Our Moving Binder

After first getting married Paul and I stayed in the same place for 4 1/2 years. It was just a little Town Home but it was perfect for us. After Paul graduated we started moving and haven't stopped. We are moving again at the end of the month, this will be our 5th move in 2 years. Our biggest move was in my third trimester, from Utah to Connecticut, and the last three moves have been with our baby.

I have come up with a couple of tools to help me stay organized during my moves. Here is my moving binder and box labeling tabs.

Here are the sections for my binder:

Home 4 Sale {Out with the Old...}

Home 2 Buy {In with the New...}

Moving Costs

Moving Checklist {Out with the Old...}

Moving Checklist {In with the New...}

New Area Info

Contact List

Receipts

 

Every section has a opening page and a few more blank pages for all my notes. I have filled in a few spots for the basics but left plenty of room for you to fill in your own list of "To Do." The Moving Checklist has one page of suggestions and a completely blank one, this way you can print off as many as you need and fill it in with your own list.

For the receipts section I included a pencil pouch to hold my receipts.

There are a few things that are necessities when moving into a new place and having to search through a bunch of boxes looking for those few items can get a little frustrating. So I have developed a list of things that we need to have 'First on the Scene' when we get to our new place. There are also box labels included. These can simply be printed out on a sheet and cut out using the trim marks or printed onto label sheets. They have an assigned room and space to include a description of what is in the box. We all have different spaces and places so there is a blank sheet of labels as well so you can print out as many as you need for what ever the size of your move. If you choose to print and cut out the labels you can place them in the pencil pouch to hold them until you are ready to tape them to the boxes.

If you want to download my pdf's simply click here. In short there are 9 binder pages with 2 blank 'To Do' lists, 5 box labels sheets with rooms listed and 1 blank box labels sheet.

UPDATE: The moving binder and pages worked out great!! Everything was kept together and right where I needed them. I must say my favorite part was the boxing labels. For every box I put a label on top of the box, back left corner and another on the front of the box, top right corner. This way, however the box was packed in the truck, one of the corners would be visible so we could now what was in it and where it needed to be put in the new place. LOVED IT!!! This will be used every time we move from now on.

***UPDATE***

{4 June 2013}

I am really feeling the love. This has been my most popular post and a huge number of you have downloaded my Moving Binder pages. {I didn't think it would be this big of a hit.} 

I went back over the box labels and added some color, so now your boxes will be color coded as well. YEA!! There are even separate colors for three different bedrooms and bathrooms and two blank colors. Here is the link for the new labels and pages. If you want the original, click on the link further up the page.

Happy Move!!

Here are some of my other binder printables

Our Budget Binder

Start a Yearly Savings Plan with this printable

Here is my Checklist for Weathering the Storms 

Mega Bloks Box into a Tote

While we were out in Pennsylvania visiting family for Thanksgiving Abigail was introduced to Lego's, she loved them! Her first tantrum we ever experienced was one night when we took the Lego's away to get ready for bed. We were all thrown for a loop, this was not a regular thing for Abigail, we couldn't help but just sit and watch.

Since she seemed to have such a love for them and they are the perfect size for her little hands, she got some for Christmas. Lately she has also been trying to stack items, put lids on stuff and put anything that fits - into something else. This little bucket of Mega Bloks does it all: building blocks, lid, room to put more stuff in.

To help keep the lid with the bucket I came up with a way to attach it.

Now, I'm sure I could have just taken a photo of the finished project and you could have figured out exactly what I did.....but I got a new camera for Christmas and so I have step by step photos. Tee~hee~hee.

The Mega Bloks bucket has holes on both sides where the zip ties were placed to keep it closed at the store.

I used 16" {inches} of 1/4" ribbon and a couple of random beads.

String the bead onto the middle of the ribbon. Fold the ribbon and put the two ends together then lace through the hole in the lid and the bucket from top to bottom.

Once the ribbon is laced put the lid in place so that there will be as much slack as possible. I singed the ends of the ribbon but you can use some type of fray glue. Then tie a knot with the ends of the ribbon.

The beads on the ribbon help keep the ribbon from just slipping all the way through the holes and keep it all attached.

Boom!! Now the lid will stay with the bucket and she has a handle to drag it all over, bang it into walls and ram the corners.

Sandy Hook Elementary Fundraiser

A couple weeks ago my daughter & I were in Utah visiting family for the holiday season & giving Paul some time at the end of the semester to focus on school. December 14th Paul called me to tell me about a shooting in Connecticut. My heart sank as I was glued to the news, as I am sure many of you were, watching the details unfold. Since my daughter was born, I have been even more sensitive to those moms and families who suffer through tragedies that involve their children.

The following morning I received the news that my grandmother had passed away during the night. This was very sudden and shocking to our family since it was so unexpected. Grandma went to college and fulfilled her dream of becoming an elementary teacher and taught for 36 years. My cousin, sister and I used to go in the weeks before school started and help her get the class room set up and ready for the kids.

Now that we are back home in Connecticut I would like to try and do something to help those who were affected by the tragedy in Newtown. I have decided to sale some of my handmade baby items and donate the proceeds in my grandmothers name. Check out the images of these items on my facebook page. The first person to comment with their PayPal e-mail address will be sent an invoice and items will ship within three days of payment.

Please share this post with others so we can help the community of Newtown as much as possible.

Creating A New Me

Here we are at the beginning of another year. My daughter is now 14 months old and I have not met my goal to keep the weight off, instead I have been very successful at putting all the weight back on. With the beginning of a new year I want to 'create' a new me. I want to get back down to a comfortable size for me,  there is a number that I would like to get to but we'll see, I just want to be comfortable in my own skin.

With putting this out there for all of you to see I am hoping that I will have friends to help keep me accountable and on track. If any of you would like to join me I would love to have company.

The new me is going to need a new routine. A new diet along with exercise and other life style changes will be the focus. I need something that will work with me and what is going on with my life. This means that there won't be any extreme changes but things that I can stick with and continue to use. I'm sure there will also be a lot of trial, things that work and those things that won't but the goal is to find what will work for me.

I think I'll start with my eating habits first. Abigail has a really good diet but that is because I am in charge of it, now I just need to be as good with my own eating habits. Bigger meals for breakfast and lunch to give me more energy during the day and smaller servings for dinner, evening is the least active part of the day for me so there is no need for huge portions.

If you have any suggestions on things that have worked for you, please share. I would love to know what worked for you and try it for myself.

A friend suggested two aps for me that would help keep track of the calories for what/how much I eat. These two also keep track of calories burned as well. I have used both and find them addicting once a part of my everyday routine.

On your smart phone or tablet check out MyFitnessPal and Lose It!

What are some of your New Years goals? Can we work on them together?

Christmas Chalkboard Art

Lately I have seen some really cute chalkboard art. Baby announcements, quotes, kid art etc.

I thought I would give it a try and love how it turned out. You can make your own too. I downloaded the chalkboard backgrounds from here. I put mine together in Photoshop but you can create it in Picasa just as well.

Simply open the chalkboard background in the color of your choice, then add your text on top. If you would rather, you can download mine and print so you can add it to your own Christmas decorations.

 

Lady A's Birthday Outfit

I wanted to get some pictures for Lady A's birthday with the wonderful fall colors out here in New England. Since I am not too familiar with the area I had a friend come with me. I love this little out-fit and even more excited about the top.

This is my first re-purpose design and I could not be more please with how it turned out.

After all day shopping I finally found everything I was looking for: Boots, skirt and a top. The top was a tank top, size 2T, it was too big and too cold for her to wear it so I had to do a little work to it.

First I cut the ruffle off around the bottom. I wasn't too worried about the bottom of the shirt rolling or fraying since her pictures were going to be done the next day but you can roll the bottom once or twice to put a hem at the bottom of the shirt.

I took the extra ruffles and used them to make sleeves and a piece to the front to make it go a little higher.

For the cap sleeves I cut two pieces about 6" long. Look at the picture to see where I have drawn a dotted line. After lining up the center of the 6" ruffle to the top o the shoulder I pinned the rest of the sleeve lining up the invisible line with the seem of the arm hole. Then I simply sewed right along the existing seem. 

I used some extra material, felt and mesh material to add a little flare dress up the cute little shirt and match her hair clip I made

I am sorry to say that Lady A dropped the camera so all the photos to go along with this tutorial were lost. There will be plenty of other re-purposed shirt tutorials but here are some photos of the our little girl in her fun little birthday outfit.

 She was NOT going to give up her blanket!

Halloween Yarn Wreath

This is my first wreath I have attempted and am so excited to do more. I have seen a lot of yarn wreaths and love how they look so I wanted to try my own hand at it.

I have seen some tutorials where it has been suggested to use a straight piece of pipe foam and then use something like duct tape to bring the two ends together. This would definitely make wrapping the yarn around a lot easier but over time the pipe foam will start to slip. If you are planning on only using the wreath or other project for a one time display I would suggest using that but if you want your craft to last, just spend the time, buckle down and use a round foam wreath.

{Please excuse the photos. My daughter broke my camera so I have had to use my phone camera and Photoshop tricks to get photos up for the blog.}

Materials:
Foam circle
Yarn (1-3 colors of your choice)
Ribbon 6" x 1/4"
Felt to match yarn
Glitter (1-3 colors of your choice)
Hot glue gun
ModPodge

Hot glue about 1.5" of one end  of the ribbon to the back. Glue down the yarn on the inside of the ribbon. To help with winding the yarn I put the yarn onto yarn balls, it really helped lot.

I turned the wreath so the right side was facing me. Then sparsely wind the under colors to the left about 6", back to the right and left again. Now wind the black (top) yarn around the foam. As you wind over the first two colors leave little spaces to let the purple and grey peek through.

Hint: As working the sections, to keep the yarn tight, use the glue gun to hold the yarn in place at the end of the section.

It will take some time, but stick with it. Soon enough you'll have the whole thing done.

The rosettes:

Cut a 4.5" x 4.5" square then round out the corners. Now cut a round in a spiral leaving a round piece in the center about the size of a quarter. I like to make it a little wavy, this way as the rosette is wound up the flower will have some dimension to it. {Do the same with creating a 2.5" x 2.5" square.}

Mix the glitter (if using more than one color) in a little pile on a piece of paper.

Use your finger or tongue depressor to place little dots of ModPodge around the outside edges of the of the felt cut spiral. Dip in glitter while still wet.

Hint: Once the ModPodge is dry I took the spiral piece of felt and shock off the excess outside.

Starting from the outside tail of the spiral roll the felt and use the glue gun to secure the quarter size center to the bottom of the rosette.

Glue the rosettes in place where you want to.

Draw out a simple bat, cut it out of card stock {scrap paper} laying around then use it as a template to cut a bat out of the black felt.

String two pieces of yarn across the back of the wreath and use the Glue gun to hold in place and secure the bat in a desired location.