Enter Project Rookie Housewife and my plan was not only to get the office back in shape, but I went online and ordered that map we needed to make our very own Family Travel Map.  Take a look at the overall Office Makeover post from yesterday.  I wanted to share the new Travel Map that we hung up on that big empty wall.

The Supplies:

• World Map (or other region if your travels are more centrally located)
• Cork Squares or leftover corkboard
• Large Poster-sized Frame
• Map Pins
• Spray Adhesive
• Scissors or exacto-knife

The Process:

Step 1: Remove any glass from the frame.  I ended up finding a huge collage poster frame at Michaels for nearly 70% off on sale.  It was nearly the perfect size, and simple black.  Fun part was that it came with plastic, not glass.  Remove that, since the map pins will be quite unnecessary with he glass still in.

Step 2: Mount Cork to backboard of frame.  I took out the back board and started to line up the 12 in x 12 in cork squares and cut to size.  A little spray adhesive and the cork is mounted.  At this point I noticed my little supervisor in the doorway.  Isn’t my little man cute!

Step 3: Adhere the Map to the Cork Board.  Once the cork is adhered to the backboard, the map needs to be mounted on the cork.  Little more spray adhesive needed!

Step 4: Hang that beautiful Map on the Wall and start pinning!

Map pins are on order.  I picked up some really cute 1/4″ inch pins at Office Depot yesterday and Hubby and I had fun putting our “travels” up on the map.  I have special silver pins on the way to document our future travels soon!

~TheRookieHousewife

So next on the LIST is to clean, declutter and organize the office.  Once we dove in I have to say – it wasn’t so bad.

The scary before pictures so you can see how far we have come.

What we did:

• Unpacked, Cleaned out and Flattened at least 35 cardboard boxes
• Sorted, Organized then Shredded nearly 10 bags of junk mail and other “not needed” papers
• Categorized, Organized and Labeled all our family keepsakes, photos and cards
• Two trips to Goodwill to donate old items
• One trip to the local recycle center to drop off all that cardboard, plastic and paper
• Made our very own Family Travel Map (post forthcoming)
• Organized both the closet shelving unit as well as the desk drawers

Here is the final product!

Once I got through all the paper clutter, I realized that I have issues in three key areas: Paper to Shred, Paper Receipts and our active To-Do List.  To manage this, we decided that they each needed their very own spot on the desk to help organize as we go.  Here is the solution:

Newly organized file folders for the items we are actively working on.

A box for all the receipts we need to keep for tax time.

A tray for all that junk mail that needs to be shredded.

I even got rid of my old school work from 10 years ago!

One more look at that pretty desk.  Hope you like it!

Now we can mark a few more items off the List (YAY!):

OFFICE

• Declutter and clean – DONE!
• New stand for printer and Silhouette – Good enough for now
• Shelve unit for piano and storage
• Clean and organize items in closet shelves – DONE!
• Reorganize File Cabinet
• Desk organization – DONE!
• Throw away old school stuff – DONE!
• Wall organization – DONE!
• Label boxes in closet – DONE!
• Wedding Photos Framed
• Update bookcase – Work in Progress
• Organize and consolidate Important Papers
• Add accent behind desk – DONE!
• Travel Map – DONE

How are your New Year’s Resolutions coming along?

~TheRookieHousewife

I have started to tackle the clutter in the room and will save all the crazy “before” and amazing “after” photos for my REVOLUTION post. However, I did want to share one of the smaller organization improvements I made.  Wrapping paper – I LOVE wrapping paper and I have way too much of it laying around.  It desperately needed a “place” in the office and I turned to that lovely built in shelving unit to fins a spot.  I had been laying each of those rolls on top of two storage bins that I have on the bottom of the closet.  it seemed out of the way and easy to hide, but when I wanted to get inside one of those bins (one of which is home to all my crafting supplies) I would inevitably end up with 15 rolls of wrapping paper on the floor of the room.  Yikes!

The location is still great, it just needed a small improvement.  Then I was wondering around Walmart this afternoon and I found my $2 fix!  Two 97 cent curtain rods later and we have a solution!

The Under the Shelf Wrapping Paper Storage Solution

The Supplies

• (2) 18 inch curtain rods
• Drill
• Screwdriver

The Process

Step 1: Drill Pilot Holes – The wood we used for the shelf unit is fairly old.  Needless to say, I almost always have to drill pilot holes before I am able to install anything in this house.  This part usually ended up with me having a ton of little wood bits all over my hair and face :).

Step 2: Install Hooks – I placed each of the 18 inch curtain rods approximately 24 inches apart underneath the shelf.  We even used the support beams for this shelf for additional clearance.

Step3: Install Curtain rods and start hanging Wrapping Paper!  This part is pretty self explanatory.

The Final Product

That’s it folks.  Easy peasy.  Two dollars and 20 minutes later and we were sporting an organization solution that allows me to get in and out of those storage bins without wrapping paper ending up everywhere.

What do you think?  Does anyone have any other neat ideas for wrapping paper storage?

~TheRookieHousewife

The great part of the new year is that it is RESOLUTION time!  #1 on my list of resolutions (probably tied for #1 if you consider my weight management resolution every January) is to ORGANIZE this house, organize me and organize our life.  What better way to do this than to start with a challenge

The ladies over at A Bowl Full of Lemons, I’m an Organizing Junkie and six other top Organizing bloggers have announced a REVOLUTION for the New Year.  Ladies and gentlemen, I will be joining in on the FUN!

I started a few boards on Pinterest with ideas I have for each of the spaces.  Check out my boards and join in on the Revolution!

~TheRookieHousewife

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney bookcase with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there…

We had a very relaxing Christmas Eve.  Took the family (Hubby, me and the dogs) to see Christmas lights in what is becoming a Christmas Eve tradition for our new family.  It was a blast.  We rolled down the windows for some luke warm Houston December weather (65 tonight!) and wished Merry Christmas to all the passing cars of kids.  The pups had a great time showing off for all the families.

Tomorrow is a big day… Christmas presents from Santa, Christmas Dinner and then a movie.  My family has been going to Christmas Day movies for as long as I can remember.  Tomorrow is Les Miserables, right after we stuff our tummies with Beef Tenderloin, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans and Apple Bread Pudding!  Since it is just Hubby and I this Christmas, it is important to me that we keep up with those traditions that have been a part of Christmas for the past 30 years.

Here is a sneak peak at our tree!

What traditions does your family have over the holidays?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

~TheRookieHousewife

Then I stumbled on Momtastic’s Christmas Card Holder and BAM! I was inspired :)…

Here’s the supplies (NOTE: I used wrapping paper instead of fabric since I was already wrapping last minute gifts for under the tree!):

Looks simple right?  I used our FABULOUS reversible wrapping paper from Costco (who doesn’t just LOVE Costco?) so that I could make two or three boards in coordinating paper.

Then, a little tape, wrapping paper, two-sided tape hanging strips and a cute little bow and we have an adorable place to pin our Christmas cards this year.  All this for under $2 in supplies!

This was a perfect craft for Christmas Eve Eve.  Pour me a little egg nog and I am settled in watching the Sound of Music on TV and folding the laundry.  Any last minute crafts and decorating going on out there?

~TheRookieHousewife

Links:

• The Family Handyman – 10 Interior House Painting Tips
• House of Hepworths – What everyone should know about Painting Perfect Lines
• eHow – How Long Should Latex Paint Dry

Here is what I learned:

1. Save your Knees!  As I mentioned, I spent a lot of time on my knees trying to paint, tape, trim, caulk and clean behind some very small areas (hot water heater and around numerous piping for the washing machine!) and boy did my knees start to ache.  I found an old pillow that I didn’t mind getting paint on and used it throughout the rest of the makeover and boy did my knees feel better!
2. Caulk before you Paint.  I can’t tell you how much nicer the trim and cabinet looked after a little bit of caulk in those cracks.  The tube said to let it dry for about 40 minutes before you paint.
3. No need to Prime!  So I found some old primer in the garage and thought I would start out with a quick coat before I headed to the home improvement store for the paint for the room.  In this day and age, apparently that is not necessary! Did you know they sell primer and paint all in one?!  The good news, an extra coat never hurt anything.  For future painting, I won’t waste time on that extra coat!
4. Semi-Gloss for the Trim and Satin on the Walls.  I made the mistake of painting the trim originally with a flat paint (I thought it was Semi-Gloss in my defense) and by the time it dried it looked positively terrible!  Flat paint is fine for walls, but upgrade to a Semi-Gloss for that trim.  A quick trip back to the home improvement store and one more coat on the trim and now it looks lovely.  We also decided to use Satin paint on the walls, since this was a laundry room and is also where the doggie door is (i.e. mud, paw prints and dirt!) being washable is key!
5. Buy Ceiling Paint.  Since a part of this make over included fixing the texture on the ceiling and a fresh coat of paint, I found “Ceiling Paint” at my home improvement store that made this job quite a bit simpler.  According to the gentleman at the paint counter, it is thicker, only requires one coat and reduces a bit on the drippage that comes from painting above your head.
6. Seal your tape.  After taping off the trim and ceiling, I ran a rag along the line to make sure it was stuck real well to the wall.  Then I learned a neat little trick to seal the tape with the paint color that is UNDER the tape.  This way, if anything seeps under its the wall color that is already there.  I have to say, tested and proven, great tip for straight lines!
7. Clean First.  This room gets a lot of 4 legged traffic and with them comes dirt, mud and more dirt.  I took a Mr. Clean Eraser to the walls and the trim and even an extra cost of primer just o make sure it as covered!
8. Take off Hardware next.  Unless you can’t take something off the walls (i.e. the Breaker Box) then it is much easier to take it off then to try to paint around.  Even tape doesn’t work 100% of the time.  Everything that was removable like light switch covers, outlet covers and the smoke detector were removed, then painted, and once everything was dry, reinstalled.  No random paint splotches!
9. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.  I wanted to paint behind the washer, dryer and hot water heater.  The perfectionist in me told myself that I needed straight lines and everything to look perfect back there.  Let’s be honest, there is a reason that area doesn’t see paint very often.  Most importantly, it’s not like anyone would even notice if it did have straight lines!  So, today, I tried to let go a little.  The corner isn’t perfect and there is a bit of paint on the floor back there.  I suppose my plumber will be very disappointed
10. And finally, let it dry before you form any opinions!  I have to say, the drying period made for a very blotchy and ugly looking room.  Don’t panic!  It looked amazing the very next morning once everything had fully dried.

At the end of the makeover, I had a fantastic looking room.  The mistakes, hiccups and extra trips to Lowes just made for a funny experience.  Any one else painting a room this month?  What tips can you share with us?

~TheRookieHousewife

This is where I start with the VERY unflattering BEFORE picture.  Yep, ladies and gentlemen, probably one of the reasons that I hate to do laundry, is that my Laundry Room looks like this!

So, a few trips to the dollar store, Lowes and a couple unique items off Amazon and VOILA!  Here is what we did.

Step 1: Take EVERYTHING out of the room.  Now, the hot water heater, washer and dryer can’t really be removed, however, I did move each of these into the middle of the room.  This is important so we can get to all the baseboards and wall that never sees the light of day!

Step 2: CLEAN.  Clean the walls, the floor, behind the appliances and all of the shelves.  This is a true spring clean, and if we are going to get anywhere with that bucket of paint I bought, it needs to at least start off clean!  My knees will ever be the same, but at least we have clean baseboards!

Step 3: Tape and Paint.  I have always hated the very dull colors that are all over the house.  I only managed to paint about 3 rooms and I swear, this room hasn’t seen a paint brush in probably 20 years or more.  So, a fresh coat of paint is in order.  Dear Hubby requested a room with a little blue and I decided to accent with a bright white and green on the cabinets and shelf. I have to share this little gem, being that I am new to painting and “how to” do this efficiently, these guys at Family Handyman had all the tips a newbie like me needed…

Step 4: The Shelves.  We had two elevated cabinets which over the past 7 years have amassed a TON of stuff.  From light bulbs to spot remover, cleaning rags to detergent.  They all validly belong in the Laundry Room, but none ever seemed to have a place.  We decided to add another shelf, one out in the open and above the washer and dryer for all those items that are used more frequently.  I was able to find about 12 inches behind the washer and dryer and 12 inches clearance to the cabinets that was the perfect spot for a white wire rack shelf.  Couple of cute boxes to hold all the essentials like dryer sheets, spot remover, and clips and we are organized!

Step 5: The Cabinet.  With a little spring cleaning and we managed to find a TON of room in the cabinets above the washer.  I took off the doors and added a few storage boxes I had from IKEA to organize everything we might need.  We now have a central place for all those lightbulbs, the batteries, extra detergent and bleach and rags and cleaners.  I stole this idea from a few fabulous ladies, and made these really cute chalkboard tags for each box so we know what we have.

Step 6: Ugly Breaker Box.  If you look in that first photo, you will see a very yucky eye sore, the breaker box.  It serves a wonderful purpose, don’t get me wrong, but it had no place in my newly refinished room.  So, back to the internet and I found an idea for a Laundry Room Caddy.  What a cute idea – so, once again, I am going to use it!  I will post a How-To-Tutorial to make your very own Breaker Box Caddy once I finish it.

Step 7: Functionality.  The Laundry Room is also the home to all our cleaning supplies and boy did we need more room.  I found this gem on Amazon that allows you to hang dry your delicates and then collapses to the wall when not in use, it’s called the Arrow Hanger Instahanger Clothes Hanging System.  We also upscaled the rack we hold the broom, mop and ironing board so that everything has a place!

Here is the big reveal!

So, now we can mark it off the List:

LAUNDRY ROOM
Open up shelves and clean
Mount Drying rack on back wall
PAINT
Add new shelf
Fix hanging hooks

Leave me a comment if you like the end result!

~TheRookieHousewife

Confession time: Hubby and I got married on April 14th, 2012 and I have yet to send out Thank You cards for all the wonderful gifts we received.  Very very bad.

Part of me thinks at times I can be a little bit like an ostrich.  If you burying your head, then the problem doesn’t exist anymore… RIGHT?!?!  Wrong.  So, I went weeks, then months and nearly 7 months later… I wrote a List.  And darnit, those thank you cards were still on there.  Today, I crossed them off the list!

How did I do it?  Well, I combined it with one of my favorite activities.  Christmas Cards.  That’s right folks, proper etiquette or not, I merged my Thank You cards with Christmas cards (its pretty much the same list of people anyways) and sent them two cards for the price of one stamp!  Everyone got our very first Christmas Card as a married couple, with a sweet “~The Vakils” at the end and a personal handwritten Thank You card (on the note cards I purchased back in May with our Engagement “Thank you” pose).

Since my little hand doesn’t do much writing day to day, writing personal messages on both the Christmas Card and Thank You card seemed like torture.  So, instead I used these lovely little stamps that I picked up 50% off at Michael’s today and stamped my way to some adorable personalized Christmas Cards and saved the heavy writing for those Thank You cards instead.

Step 1: Stamp!  I went with this gorgeous green and red ink and fancy clear stamps that said “Merry Christmas” for the inside of the Christmas Card and “Wishing you a Sparkling Holiday” on the back of the envelope.

Step 2: Add a personal touch.  Now I mentioned my little hands were pooped, but I had to add a little something personal, so I decided to sign just “~The Vakils” to each card in green ink.  It’s the first time I get to sign that this year!

Step 3: Addresses, addresses, addresses.  One of my List items is to translate our “Wedding Master Spreadsheet” into actual contacts on our computer.  For now, our address book lives in excel and works pretty nicely since not many folks have moved since we sent them our wedding invitations last year.  Additionally, during the wedding invitation project, I got pretty darn good at using our home laser printer to print out envelopes with return addresses to boot!  So, I cheated and used an old file from the invitation folder to jump start my Christmas Card envelopes.  Just a little change to the paper size and add ornament clipart to the return address and Voila!  I was ready to print, print, print.

Step 4: Stuff those Cards.  This part was a little tricky because of my ever clever merged Thank-You-Oh-By-the-Way-It’s-Christmas Cards.  I had to match the Christmas Card, to the Thank You Card to the Envelope address.  Had to make sure Uncle Don doesn’t end up with Aunt Laura’s Thank You!

Step 5: Stamp and Mail.  I stood in line yesterday at the post office for nearly 45 minutes waiting to get some Christmas themed stamps.  Had I planned better, I would have done this NOT on the busiest shipping day of the year.  Alas, the procrastinator’s curse.  However, I think the wait was worth it, just look how adorable these came out!

Since I was out and about, and checking items off the Wedding Stuff List – I figured I would drop my wedding dress in the mail for the gown preservation service that Mom bought me.  That’s three items off the List today!

WEDDING STUFF
Mail Wedding Gown for preservation
THANK YOU CARDS
Pick photos for wedding album
Christmas Cards / New Year’s Cards – this was depending on how quickly I got them mailed
Convert Addresses Spreadsheet to Outlook

I cannot tell you how relieved I am to have those crossed off.  Good news, a little Google search and I am in the clear – apparently it is NEVER too late to send a Thank You card as long as you address the tardiness, which I did – HA!  Tell me, how do you keep up with all those little tasks you try to avoid?  Has anyone got me beat on my 7 months late Thank You cards?

~TheRookieHousewife

I stumbled upon the following idea and absolutely fell in love with how simple the concept was!  Off to the grocery store and after 4 hours, we had a special handmade snack ready for delivery the very next morning.  Chocolate Pretzel Christmas Buttons.  Yep, you heard me, chocolate and pretzels, you can’t possibly go wrong here.

Here is what you need…  Multiple each of these x10 for every person on your list (co-workers, neighbors, teachers… you get the drill) as I found a little pack of 10 is a sweet snack size.

• Square or round pretzels
• Hershey’s Kisses
• M&Ms (preferably the green and red Christmas ones!)
• Cellophane treat bags (I used 3″x10″)
  and little bit of time and patience

Now, while on my mission online, I found several folks who used this recipe with the Peppermint White Chocolate Hershey’s Kisses, which is a lovely twist, however, I wasn’t really in the mood to drive all over town looking for them.  So, I settled for good old fashioned milk chocolate, but feel free to be creative with your flavors!

The Process

Step 1: Defoil those Kisses – The first step is, well, the most tedious!  I enlisted Hubby’s help here and bless his heart… he defoiled nearly 500+ kisses for me tonight!  The question has been raised as to whether I could have bought kisses without the foil – good point, maybe I will look for those next time :)…

Step 2: Line up your Pretzels and Top with a Kiss – Once I had Hubby off and running with the kisses, I set forth to spread a layer of pretzels on a cookie sheet.  I made sure I picked the “whole” pretzels from the bag.  As he finished bowl after bowl, I place a single kiss on top of each pretzel.

Step 3: Melt that Chocolate – Pre-heat your oven to approximately 175-180 degrees F and “cook” for no more than 3-5 minutes.  I found that you start to see the kisses “shimmer” once they are nearly ready.  Be sure to test one before you pull the cookie sheet out of the oven, the chocolate should be melted all the way through.

Step 4: Press an M&M’s candy into the center of each Kiss – Make sure you do this as soon as you remove the sheet from the oven.  The kisses do not cool very quickly, but I was able to M&M each kiss in the 5 minutes I waited for the next batch to melt!  I was also, obsessively determined to alternate red, then green, then red, then green to ensure I have an equal number of each color for the bags.  What I learned… apparently… there are significantly more green than red M&Ms in the holiday mix. Ha.

Step 5: Cool – Now that you have smooshed your candies on each kiss and pretzel, I found the fastest way to bagging was to let them cool in the freezer for about 5-10 minutes so they are nice and set.

Step 6: Bag, Decorate and Label!  We decided to go with the simple look, just some curl ribbon in green and red, but, had I more time, this would have been a perfect project to pull out my Silhouette and cut gift tags for each.

I think they turned out quite lovely (and yummy! since you know I “tasted” a few of the misfits along the way…)  What do you think? What gifts ideas do you have for your co-workers, neighbors and teachers this year?

~TheRookieHousewife