Oh What a Year

I claim that the year I was 22 was the best year of my life. Lots of great things happened that year.

 

However, I don't think I've ever had a more eventful year than this one!!

 

Starting with the birth of our second sweet baby, the births of lots of baby friends, the death of my sweet Granny, friends buying houses and moving, Hubby quitting his job and starting a new one, me quitting MY paying job...and starting a whole new adventure of staying home with my babies....

 

It has been a whirlwind of crazy around our house, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

 

It's been a busy year around the blog too!

 

Here have been some of your favorite posts this year:

 

Mesh Wreaths are becoming soooo popular, and a lot of you have turned to THIS tutorial for guidance on making your own!

 

I've become a little obsessed with fonts this year, and have enjoyed compiling my favorites for YOU

 

 

I was actually surprised to see that This tutorial for easy microwave cleaning was so popular. I guess your microwaves were as neglected as mine.

 

 

Remember to check the Tutorials page for new tutorials all the time, or sign up to get Grits & Giggles in your inbox and never miss a post!

 

I'm so thankful for my readers sharing life with me day by day!

 

 

Surprise Storage

Do you ever find storage solutions in surprising places? I've been very slowly trying to get our house organized, and the kitchen has been my main focus so far. While de-cluttering the pantry I found LOTS of Crystal Light packages. We drink a lot of Crystal Light in our house, and while it's great, the containers take up a lot of room in the pantry. I emptied them out into a smaller basket with just the packets of powder and freed up lots of space. Then I was left with lots of empty, perfectly good plastic containers with lids.

 

The wheels in my head turned for a while and I decided these would be great to help organize some of the tiny little things in my craft room.

All intact, ready to be repurposed...

They are the perfect size for pens, pencils, and markers. Now, instead of having a huge cup of unorganized writing instruments on our desk, we can now find what we need quickly. Even better, they're see through, so finding the right color is a breeze.

I raided my craft supplies and found a few that needed to be tamed. Two of my culprits were my pile of glue sticks, and a few rolls of ric rac. Both fit perfectly into their new homes, and aren't rolling around or unraveling in my craft drawers.

And....just because I can, and everything is cuter when labeled, I made some vinyl labels for my containers to let me know what was in them! I used my Favorite Fonts to make the labels.

These two are my favorites...I love the dots.

Sometimes the best storage solutions are on their way to the trashcan! Look around your house and see what you can repurpose into useful storage.

Easy Microwave Cleaning {Tutorial}

To go along with my spring cleaning and reorganizing extravaganza, I needed to do a little more cleaning in my kitchen. I realized that my microwave and other appliances needed some serious love, but the idea of cleaning stuck and burnt-on food off of the inside did not sound appealing. My normal cleaners were too harsh smelling, but I didn't want to scrub for hours. So I decided to use some steam.

The results made me very very happy!

No matter how well you cover your food in the microwave, explosions will happen. In a perfect world, we would wipe them out immediately. But when we're using the microwave, it's not usually because we have extra time on our hands...so it gets, and stays, dirty.

ewwww....

 

Oh my....

 

So to make it sparkle, I made a little solution:

1 Cup Water

1/2 Cup Vinegar

Microwave for 7-10 minutes (depending on how gross your microwave is)

 

The steam will lift the grime right off. Just wipe it clean!

 

 

I used the leftover vinegar water to wipe down the rest of my kitchen too to make it sparkling clean.

Just make sure you let the water cool a little bit first!

Happy Cleaning