Looking up - Kelly's Kitchen Mission

Above my cabinets I have some baskets for storing the less often needed items, I have worked on this area before, It just needed a little purging and some labels, which I bought months ago.

I also wiped down all the cabinets up there that I could reach and the top of the microwave

I drawer/bag/shelf a day challenge day 1

Baby Steps Day 2

I kept my sink shiny since Friday, it is very nice! Today is day 2. Baby Step: Get dressed to shoes, hair make-up. read more about the importance here.
I won't go into why this is important, you can read it on FLYLady.net
I don't wear make up more than just very special occasions or when I feel like it for mildly special occasions. The habit I will be working on is brushing my hair thoroughly every day. I often just toss it in a messy bun around the house. Then it's a pain to brush when we go places, often I brush in the car on the way. Sometimes I just fix the messy bun. It's embarrassing. If I brush it in the morning as I'm getting dressed, it will be easy peasy to touch up on the way out the door. Today, I brushed my hair  and dressed to flip flops and we were off.

 Instead of lace up shoes, this is where my feet were.

I can say that I'm grateful for the bbr because we had a peaceful start to the day and were ahead of schedule to leave it wasn't a big deal when we had to pull over and deal with Ellie having thrown up in her car seat on the way.
At the end of the day, we got home and I washed the puke and beach laundry right away. Seeing my mostly clean house kept me calm and I was able to reflect on the nice day we had.

Then I remembered to check the mail (didn't get it yesterday) and my FlyLady Calendar came. I love it!!!! It's got huge lined squares, the stickers are fun too. I filled in as much as I could and hung it up. Then I checked to see if I could pay any more bills yet for September, just so I could mark paid on the calendar! 

Next I remembered we were focusing on the BBR, which includes taking care of a hotspot for 2 minutes. This is right next to my front door. I forgot to set the timer for 2 minutes bit it didnt take long at all. Mail is sorted and junk is recycled.I found better homes for a few things too. 

My sink was still shiney from yesterday since we didnt eat at home at all today. I had one thing to wash so I took care of it and dried the sink out. Im off to go brush teeth and head to bed (although not at a decent hour)

FlyLady Baby Steps Start tomorrow.

I have done some of the baby steps already but not all and not consistantly. In my Flying group on Facebook, the admins are walking us through them again as a refresher. Click here for more information. I decided since the first step is to shine your sink, I got out of bed and went to shine mine, even though the kitchen is a wreck and I have party stuff to put away. Well when I got there, this is what I saw.

I had already shined it before I left for the party! I must be doing something right already!

The habit of the month for September is going to be the before bed routine, which is something I rarely do, since I dont have anywhere to go first thing in the morning, I dont feel its necessary to lay out clothes etc. This will be great for when school starts in 24 days though! So Im glad. Shining the sink is part of the BBR.

Each day this month I intend to participate in the baby step and keep up with previous steps. I will blog much of it!

Honeycomb Strawberries

This weekend we are having a Strawberry Shortcake Birthday Party for my niece Sophia.

When I found these I knew immediately I could turn them into strawberries.


I de-strung them from the white ribbon and cut the lacy edges off (leaving the hole-punched top section).

I dotted the folded up edges with black Sharpie for seeds

opened up, the seeds are faint but I think it takes the heart look away. 

We had extra stems from another Strawberry project and they seemed to work well at the top. I cut a little slit in the middle and slid the hole punched section through.

I had to fold the curling ribbon to fit it through the hole.

All done. 

we opted to string them individually so we had more flexibility on where to hang them rather than a garland as they came. Planning this party we are realizing how easily a heart turns into a strawberry!

cost: 3.75 for a string of 7 hearts
we got 2 strings

These will look great hanging all over the back yard at the Strawberry Shortcake Party. 

Strawberry Shortcake Birthday Banner

I made this for the up-coming Strawberry Shortcake Birthday Party for my sweet niece Sophia. I love how the light and dark pinks work so well with the lime green and white stripes, (like Strawberry Shortcake's pants/hat ribbon. Also love how the polka dots sort of look like seeds on triangle shaped strawberries. 

The letters were cut from scrapbook cardstock using the Plantain Schoolbook Cricut Cartridge on Roly Poly at 3 inches. The strawberry stem is the flower in 4-5 inches (I forget) on the same cartridge folded over the top. 

I could have made the pennants but I found them for sale here (and I was ordering other stuff and got free shipping) for less than if I bought paper and cut them myself. I bought 3 different colors, hot pink, candy pink and lime. They came strung on fishing line (3 separate banners) , but I wanted to alternate colors, so we cut them off of the fishing line and hole punched the corners. 

all the pennants were strung on green curling ribbon. 

Depending on where we hang the banner, I may split the bottom line in to 2, having a strawberry pennant at the beginning and end of "birthday", I have one dark pink triangle left over. 

I considered cutting letters for the other side, in case we wanted to hang in the window or from the ceiling above the kitchen island, but we will see how much paper/time I have left over first. Because it isn't over the top specifically Strawberry Shortcake, the banner could be re-used for another party, a baby shower or something, the letters should come off easily, or we could use the back. I ended up using the extra pennant to make a "7th"  at the end of "sweet" and hung in the 2 rows shown. 

Cost Breakdown

banners: 3x$3, 

3 sheets of cardstock from my stash (calling that free)

a glue stick I had (calling this free)

green curling ribbon (included in other craft budget)

26-27 triangle banner, about 15 feet for ~$9

There will definitely be more Strawberry Shortcake posts to come! 

so far today

someone posted an entryway challenge in my Flying FB Group

before

after

I have also folded and put away 2 loads of laundry, picked up a few random things and made my bed today 

I will update my accomplishments at the end of the day.