Big Girl Room Makeover

My husband and I wanted to make sure that our daughter was excited about having new sister.  Therefore, I decided to give her a big girl room makeover (we also needed to get her out of the toddler bed so we could use it as a crib again :) )

I didn't want to paint her room because I loved the gray walls with the green strip, so those colors where our jumping off point.  My daughter also loves the colors pink and purple, just like every little girl, so we added those to the mix.  The first thing I did was find a poka-dot bedspread from Target that had some of our colors that got a thumbs up from my daughter.

Next we needed curtains.  I couldn't find anything that I liked so I asked my mom to make some.  I found some cute fabric that was white and had gray/silver poka-dots on it.  My mom also added some pink ball fringe to add a girly touch.

At the state fair I found a neat lantern that lights up and changes colors.  I also decided to hang two metal plant hangers on the wall to hold some of her toys.

We finished off the room with a new big girl bed, some wall art that I made, and an old dresser and night stand set that I used when I was in college.  All I did to those was spray paint the knobs silver to give it a little update.

Here are the before and afters...

My daughter really loves her new room.  I like the fact that I was able to update it with out spending a lot of money.  I also like the fact that the decor items are not too trendy and I don't have to worry about redoing it again in a year when she no longer likes Frozen :)

Kitchen Drawer Organization

Who doesn't need a little organization in their kitchen drawers?  I need to organize/reorganize mine at least twice a year.  I most recently organized my junk drawer and utensil drawer.

Our junk drawer, like I am sure all of your's, is a catch all for everything left on the counters that I don't know where else to put.  Here is the drawer before:

You can see that on one of my organizings, I started to use silverware tray to house different items.  This works great, it just needs to be cleaned out.  For example, one area of the tray is used to house different size batteries.  When we purchased more, we didn't talk them out of the cardboard container they came in.  We just stuck the entire thing in the drawer.  Well, the cardboard container doesn't fit in the tray so then we had batteries all over.  This is something that we are going to have to work on.  

To reorganize this drawer, first I took everything out and put them in different groups on the counter.  I had a trash pile and then I grouped like items together.  I ended up throwing a lot out!  Here is the finished, newly organized drawer:

The next drawer to be reorganized was one of the kitchen utensil drawers.  This drawer holds different kitchen items such as the can opener, measuring cups, measuring spoons, whisks, etc.  Here is the before:

At one time I tried to organize this with little black baskets.  This worked for a short time, but then either the baskets where too small or I still had too much stuff.  I ended up with a very disorganized drawer where I had to dig around to find anything.

I again took everything out of the drawer and put them in piles with like items.  As I was taking the item out, I thought about when was the last time I used that utensil.  If it has been over year, I really thought hard on if I needed to keep it.  I also go rid of duplicate items.  If they were still in good condition, they went into a donation pile.  I was able to really pare down the items I had.  Here is the finished drawer:

I continued to use the black baskets, but hopefully I have gotten rid of enough stuff that they will work and will be able to keep the items in them contained.

What kitchen drawers do feel always need to be reorganized?

April Recipes

Here are the new recipes that I tried this month...

Peanut Butter Banana Muffins
I love peanut butter and banana smoothies and I am getting tired the the basic banana muffin so I gave this one a try.  They were very easy to make.  I did mine in a mixing bowl inside of a blender and I think they turned out fine.  I also topped my with chocolate chips.  I tried them right out of the oven and did not like them.  Once they cooled however, they were delicious!

Baked Ziti
Who can pass up a good, comforting, baked pasta?  When I made this recipe I cut it in half.  The original is for 12 people; a little much for my family of 4 (1 being a small child and 1 being a newborn).  My husband loves Italian sausage so I didn't use any hamburger and used all Italian sausage.  He really enjoyed it.  It tasted very much like lasagna to me.  It was very good.  The next time I make it, I will make the full recipe, but put half in the freezer for another night.

Cheesy Hasselback Chicken
This chicken is another take on Chicken Cordon Blue.  It was very easy to make and very good.  I think it would be fun to play with the types of cheese used.  My grocery store was out of Colby Jack so I used Monterey Jack cheese.  I think a sharp cheddar would also be very good.

I try very hard to not cook the same things over and over.  Of course we have our family favorites, but I also enjoy cooking new things.  I try to cook something new each week.  In the past, I have subscribed to many cooking magazines to get new ideas.  I would tear out recipes that interested me.  Just recently I create a new organized way to store and save these recipes.  You can read about that here - Recipe Binder.  Now I have Pinterest :) The nice thing about Pinterest is I don't have to print off the recipes.  I can pin them to my boards and quickly access them on my iPad when I am meal planning and cooking.  Here are my recipe boards if you want to take a look:

• Yummy Snacks                       
• Slow Cooker
• Delicious Desserts                     
• Soups
• Drinks                                       
• Daily Dinners
• Good Morning Breakfast             
• Lunches
• Smoothies
• Recipes to Try

** Image from freedigitaphotos.net.  Photo by Sicha Pongjivanich. 
Published on 20 November 2011  Stock photo - Image ID: 10065169