Valentine's Day Teacher Gifts

I have attempted to make a full fledged effort to treat my teachers to a little something out of the ordinary.  I have three teachers, so a $20 investment on a teacher quickly becomes $60.  This year I have had amazing! teachers and want to make sure they remember my kiddos and truly know that I appreciate everything they do for my kids.  I decided that little small items couple with a couple handmade and personalized gifts would do the trick (honestly, I don't know they even notice....but it makes me feel good!)  So, for Valentine's Day  I found these apple shaped Hersey's pieces, got them each a bag of M&M's, found some super cute and very inexpensive stationary items @ Michael's (a large clothes pin, a decorative box of note paper, a matching pen and small clip board for post-it notes, and then I topped it off with my homemade item!  I bought these tiny frames for $1.50 each, cut out some scrapbook paper to line the frame and used the cricut to cut out the first letter of their last name!  After I put the frame together I decorated the covering/glass area with little crystals studs just to fancy it up!

I am in love with how these turned out and will doing another for myself when the desk space finally gets put together!

Our Movie/Game Shelf

After several months of living together, Jason and I's movie and game collection (mainly his..but what's his is mine :)) had over run three crates and the old entertainment center!  It was a mess!  Danielle was getting discs out of the cases and they were getting scratched up....not cool!  We started talking about buying a media case that had a lock on it.  I was not excited about the idea of a lock (cause if the boys want to play a game or watch a movie...I would have to unlock and re lock the unit).  At the time, it was back to school sales EVERYWHERE and walmart was featuring this zig zag shelf in their college/dorm specials.  I came up with a plan to make this simple zig zag bigger and in multiples.  After sharing the plans with Jason....we came up with this!

Since our collection has begun to out grow it a bit I am looking for a neat way to store the DS games :))  When it happens, I will of course share it!


~Happy Organizing
 Brandie

Menu Board

I have found the best first step to getting my life organized was to develop a menu.  This forces me to organize my food shopping and allows me to get everything I need a week at time.  Now, I am not rushing to the store or over buying (saves me money too!)  The menu also stops the question "Mom, what's for dinner?"  I fill it out every Sunday evening and the entire house knows what's cooking for the entire week!

I found the original idea on Pintrest (where most of ideas seem to be coming from!).  I bought an eight hole photo collage (about $10), filled each hole with scrapbook paper titled it with the given day (one hole reserved for the title "The Menu") and can you use the glass as a dry erase board!  I love it!  As my mood changes I can change the paper.  Grocery shopping just got tons easier!

~Happy Eating!
Brandie

Read more at http://diyshowoff.com/2013/02/24/that-diy-party-5/#wfCKQDCz3z80i9J4.99

Time to Get Started!

Ok, it's official!  It's time to get this blog started!  I have a ton of ideas I want to include here but we are going to start small and slowly work our up!  First things first....getting life organized!  As I work my way through getting my home and life organized I want to share what has worked for other people.  I want to use this blog as a resource for others, focusing on the Midwest!  So spread the word, send in your suggestions AND PHOTOS to my email address and let's get started!

Email:  midwestmoma@gmail.com