Art work, Art work and more Art work...

When you have small children, you have artwork. (Ok...yes, hubby and I are also into artwork...and come to think of it so it is the big one, but just read on...) In any given day they can come present me with 10+ pictures they have drawn and of course, they want them on the fridge or hung up somehow.

I had this big empty wall in our family room, right next to the crafting area. I saw this in a friends classroom and had to do it! I love these curtain rods from IKEA!! The most perfect art wall ever. Now to encourage them to use more COLOR! :)

I love this wall now!

The phone corner

I'm behind...we did these a week or so ago, but hey..I can't be on top of EVERYTHING now can I?

This is the phone area in the kitchen. It holds the phone, phone books, kids books, some art supplies, cookbooks etc.

Well...it looks bad doesn't it? Here is what it looks like now.

My kitchen in all its gorgeousness!

The coat closet..

I didn't know we were attacking this one last night, but while I was upstairs with the kiddos my hubby emptied the closet and started working on it. Unfortunately, when I asked him if he took a before picture, he had forgotten to. Silly man...doesn't he understand you always need the "before" picture?

Anyway, here is about 1/2 the pile of stuff that we took out of the closet...does that explain the problem well enough?



Here is more of the mess...you really should have seen it at its worst..it was bad in there!



Ok, a nice a pretty..empty coat closet. The wooden slats were from some shelves the previous owners had put in there.



DJ helping Daddy take down the wooden slats.



Daddy didn't know his own strength!



Let the patchwork begin!



and then the painting!



Ah...so nice!



All done! Doesn't that just look AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!



and we kept working...but that is for another post! Organizing can be fun!

Yep..Not so Organized...that's me!

Yes, I'd love to be an organized person, but I'm really not. I try..I get things clean, and then they just explode again. Some of this is because of the three munchkins that live in this house, and some is because of hubby and I (not much..LOL), but it is the way life is.

Because of my friend Emily Simmons, I've jumped into doing some organizing. I started in the craft area..and that wasn't too bad. It was mainly putting everything away.

Emily posted a picture of this awesome pantry and said she wanted to do something like it. I LOVE it! I stopped by Hobby Lobby last night and they had jars on sale! This morning I got up and went to Home Depot and got started. Now...it is not totally like I want it, but this is what I get for now, and I'm happy with it.

Let's start with the "before" picture. Yep...my super ugly pantry.



So the first thing one needs to do when cleaning out the pantry is empty it. I hate that part! You find so much stuff stuck in the back and stuff that you wonder.. "Why did I buy this?"



While this next one isn't a great picture, but you can see that the shelves were covered with awful shelf paper that HAD to go!



And of course when the kitchen is filled and you can't use it, you get to eat lunch on the living room floor.



Next came the paint! It was time for some color in the pantry. No longer was it going to be white with stains from everything again. We have this awesome grey and I have an awesome hubby to help! I did the stuff I could reach and Bryan took over and got it all finished up.



Here it comes....the new and so beautiful pantry!! Ok, there is more organizing and things to do. I'd like to put a pantry hanger thing on the door. You know the ones...the shelves that hang on the door to hold things? We are going to put a new door on there one of these days soon...so we are going to wait on that for now. Now the unveiling!!



Awesome isn't it!!??

Starting from the bottom...these tubs hold the decorating supplies and cupcake holders. We do alot of holiday cupcakes around here. The orange fabric boxes I got at a yard sale for .25, but I think I'll get better ones when they go on sale next time. The left one is 1/2 jello and pudding and 1/2 spices packets. The middle one has a bunch of bagged side dishes like noodles and rices. The one on the right hand side is the kids snack box. It is full of granola bars and small bags of pretzels etc. When they ask for a snack, they can get something out of this box.



Above the orange boxes is a shelf full of boxes items, crackers etc.



Above that is canned goods...and my favorite shelf of all! My labeled jars!



I LOVE LOVE LOVE this idea!! I used my cricut cutter to create labels for all the glass jars. I got some at Hobby Lobby and we already had some. Isn't this just really awesome?? The basket on the side holds all the opened cereals. At breakfast, we can just put the whole basket on the table, and everyone gets what they want.





Let's compare..

Ugly Pantry..



Super awesome cool pantry...



Yes!!

Now...to keep it that way....