Day 17 – Our Family Travel Map

Ever since we painted our office (nearly 6 years ago) I had plans for the really big empty wall behind the desk.  I wanted a Travel Map to hang and display all the amazing places that I wanted to travel to and a place to mark where I had been.  Never quite go around to that project and eventually that room ended up looking like this…

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.

Day 15 & 16 – The Office Makeover

Well folks, it is done.  The most stressful room in our house – is FINISHED!  This room was the product of a DIY wedding planner bride, very generous friends and family and a general desire to hide (that’s me) from cleaning it.

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.

Day 14 – Wrapping Paper Shelf Solution

I mentioned on my last post that I will be joining in on the New Year’s REVOLUTION, four weeks to clean and organize four areas of our houses.  The first week starts off with the office and our office is in desperate need of organization.  This used to be my favorite room.  Honestly, it it one of the only rooms we have painted since moving in and my father (Mr. Handy) helped turn the closet into a huge built-in shelving unit!  Alas, 7 years after this project and several piles of paper, a wedding and tons of junk mail and our office was officially out of control.

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!

Day 12 & 13 – Organize, Organize, Organize

It’s time to pull back out that List I keep mentioning.  We are going to go room by room in this old house and I will document all the mini makeovers for each of you to see.  Most will include some pretty sad and embarrassing “before” pictures.  Just trying to keep it real here!

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

Day 10 & 11 – Merry Christmas!!

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.

Day 9 – Christmas Card Display

I have been diving in head first into the wonderful world of blogging.  There are so many amazing ideas out there and lovely people who are sharing their craftiness, organizational tips, recipes and everything else that a rookie like me can fall in love with!  Today, I was struggling to find a way to display our Christmas Cards that we have gotten in the mail.  Thought a nifty little ribbon would work wonders, but I just couldn’t find the right place to hang it without it looking lonely.

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

Day 8 – What I Learned Painting

It has been a while since I painted a room.  There were quite a few things that I did wrong in the Laundry Room makeover that made it take a bit longer than expected :).  I wanted to share quite a few links, tips & tricks that I found on my quest to better painting!

Day 5, 6 & 7 – The Laundry Room Makeover

Well, it is time.  I have mentioned in my first post about a List, the List that is going to whip this house (and me!) in shape.  I am determined to “unclutter” and “clean” my house and while I am at it, my life will “unclutter” and “clean” as well.  So, the List started on Tuesday, with the Laundry Room.

Day 4 – Christmas Cards (and Thank you cards!)

Well… so, not only am I a bad wife, sometimes I am just bad at etiquette too!  So many rules, so little time – how on earth did folks keep up with this stuff when there wasn’t Google?

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.

Day 3 – Chocolate Pretzel Christmas Buttons

So, I have mentioned this before in our About Me page, but dear Hubby and I both work outside of the home and oddly enough, for the same company and in the same department (even though technically, we don’t actually “work” together).  We do however, interact with many of the same friends and co-workers on a daily basis.  What this means is that around this time of year, I am always on the lookout for Christmas gifts to give our co-workers that are simple, unique and won’t break the bank as we have a list of nearly 50+ folks that will be getting them this year!  This is our first year as an official married couple, so I wanted to start out right.

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.