Snack Station {Halloween}

Hello, happy Friday and happy kickoff to Halloween weekend!  I know, I know I’m rarely on here but I finally got a light under my butt to post.  I guess what really inspired me to do so is this really cute snack station I set up for my kids decked out in Halloween décor.  We already have a snack station in our kitchen but this one is just too cute to not share with y’all. Look at what this mama did for her kiddos (and herself). 

I guess you can say what started this whole décor area is that I bought a spider-web cake stand from Target (dollar spot area) a few weeks ago and I was determined to use it and not just wait for when I baked a cake.  And since it’s a spider-web I knew I had to put it to use somehow before Halloween.  Well I always have small mandarins for the kids to snack on and the whole idea grew from there.  First, I thought I would just stack on the oranges then it hit me that I could draw them like jack-o-lanterns like I’ve seen many times before.  Ta-da!

I knew my daughter would love it and she is actually the one that drew all of those cute faces.  I mean look at her designs. Too cute! My son is now a cool 13 year old so I didn't think he would be as excited but he said it was pretty awesome and "it was so lit." Holla.

I also used this spider candy dish for their fruit snacks.  I got it from Kohl's a couple of years ago (after Halloween clearance).

And this is a candle holder I got on clearance a few years ago as well.  Hobby Lobby I think? I stuck a few of Ghirardelli chocolates in there because why not?

Here is a different angle of the snack station.

To the far left is a sugar skull that I (in a decent attempt) decorated at a local bake supply store.  I love that place!  I have it sitting on my food scale and next to it is a vase (similar to this one) I filled with candy corn and stuck in some Halloween sprays I got from Michael's.

That's it.  I wanted it to make it cute and fun while still having all of their go-to snacks in easy reach and I think I accomplished it.  Now I need to think of a Thanksgiving/Fall and Christmas set-up.  Happy Halloween!

Cookbook and Magazine Organization

Hey y'all.  Right now it's like fifty something degrees out and yes I am cold.  Insert hashtag #nativeTexan and #coldweatherweenie right here.  Yep, that is me.  So with the cold weather upon us I started looking through my cookbooks and magazines to find some new soups and stews.  This is when I realized that I really needed to hunker down and organize this growing collection of mine.  I hit up the Container Store and bought some bins and magazine files and now my all-things-cooking-and-baking resources look like this:

Junk Drawer Organization

Happy Tuesday!  I don’t know about the rest of you but my body is glad that the Olympics are over.  Catching up on some much needed sleep is in order!  I am an Olympic geek and hard core fan.  I watched it all from the opening ceremony to the closing ceremony and everything in between.  I have such respect for all the athletes and how they push their bodies to do what it is capable of doing.  They are amazeballs and they most certainly inspire me.  Not to be an Olympian.  Gawd no.  Y’all don’t wanna see that.  They just inspire me in way that says it can be done and it is possible.

Anywho I wanted to share with you all my latest organizational feat.  My kitchen junk drawer!  We all have one and we all gripe about the crap in there when we are looking for something.  We’ve had our junk drawer since we moved in ten years ago or so and right from the beginning it was full of junk.  Over the years it go so full that it would occasionally jam while trying to open or close it.  Just like my other two kitchen drawers, I had enough and it was time to get to business. 

Here is what it looked like all this time:

And here is the after:

Mucho mas better, right?  I mean look at some of the things we had in here.

We even had one of those picture key chain things.  Talk about blast from the past.  It is from our (hubby and me) high school senior trip to Six Flags Arlington back in May 1993.  Woooooweeee.  Those were some fun times.  Anywho (yes I say that a lot) these are the drawer organizers I used for this narrow and small junk drawer of mine. 

We even had a the original swatch color of our dining room and our movie tickets to "Hitch" on our anniversary date.  Cute, cheese, corny and why did we keep that?  

So here's I got down to bidness.  I bought two (2) Rubbermaid no-slip interlocking trays in white, 3”x9” at Wal-Mart.  I can’t remember the cost but they were just a couple of bucks each and they were in the kitchen aisle.  I also bought a Made Smart clear drawer organizer from The Container Store.  It is 5”x4”x2” and it was a wee bit smaller than what I wanted but it worked out perfect. 

I used the space in between the two white trays and the clear tray to store a bag of rubber bands and bag of twist tie thingies.  I don’t know why we need so many of the twist ties but my hubby likes to have extra on hand for whatever use so there they are.  Oh and I also placed my son's measuring tape that he got at Home Depot.  I use it quite a bit so I found a home for it.  He doesn't mind.  :)

And as you can see I did get rid of a lot of stuff and either threw it away or put it in a more appropriate place (like the matches).  I also put the many pens and markers that we had in a cup on the counter in the trays.  Look at where I had the pens and scissors before they went into this drawer.  

Classy.  I know.  But alas I have my junk drawer organized (with a lot less junk) and I am proud of myself.  A little ashamed too.  Gahlee, what took me so long?

Wow, I finally have three drawers in my kitchen organized.  Here’s a little recap: my utensil drawer, my large utensil drawer and finally my junk drawer. 

Next is the pantry and I can’t wait to get ‘er done.  I think I’m a little too excited actually.  Oh and yes that Hello Kitty cup is gone and off the counter.  The hubby is relieved about that little detail!

Large Utensil + Knife Drawer Organization

Hey peeps!  All two of ya that stop by on your work breaks.  hehe.  Well I last showed you my utensil kitchen drawer that was organized and last night I was able to finish my large utensil kitchen drawer.  Check it out y'all!

And this is what it looked liked before:

That blue towel is where we kept our knives because we don't have a butcher block and we've never had one.  We just kept knives there so they wouldn't get mixed up with the other utensils and risk cutting our hands while rummaging through the drawer.  How lame.

First, I bought a expandable large utensil tray from Bed, Bath and Beyond (with a coupon of course) and assumed it would take up the entire space of the drawer.  So with that in mind I was also going to buy a Kaboosh knife holder to keep on the counter top.  Well it turns out the utensil tray was too long to fit in my drawer.  See?

I was bummed for a few moments because I really wanted to have full use of the tray while completely expanded.  No can do.  I then turned it to see if it would fit and if it would work.

It did fit but I was not able to fully expand it.  I did realize that I had a decent amount of space on the right side of the tray and wondered if a knife tray would fit in that area.  So I grabbed my son's handy dandy kids measuring tape then looked on-line for the knife tray.  According to my measurements I had about an inch or two to spare if I went with the knife tray.  The next day I stopped at BBB with coupon in hand and bought this:

It is a Knife Dock that has cork-like material already slit and inserted in the tray.  Right away I liked this idea much better than the Kaboosh (I really didn't want big butcher knives stored on the counter) and was a little too excited when I saw that it fit well in my drawer with the large utensil tray.

I once again cleaned the utensil tray with my vinegar/lemon juice/water solution and I had a feeling that the knife tray would have some residue of sort from the cork material.  Sure enough I turned it upside down and hit it a few times and all this fell onto the counter.

Looks like a bunch of little bugs and one big one, huh?  It was a little annoying to do that but I'm glad I did so that I won't have to mess with that stuff sticking to the blades of the knives every time I take one out.  Well I hope I won't see anymore of that stuff.  Anywho after all my prepping I placed most of the large utensils and the knives in their respective trays.

 

What a difference!  Did you notice my pink knife?  :)  I was not able to fit all of the utensils and this is what was left over on the counter.  They just weren't the right fit.  heehee.

I no longer use those black utensils so off to Goodwill they go, the wooden spoons will go in my utensil crock that sits on my counter and the cheese slicer, pastry blender, large tongs, and rolling pins will be placed elsewhere.  Somewhere in my bottom cabinets.  This of course creates a new organizing task because I really need one for all things baking.

Once again here is the before and after.

Yay, yay, yay for the little yet big things that make a huge difference and much more functional.  Next is the junk/catch-all drawer (hey, we all have one) and then the pantry.  Oy to the pantry.
Am I the only that gets nerdy and just stares at the neatly organized kitchen drawers just to admire their beauty?  The hubs thinks I'm a bit of a geek that way.  :)

And since I have been pinning lots of organizing items and ideas on Pinterest, I am sharing this post with Young House Love, Bower Power, Centsational Girl and Ten June  during their Pinterest challenge.  It's a challenge to get us pinners off our booties and start an actual project.

Also sharing this post with Organize and Decorate Everything.

Kitchen Drawer Organization

Last night I finally got around to organizing one of my kitchen drawers.  It has never been organized, we just toss utensils in there.  Okay I really didn't toss them, the hubs did but I really tried to line them up and make them look organized.  Nope that never worked.  The eating utensils were the only ones that had a home but even that compartment was squeezed down because the other utensils took up so much space and the expandable compartment was never fully used.

Well hallelujah look at the before and after:

Thanks to my 20% coupons from Bed, Bath and Beyond I bought three bamboo drawer organizers to complete this long overdue project.  All of these drawers are made from bamboo and the three on the left are from BBB and the one on the right with the eating utensils is from Wal-Mart.

Before organizing I emptied out the entire drawer, vacuumed it and cleaned it off with combination solution of vinegar, lemon juice and water.  Yep, I had to bust out the vacuum because there were crumbs towards the back of the drawer.  What the...?  I also gave all the utensils a quick wash and rinse in the sink.  I felt the need to do that since I vacuumed.

After it was all said and done I carefully thought about where each utensil was going to live. I have everything where I want it and because I am the queen of my kitchen it all makes sense to me.  :)

Now I'm on to the next organizing project.  I'm about to be on a roll!  Happy Saturday, y'all.  :)