Day Three of Out With the Old....In with 2010!

The fun never ends!  Have you been cleaning and organizing around your own house now that it's 2010?  I hope so!

The next project I took on was the guest bathroom cabinets.  This is where I store all the extra toiletries, medicine, etc. because we don't have room for it all in the master bathroom.  After several rounds of house guests over the past few months and a few illnesses the medicine cabinet was a mess.  Here it is before:

 
I know, you're probably thinking, "this girl is crazy...that looks pretty organized to me!"  Well, the recently used medicine needed to be put away and all the expired medicine needed to be TOSSED and replaced if necessary.  Check out this REALLY expired Neosporin I found in the cabinet!  The expiration date beats the expired oil I found in the pantry yesterday!

Expires April 1998!!!

After tossing all the old medicine and adding what needed to be replaced to my shopping list the cabinet was starting to look better.  I got out my label maker and re-labeled a few boxes as well as added labels to a few that never got one.  Now the next time one of us or one of our house guests gets sick, they know just where to go to find the cure! 

 

This is a quick and easy project that will only take you a few minutes so go ahead and try it today!

Day Two of Out With the Old....In with 2010!

I hope yesterday's post on cleaning out the refrigerator and freezer inspired you to start some projects of your own.  Since I was on a roll, I continued cleaning and organizing by taking care of the pantry next.  Here are the photos you saw yesterday of the pantry before:

Here is the kitchen counter as I was in progress of cleaning off the shelves of everything that had expired or needed to get tossed:

 

Somehow I had accumulated things like 3 bottles of white vinegar, 3 boxes of powdered sugar - the types of ingredients you only need a little bit of when you're making something and when you get to the store you forget that you already have some at home.  I do this all the time even though I am such a diligent list maker!  I have no need for all of this extra food so I TOSSED IT ALL!  Such a good feeling!

I clean out the pantry pretty regularly, but apparently I have missed some things along the way.  The BIG expiration date SURPRISE was when I saw this:

EXPIRES DECEMBER 3, 2005!!!!!

Can you believe it?!?!  Clearly I needed peanut oil at one point and haven't needed it since!  I'd like you to know that not only have I cleaned the pantry every couple of months over the past few years, but I have also moved not once but TWICE since December 2005 which means I have packed up this particular bottle and moved it from one kitchen to another and then again to my current kitchen.  I bet this will amaze my family that something like this could go unnoticed by me!

We have more storage above the pantry which is where I like to keep serving platters, place mats and other things that I don't necessarily use every day.  Here is the storage section above the pantry before:

 

Up here I came across 3 bottles of tonic water that were so old they were FLAT, two French press coffee makers and many bottles of random wine that we've accumulated over time.  Several of these items can be donated including this treasure that I had leftover from a costume party that I found waaaaaay in the back of the cupboard:

I can't imagine I'll use that again anytime soon and I bet someone will love finding it at the local thrift shop.

After tossing the expired stuff and making a pile of kitchen items to donate, here's what the pantry and storage space looked like after:

The baking shelf looked so much more organized and the honey bear was probably so much happier!

I moved some of the appliances that were on the lowest pull-out shelf to the cabinet above the stove where I can still reach them.  This freed up space on the lower shelf for the items I use more often like our panini maker and juicer.

I am loving the feeling of getting off to a FRESH start in 2010!  You should try it too!  Tomorrow I'll let you know how organizing the guest bathroom went.  In the meantime, go into ONE room in your house and fill up ONE bag of stuff to TOSS or DONATE.  It will make you feel like you're off to a great start in 2010 too!

Out With The Old.....In With 2010!

Today was a PERFECT day!  I got to sleep in, watch part of the Rose Parade from bed then roll out of bed and dive into one of my favorite things of all time...CLEANING and ORGANIZING!  New Years Day was an ideal day for this.  My husband was content to be on the couch ALL day with endless football games, most of the stores were closed so I couldn't really run errands or shop and it was raining so who wanted to go outside anyway?

After hosting both Thanksgiving and Christmas the kitchen needed some serious HELP!  First I attacked the refrigerator and freezer.  Here they are BEFORE I got started:

  

Inside of door before

Inside of refrigerator before

 Top shelf of freezer before

Bottom shelf of freezer before

I know, some of you may be thinking that it doesn't look that bad!  But trust me, I am pretty good at staying on top of keeping the fridge clean so when it looks like this I feel the need to take action!  So while the football games were on TV I emptied the fridge and freezer, got out the 409 to clean all the shelves and TOSSED anything that had expired.  The oldest thing I found in the fridge was some hot fudge sauce that had expired in January 2009!  After a while this is what it looked like:

Inside of refrigerator door after

Inside of refrigerator after

Top shelf of freezer after

 

Bottom shelf of freezer after

Another reason this is such a great project is because you can also take stock of what you have on hand.  I clearly don't need unsalted butter or yogurt anytime soon!  While I am tossing everything, I like to keep a list going on the kitchen counter of the things I want to restock next time I go to the store.

After conquering the refrigerator and freezer, it was on to the pantry!  My husband laughed at me as I did a little dance while cleaning out the shelves.  He knows how happy organizing makes me!  The pantry also needed some serious TLC after the holidays.  Here it is before:

 

 

What a disaster!  That honey bear looks like he's screaming "Help! The baking shelf is a mess!"  Again, some of you may think this looks pretty organized, but trust me I found some real TREASURES in there!  Stop by tomorrow to see the pantry get organized as well as the guest bathroom I took care of today.  Like I said, it was a PERFECT day!

Holiday Entertaining

I love to entertain and especially love setting a beautiful table. Now that we've moved out of San Francisco and have a little more space in the suburbs, it's a little easier and much more fun to have friends over for dinners.

Below is a table I set just before the holidays got under way.  We had 2 other couples over for drinks and dinner.  It was such a fun evening!  This night I chose to use our "everyday" dishes which are some of my favorite.  When we were married 5 years ago we registered for blue and white Spode dishes.  I love that I chose to have each plate a different pattern.  Over the years I have continued to collect pieces as I come across them.  One of my favorite places to look is eBay! 

I picked up the orange napkins at my favorite kitchen store, Tyler Florence Mill Valley, last Thanksgiving.  I have so much fun using them because they add such a splash of color to the table!

One year I had to have the FIJI water canisters so I asked for them for Christmas.  I loved seeing them at hotels and restaurants and thought they'd be so much fun on our table.  I always get compliments on them and you can order them here if you want them too! (Scroll down to the bottom where it says: Where can I find the FIJI Water Signature Sleeves I have seen in restaurants?)

Below is our table for Thanksgiving.  This is when I break out our wedding china which I really LOVE.  In fact I love it so much that the first time I used it I didn't want anyone to use their knives because I was afraid they'd scratch the plates! (Neurotic, I know.)

The bay leaf and berry garland was only $25 and made custom for our table by Pacific Coast Evergreen, one of my favorite vendors at the SF Flower Mart.  It was very festive and smelled amazing too.  Big bang for your buck!

I hope you have the opportunity to gather around the table with your family and friends this holiday season.  Happy entertaining!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Perfect Town!

It's That Time of Year!

It's that time of year when the pile of presents to wrap never seems to get smaller, right?

I saw Colin Cowie do a segment on the Today Show the other morning where he was trying to teach the hosts how to wrap gifts.  I realized...Colin Cowie's got nothing on me!  (I'm kidding of course - he's FABULOUS!)  I thought to myself, I can give better tips on how to wrap a gift!

Let me introduce you to the tool that will save your life (and sanity) when it comes to wrapping presents: the Scotch ATG 700.

I use this tape gun for everything from wrapping gifts to assembling my Christmas Cards.  No more fumbling with the tape dispenser or visible tape along your edges!  It is really so easy!  Check it out...

First, I gather my supplies:

Then I choose which gift I'm going to wrap and cut the paper accordingly (let's hope my husband reads this AFTER Christmas otherwise one of his gifts will no longer be a surprise!):

First apply tape to one of the inside edges and stick it to the box.  Then fold over the second edge so you will have a clean edge showing.  Apply tape to the inside of the folded edge and bring it over so it sticks to the other half of the paper like this:

Look! No tape showing!

Fold in the edges along the ends of the gift like this:

 

And apply some tape with your gun:

 Look closely and you'll see the clear tape there!

Then fold over the bottom of your gift like this:

 Again, you can't see the tape! How great is that?

When both sides have bee folded it will look like this:

All that's left is to tie the bow and your present is finished! 

My favorite wrapping is simple kraft paper and Offray red double faced satin ribbon in varying widths depending on the size of the package.  It's just so simple and clean.  What's not to like?

I hope this inspired you to make a dent in that never ending pile of gifts!  Get the tape gun - I PROMISE it will make your life easier when it comes to wrapping!

Christmas Cards

Now I can celebrate!  Our Christmas cards went out in the mail last week.  We sent out 225 this year!  Apparently that's a lot.  The man behind me in line at the post office said, "please tell me those are for work and not all your friends."  I had to tell him that they indeed were all personal friends and joked, "aren't you offended you didn't make the cut?"  It probably looked like I was sending them to everyone in California!

Much to my (and my husband's) chagrin, I typically make our Christmas cards by hand.  Yes, call me insane.  And if I had my way, they would be 100% completed before Halloween.  It seems like time flies each year once the holidays arrive and every year I tell myself that next year I will get them done early!  And each year that never happens.  

Below is our dining room table when I made our cards in 2008.  It was one of my favorite cards and definitely worth all the time and effort.  Yes, we (I'll give my husband some credit) tied all those bows, cut the hang tags, stuck the photo to white backing and then applied it to the red card.  Since the cards were bulky, I had to hand cancel all 220 of them at the post office!

This year as Thanksgiving quickly approached, I realized that I hadn't even begun to think about our Christmas card.  I knew I was in trouble.  So I took the easy route this year and headed to my favorite stationery store, Soiree San Francisco.  I flipped through a couple of books and ended up making a custom card ordered through Crane's.  

I loved this year's card because of how much it saved my sanity (and my marriage - my husband hates tying bows & stuffing envelopes at the last minute!)  From the moment they arrived I knew that this year my job would be much easier...

All I had to do was attach the photo...

Done!  That was easy and took no time at all!

I was happy with how the finished product turned out.  Since I wasn't making them by hand this year, I wanted the whole process to be SIMPLE.

Here they are all stuffed and stamped.

The return address labels went on...

I used labels on the front as well instead of hand addressing them this year (again...SIMPLE was the theme).  The labels were printed with red ink and green design on the borders....

After that I was off to the post office!  The whole process this year was so easy.  I might be INSANE if I go back to making them all on my own in 2010 (and my husband might threaten to divorce me)!  But if I do, I'll have them completed before Halloween....yeah right!


Merry Christmas!