Making use of a sled in summertime!

We were lucky to finally have some sunny weather this weekend after days weeks of rain. We went to a farm festival on Saturday morning where we heard lots of fun music, slid down loooooong homemade slides and ate way too much junk food. It was a BLAST! :)

When we got home, SweetPea asked me for a bucket so she could play with the new rubber duck she got (for free ~ that's my girl! ;) at the festival. I knew I would have to find something big enough for both the girls to play with, so I rummaged around in the garage and found...

...a sled!

Perfect!

Yes, you read that right... I said a SLED. It was just deep enough to make a good 'pond' for the rubber ducks and long enough to allow both girls to play together. They thought it was the greatest idea and had so much fun!

Use a sled as a makeshift water table in the summer!

Of course, Boogey was being a typical Boogey and soon decided it would be much more fun to add some dirt to the mix... That girl loves to make a mess! Here is what the sled looked like when they were done...

Muddy water is so much more fun!

But they sure had fun - mud and all! And I love the fact that I was able to cross over seasons with this sled! {more bang for the buck!} We'll definitely be doing this activity again!

Have you ever found a way to re-purpose a "winter" toy in the summer?


Linked up to these parties:
House of Hepworths
Somewhat Simple
Mommas Kinda Crafty
While He Was Napping
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
Truly Lovely

Hanging a Wire Rack for Cleaning Supplies {Improvisation}

Like most people, we keep a lot of cleaning supplies under our kitchen sink. Needless to say, our under-sink area is a little out of control. I don't know why we have so many different bottles of cleaner, but we do. {And, yes, THAT weeding out project is a task/post for another time}.

In the meantime, I really wanted to figure out a way to corral at least a few of those bottles - the ones I use the most - into a more easily accessible location. My first idea was to install one of those sliding basket thingies on one side. However, due to the configuration of the garbage disposal on one side and some pipes on the other, I am unable to make a sliding basket fit. GRRRRR.

See those low-hanging pipes in the way of a drawer? Sigh.
(and yes, I know... too many supplies - I need to weed)

Then I remembered seeing (somewhere out there in blogland - sorry, can't remember where) that someone installed a hanging rack of sorts on the inside of their pantry door. I think that blogger had placed things like aluminum foil and plastic wrap in theirs, but I figured that sort of rack would be a great idea for my bottle situation. So I ran out to Walmart (where, I admit, I rarely go because the closest one gets so RIDICULOUSLY crowded) and bought a pack of wire organizing wall racks thingies. (Sorry I forgot to take a photo of the package and label - bad blogger, I know). The packet included 3 wire racks of varying heights which could be attached with screws to a wall or door. I think it was less than $5, if memory serves.

When I got home I was so excited to get the rack hung and organize a few bottles of cleaner! Yay! Well, imagine my disappointment when I realized that the screws they provided were way to long for my thin cabinet door.

Yeah, these screws are NOT going to work.

I suppose I could have tried to find some shorter screws, but I really didn't think it would work either because the door itself is actually really thin (even thinner than the edge trim seen above). Not to mention, that the rack was actually a smidgen too wide for the way the trim fell on the inside of the door. (kinda hard to explain that part, but the rack wouldn't lay flush against the door for where the screws wanted to go)

So then I thought... how about HOOKS??? Yes!! I could HANG the rack! So I pulled out this pack of hooks I had bought to hang some calendars in the girls' rooms.

Command hooks originally bought to hang calendars in the kids' rooms.

I placed one hook at the edge of the trim on the inside of the cabinet and repeated on the other side.

The lips of the door trim originally posed a problem for hanging my rack - but not for these hooks!

Then I just hung up my rack! And, voila! If you look closely, you can see where the top outer edges of the rack are overlapping the lips of that trim in a way to prevent it from being able to screw in flush. But now with my hook improvisation, it is perfect!

Perfecto!

I am able to fit my 4 bottles of Shaklee Basic H in the rack (yes, I recently decided to give this stuff a shot after seeing so many bloggers rave about it - so far, so good). I love that the bottles are so convenient to get to now!

Nicely organized and easily accessible!

Hooks... who-da thunk it?

Not a bad improvisation, if I do say so myself! :)

Have you ever come up with some great work-arounds for an organization problem??

Linking up here:

Tidy Mom



Happy Mother's Day!

Of all the things that I've been called in my life, "Mommy" is by far my favorite!



I wish all of you Moms out there a very Happy Mother's Day!!!

Teacher Appreciation Gifts

If you have kids, you probably know that this was Teacher Appreciation Week (and if you didn't know... then "FYI!" ;)

And, to be totally honest, I can't even remember what I've done for this in the past but I know I did something relatively small. With a 3-yr old and a 4-yr old in preschool, we have a lot of teachers to appreciate and I just can't afford to buy everyone gift cards to Starbucks or wherever. I mean, we're talking about 9 women that provide care throughout the day to my girls!

But we do really appreciate the love, care and guidance they give to SweetPea and Boogey so I wanted to do something. But I am so busy these days that I knew it would have to be quick and easy. And, of course, CHEAP FRUGAL! :)

As I was "surfing the net" (does anyone even say that anymore? Or am I aging myself??) on my lunch break yesterday I came across this idea from Itsy Bitsy Paper and decided it would fit the bill perfectly!

Image Courtesy of Itsy Bitsy Paper

I downloaded the FREE bag toppers found HERE, printed them off on regular printer paper, cut to size and then stapled onto a snack-size bag. The girls wrote their names on the tags for each teacher. Here is my version...

Teacher Appreciation Day "gifts" (Note: the big smudge at the bottom is hiding Boogey's name)

They don't look quite as good as the original, but, heck, these are preschool teachers... they aren't used to perfection! LOL


I only put 2 fortune cookies in each bag (and only 1 in some!) since we had to make so many and there were only 15 cookies in the box, but I think the message still gets across. The girls had fun helping me put them all together and writing their name on the tags. 

Boogey puts the cookies in bags

My only cost out-of-pocket was for the box of fortune cookies which was $2.39 - not too shabby, huh? However, next time, I'll make a point to hoard the fortune cookies from our Chinese Food take out orders!! :)