Space for Tween's...

I have two 'tweens', you know the age 9 (going on 10) and 10 (going on 11).. They have outgrown many of their younger childhood toys, feel they should be treated older and most definitely crave their own space, particularly away from each other & their two younger siblings who are aged 7 and 6. I tried a little experiment starting a couple of weeks ago, whereby I was seeing how they went at making their beds and keeping their rooms tidy and organised.. needless to say it was an abomination!

The Before's!

So today I caved and tidied their rooms for them.. I could no longer stand walking past their rooms and looking at the mess.. I love their beds, they are loft beds with a desk, drawers, wardrobe etc all built in, so they are the ultimate space savers which is handy in a house of soon to be 5 kids! Today I have focussed on the lower half of the space, tomorrow I will remake their beds with fresh linen etc.

My Stepson aged 10, enjoys reading, playing his DS, playing lego, sketching and his Bop-it indoors.. We added a computer and a desk lamp to his desk today, so I know when he returns on the weekend he is going to be super impressed by the new setup.. here's hoping he keeps it clean!

And my stepdaughter she enjoys much of the same, plus Littlest Petshop, Pixel Chix, Beado's and making her friends endless books, cards, friendship bracelets etc etc. she is also branching into an interest in scrapbooking and beadmaking, so I have set her up some baskets to contain all of her supplies;

So now iv cleaned up, I think I'll find it much easier to keep it clean (and for them to keep it clean..) and hopefully it will spark some new interests for the both of them! 

Things to achieve in February..

With February now in full swing, I thought it time to outline my goals for the month;

1. Head back to work for the year.

2. Print out my Project Life Photographs so far for 2011 and organise my entire album.

3. Use my 2nd album to catch up on Indigo's scrapbooking (I have seen this done in some other blogs, check out the gorgeous Sunny Side Up blog to see a great example of this in action.

4. Finish tweaking the routine I have in place and stick to it as best I can.. I have a routine now for morning, night and in between that seems to be working wonderfully (more on that another time..)

5. Show my little man an excellent time for his 6th Birthday.. this year we are having 2 parties & a day off school to have some birthday fun.. why not? your only 6 once right? This week will be all about party planning in this house..

6. Wash the car

7. Keep up the gardening.. its been so lovely pottering in the garden in the past couple of weeks..

8. Keep cleaning out the 'nursery' - no longer labelled 'spare room'.

9. PAINT (Note to hubby) the bathroom & laundry!

and lucky last...

10. Have fun!

So they are my 10 goals for February.. Im sure there will be other goals to accompany them but at this stage I think that list is a good start for now and will keep me busy.

For the next week or so I am also going to take part in the '14 Days of Love' challenge outlined on 'Our Life on a Marquee Blog' which sets the challenge to  do one thing each day to show someone how much you love them - such a lovely idea in the lead up to Valentines Day. She has some great printables on her blog also, which are cute for Valentines Day.. so check them out and keep watching this space for my first item tomorrow!

Back to School..

The majority of my week has been spent preparing for 'Back to School'  week.  And there has been quite a lot to do with 4 children to prepare! This is the first year that I have had a book list for each of them, so I'm finding covering 60+ books quite daunting!   I ordered the text books and books through the recommended newsagent via the school book list, but wanted to purchase items such as pencil cases, stationary etc at other outlets so everything was more personalised for them (plus, who wants a tartan pencil case in this day and age!).  I was also able to start collecting these supplies earlier in the holidays this way, rather than leave it all to the end, so when I saw something I liked (such as these adorable lead pencils at Smiggle) I was able to buy them. 

 

Book covering this year, as I mentioned earlier has been quite daunting with over 60 books that need covering.  I had intended on buying book covers or contact but after looking into the associated costs, I opted for the method my Mum used for many, many years.. good old brown paper!  5 rolls later, with some additional stickers (Ben 10, Toy Story, Winnie the Pooh) and decorative pictures, posters etc ( for the older kids) the books were covered and the kids were impressed with their personalised books.  I did purchase some clear book sleeves to place over the brown paper (as I'm terrible with a roll of contact!) and some pretty gift wrap for the larger scrapbooks (as I couldn't help myself) but overall, using the brown paper cut the covering costs by ALOT! 

My favourite book covering, which I will stick to largely next year has been the gift wrap, you can get it at an affordable price 50c-$1 a sheet (or a roll if need be) and it comes in so many designs.  I also used a section of it in conjunction with clear contact to jazz up plain folders and pouches etc for a more personalised touch.

As far as labelling goes, this year I decided to mix it up a little.  Last year I predominantly used pre-purchased personalised labels from Moo for my Son's prep things, but as I have a lot more to label this year I have utilised my permanent Sharpie Laundry Marker (for pencils, felt pens, crayons etc..), my Dymo labeller (for labels on glues, markers, rulers, textbooks etc..) and personalised name labels for things such as lunchboxes, drink bottles etc. 

As far as labelling clothing goes, I still have plenty of surplus iron on labels from last years Moo order, so I will continue to use those and with an $80 pair of school shoes added into the mix this year, I bought some shoe dots.. just in case the shoes go wandering.. Which strangely (I say strangely as my stepdaughter loses her drink bottle daily) we have never had a shoe go missing before, but I guess there is always a first time for everything.

So with the uniforms and clothes ironed to cover us til Friday, I'm off to make lunch for the first day back!

One of the ways to share my kids work :-)

I am blessed to have a little artist in my home, my son loves more than anything to create and make drawings, paintings and various artwork that I love to keep and treasure.  However, with 4 kids in the house, the archives of school and art work soon mount up to levels that I have no idea where to keep!

One idea I had earlier in the year was to utilise this cute little display board that I got from Kmart, hung centrally in our home, above my craft/organisation station that I change the pictures on to suit an event that may be going on, or just because I love them.. I did a display for Mother's Day of the kids craft they bought home from school and now again, their Christmas craft.. Im just loving these snowmen! they have taken pride of place on the fridge for weeks before now moving onto the display board today..

Other areas I store the kids artwork is on their own pinboards in their rooms, on the front of our fridge (the kids love putting their piccies on their to give to me) and each of them have a folder or sketch book which I collect and collate their various artworks into.  I am of course behind in doing this, so will need to get working on this during these school holidays!

First hint of Christmas.. 47 days to go.

With only 47 days to go until Christmas, the kids and I made a start on some of our Christmas craft today. There are only 4 weeks til school breaks up, so I thought it best to start on making Christmas cards for their friends. I usually purchase store bought cards for them to hand out, but this year I decided making handmade cards would be more fun and would kickstart the festive feel.

We headed to Kmart to stock up on supplies, my favourite products being the precut mini cards (as it saved me a lot of cutting!) a pack of 25 for only $4.00! We bought silver, black and pearl cards for the kids to decorate and they worked wonderfully with the adhesive christmas glitter shapes, so simple, yet they looked so effective! Other items we bought to decorate were glitter pens, gel pens, metallic pens, christmas tree/star scatters, pom poms and ribbons.

I used a cane basket to store all of the christmas craft in, which will keep it nice and accessible over the upcoming weeks and made it easier for the kids to pack up after they finished their craft.

The cards the kids created were soo cute and they are looking forward to finishing them off over the next few days and giving them to their friends later in the month. All except for my eldest stepson who in response to making handmade cards said "I think I might use my pocket money to buy some Christmas Cards.. " Don't you just love the motivation of the pre-teen! LOL.