Cleaning the Pantry

Before

Those that follow my blog know that my youngest son, Nick, broke his arm. For those that don't know, Nick loves to stay home. Now that he is injured and has an excuse, there is no getting him out of the house. I'm about to go crazy, we have not left the house since Wednesday when he had his surgery. Yesterday I decided to clean out my pantry. I have been wanting to clean it out for the last month. Might as well do it while I'm stuck at home.
After

Oh, this is so much better, I can see everything we have.

Last week Wal-mart had their jars on clearance, I bought every single one they had. In the above picture I put cereal, powdered sugar, bird seed, anything that was in a bag, I'm now storing them in the jars.

I have been looking at different blogs and all the cool things they have done to their jars.
Thrifty Decor Chick labeled her jars.

She even painted rulers with chalkboard paint and labeled each section in the pantry. Too CUTE!!!


Kimm at Reinvented painted her jars with chalkboard paint and then labeled them with chalk. Love this idea also!


My Sweet Savannah labeled her jars also.

I have some ideas, I'll be back later to show you what I did. :)

Declutter Friday

Since I have started blogging, Declutter Friday is my favorite part of the week to blog. For one, an area in my house gets cleaned and organized, and two, I love looking at before and after pictures.

This week I had a little bit of trouble, I didn't have anything to clean out and organize. Sure I have areas that I keep the door closed when company comes, but for declutter Friday I wanted something small that would take me less than 15 min.

Being the "neat freak" and "everything in its place" kind of guy my husband is, I decided to ask him if he had something he wanted cleaned. Yep, he sure did, his top drawer of his night stand. And oh my, did it need cleaning.
You know how everyone has a junk drawer to throw their stuff they don't know what to do with? This is his junk drawer. When he comes home at night he throws his change, keys, receipts from the day, pens, phone numbers, you name it, it is in there.

You know we always have to get a pic. of the mess dumped out.Remember last week when I said I'm always buying black Sharpie pens because I can never find them? Look at the top right of the pic. I have another one to add to my collection.

15 mins. later he has a clean drawer. Most of it went into the trash. Amazing what we found. A charger to a flashlight he was getting ready to throw away, because he couldn't charge it. We also found $30.64 in change, 5 lighters for burning brush piles, a half a dozen chap sticks, 12-15 knives and the list goes on and on.

Declutter Friday

That time of the week again, Declutter Friday.

I'm back in the Kitchen this week, cleaning out the junk drawer. This week I spent about 30 min. Again, it was bad, I shouldn't be posting these pics.

Before
I had trouble getting the drawer open and shut. I never could find my calculator so every time I went to Wal-Mart, I bought another one. Now I have 3 that I know of.



Next I emptied out the drawer and piled everything on the counter. Nick walked in and his eyes lit up. He wanted to know if he could have what I didn't want. I told him the purpose of cleaning was to get rid of stuff, not move it to another room.
Oh look, there are my keys!


After
I can never find Black Sharpies, seems I'm always buying them. After cleaning, I now have 10. I also found an extra 50 pens, everyone walks off with them at the office, so next week, they will have a new home. Plus I found a hammer, 10 screwdrivers, 3 wire cutters, hooks, WD 40, and an extra pencil sharpener.

Now go declutter something!

Declutter Friday

Today is Declutter Friday!!!!

Today I'm in my closet. It's not really that bad, but it drove me crazy every time I went in there.

Before I wrapped our Christmas presents in the closet. I was so tired of going in there to get dressed and stepping over wrapping paper, scissors, tape, presents. I did spend over my 10 min. that I usually spend decluttering. I think this week it took me a little over 30 min. I had to take everything back to where it belonged, iron clothes, etc.
This area drove me CRAZY! I'm making Nick a denim quilt using all of our old jeans. I thought if I put them in my closet and looked at the pile everyday it would motivate me to get started on it. Nope! I went in there everyday, saw the pile and was depressed because I had a pile on my floor and knew I should be getting started on it and had done nothing with it.

After Everything is put away where it belongs, clothes ironed and hung up.
Pile gone, yesterday I cut out over 100 squares. I plan on cutting up at least 1 pair a day. I think I have about 10 pairs left, 10 days I should be done.
Shelves cleaned! Yeah, I have my closet back!

Declutter Friday

Today is Friday! Declutter Friday!

This week I decluttered the cabinet that store all of my measuring cups, pitchers, water bottles, camera bags and anything else we don't know what to do with. I'm really ashamed at the way my before looks. I didn't realize it was that bad. Once I saw the picture, I can't believe the shape it was in.



Before
OMG! We need the "How clean is your House" people to come!



I had the boys' school papers from the first of the year that we did not need. We had thermos bottles from lunch boxes that are 10 years old, water bottles that never get used and things that have other homes but instead of getting put away, they get thrown up in the cabinet. So I got the trash can and started throwing.......until Jeff came in and insisted we needed the million water bottles, and Zach convinced me that he can not live without his Travis Pastrana thermos (I don't think it ever did get used).

Mental note, clean when everyone is gone.

After


I found things that I had forgotten we had. The candy striped bowl my mom gave me last year for the cheese ball, the green christmas pitcher with holly and the cup and saucer for milk and cookies for Santa that my Aunt Debi gave the boys. Good thing I cleaned, Christmas is just a week away.

We still have the million water bottles, everything else is pretty much gone. I timed myself, this week it took me 11 minutes.

Now go declutter something and leave a comment telling me what you decluttered.

Declutter Friday

I'm going to start decluttering this week. Several years ago I worked the Flylady program and my house was looking pretty good. Once you stop, seems the clutter just takes over. Starting today it's going to be Declutter Friday and I'm going to spend 10 min. decluttering. I'm BRAVE!!! I'm going to post before and after pics. Now go declutter something and leave a comment telling me what you decluttered.

This week I'm decluttering the closet in my Master Bathroom. I started with an easy project, it wasn't that bad. Took me less than 10 min., I just had to throw away a couple of things that were outdated or we don't need.

Before

after