out of the 3 spots, one is ready to sand and prime, one is still 2x4's, and one is still being debated.

Yes the top picture has a cobweb. We are keeping it real.

I forgot to take a picture of this drywalled and mudded. I'll have to do that when we finish the 2nd box later this week. Sorry.

Next came Emma's closet which lets just say is a disaster upon itself. Here is her closet makeover (still currently in progress)  These are the BEFORE pictures. Dear Lord you can't even open the door!

I took everything out and made a huge pile. The cat just stared at me. I think she is mocking me.

That's not all of it either. I took pity on you and didn't show you what was still on the top of the closet or on the shelves. You might see part of those later.

I moved in her dresser/ changing table from when she was a baby. It fit perfectly! Here is what went inside of that.

Shoes inside the cabinet.

Top shelf: sneakers
Middle shelf: dress shoes
Bottom shelf: sandals and etc.

I brought the two important things into the closet clean/organize situation. My water in my reusable 24 oz. cup and my Basic H2 all purpose cleaner. Those drawers were just gross!

Any money found in the closet redo was put into Emma's Save envelope from her Financial Peace Jr. kit.

Here is her top drawer. It holds t-shirts.  It is now labeled.

The middle drawer holds long sleeve shirts. It is also labeled :o)

The next drawer has shorts and jeans. It is also labeled.

The bottom drawer has long pants.

Now that the dresser was finished I had to tackle the mound of dresses, sweaters, jumpers and skirts on the bed.

I had to tear out two shelves that the builder put in in order to hang her long clothes. She still has one shelf at the bottom for her doll babies and her horses and stable went underneath the shelf on the floor.

 Emma still has some things to go through on top of the dresser but we put her craft kits and extra toys neatly in their boxes and stacked on top of the closet until we can decide what to do. We are 95% finished with the closet.

So while I was working in the closet I left Chris to watch the girls. I come back out to find THIS on the kitchen table!

Yes that is CRAYON on my kitchen table. So... I grabbed my Shaklee Basic H2 (degreaser formula) and sprayed.

The flash went off so bright it looks like the crayon is already gone. I promise you I am no magician it was still there. I used my microfiber cloth and just rubbed it away.

Okay so NOW it is gone. Too bad it couldn't take care of those scratches...ewwww.

So that was my Tuesday. Nuts right?



Don't forget the January Shaklee special. Purchase $70 member price worth of any product on the site and get the Cinch Sampler Kit for FREE! That's over a $100 value! We got it and love it! I even ordered the shake in chocolate now to try that.