Whole Home Cleaning - January {Kitchen Cleaning}

Alright, as part of the new year, I have a new series to share with you! It's basically how to deep clean your home a little each month so that you can stay on top of things. 

This was mostly just me being inspired by the lists at  Clean & Scentsible as part of her Household Organization Diet (I do love a good list!)

I came up with my own for 2014!  I tailored them towards my specific needs, but the majority of items on here will apply to most homes. 

The first couple months are a little more intense than the rest because I figured that I'd be pretty gung-hoe at the beginning and later in the year I would be less interested.  Also, each month's theme is matched with the time of year/weather, where applicable. 

For January I thought the kitchen would be a good place to start after being ran-sacked over the holidays!

Here's your first list!


I know it looks a little intense, but a lot of it comes down to wiping.

I'll be posting before & after's when I can.



What do you say...are you in?  What's your toughest cleaning challenge?

Custom Spice Jars Make You The Envy of All Your Friends!

One day while getting my hair cut my hair dresser and I were discussing our mutual love of Bulk Barn and she was telling me that she tossed her mis-matched spice jars, bought all new ones from the dollar store and filled them with cheap bulk spices, saving a fortune, and ending up with cute matching spice jars.  Clever girl.  So naturally when I moved out on my own and needed ALL new spices, I did the same....but craftier!

Step 1: Go to the dollarstore and find your GLASS spice jars... also, set up little backgrounds using other dollarstore items to take nicer looking pictures and get weird looks from people passing by....

I liked these, but they didn't have "shaker lids"

These were super cheap at 3/$1 but I was worried the white lids would get dirty really quick - like curried and gross.

I ended up going with these because they had 3 different hole sizes and looked pretty snazzy!

Step 2: Buy 20 of them.  Find out that the guy at the till has trouble multiplying 4x5 to get 20 and counts them all one by one.  (clearly the education system has failed somewhere...)

Step 3: I washed them.  And the realized I would need to wash them again after etching... so this step is really not necessary.

Step 4: Figure out what spices you want and create your Silhouette file(s).

Step 5: Cut out your vinyl labels & attach to jars.

Step 6: Apply etching cream according to directions.

Step 7: Remove etching cream and labels. Wash the spice jars...again.

Step 8: Buy said spices at Bulk Barn (or wherever you like really)

Step 9: Fill spice jars and take many many photos with poor lighting!

Step 10: Finally put spice jars away in their home.

Oh yeah, and Step 11: do a happy dance because you spent:

$25 spice jars

~$20 on spices!

Boo-yeah! 

 

http://www.cleanandscentsible.com/2013/08/the-inspiration-exchange-no-12.html

Toolbox Rescue!

When my dad passed away I kept a fair bit of his stuff that was either overly sentimental or useful.  Falling into the latter category was his tool box.

It however did not meet my standards for aesthetics - especially if I was going to move it to my new condo!  I had to give it a bit of a makeover!

To show you where I started, let's take a look at the original, shall we?

Not so pretty.  Very orange, very stickered!

This was my childhood contribution I'm pretty sure!  Hahahaha.

STEP 1: REMOVE THE STICKERS

When I started, I just started peeling them off.  This wasn't the best idea because they left the glue behind and I spent a lot of time goo-gone-ing them.

When I got to the really stubborn ones, I googled some solutions.  What worked for me was to heat them up with a hair dryer.  They came off really easily, glue and all.  I wished I would have done that with all of them from the beginning.

Starting to look better already!!

STEP 2: PREP

All I did was give it a good wash/wipe down with soap and water and tape off the hardware.

STEP 3: PAINT

I gave it about 2-3 coats of spray paint.  I think this is what I used (is it terrible I can't remember?!)

I also gave the inside tray a quick coat to make it all shiny and new too!

And there you have it! All ready to use in my new place!!


   
       

 

Where I've Been!

Alright, it's been TWO MONTHS!! since I've posted anything at all.  Usually a break like this means 2 things for a blogger:

1) You're taking time off to write a book

OR

2) You're having a baby (like the lovely Kimberly at Bugaboo, Mini, Mr. & Me!)

Well, I'm doing neither! HA!

In the last few months I become a single entity again (sometimes things just don't quite work out), AND the really big news......

I BOUGHT A CONDO!!

Yup! a place of my very own!  And now for the fun part! Over the next while you all get to join me on my journey and adventure as I transform and create my own space!

I have a lot of fun projects in the works and I'm really excited to get back to here and share them with you!  I have a few other things up my sleeve, but I'll wait to announce those when I know they're going to happen! :)

For now, I leave you with a pic of my place on my possession date - my shiny new kitchen to create lots of yummy things in!  It doesn't look quite this clean anymore! :P

Also coming up soon - I'm joining in Kimberly's "Gift It Good!" series!! I'll be sure to update you on that too!