Home care and cleaning

I finally  got around to both creating and starting a cleaning schedule. I have always kept a tidy house with things that live in particular places and a weekly vacuum, regular mop and generally clear kitchen benches when I go to bed but this has been a revelation so here is how it is going.

A Panorama of my beautifully clean kitchen

Firstly creating the schedule, using At Home with Madame Chic (treat yourself to either or both of Jennifer's books they are fabulous) and a quick Google search of Cleaning Schedule pictures and I was able to workout what I needed to do and break it down over the course of a week. Here is the finished product:

Hand drawn as the printer was out of ink

You will note Laundry appears a lot this is because I use cloth nappies so I wash everyday. This week as it is massive I am doing everything but generally hubby does bathrooms and Vacuums and I do mopping and everywhere else :)

Super powered elbow.

So we are still 2 days from the the end of the week but here is what I have found so far.

Everything has taken me longer than anticipated. I spent all of yesterday cleaning the kitchen starting with the oven. (It is pyrolitic so it cleaned itself, I just had to clean 8mths of buildup off the glass, plus cleaning all the racks, I got distracted last time I attempted this) thankfully darling hubby did come in with super powered elbows and save me at least 2 more hours of scrubbing.

I happily get carried away. I know that the task is clean the kitchen so while on a more standard day this's oils be a wipe of cabinet fronts and benches plus I good clean of stove and sink this time being the first I took everything out of the pantry, readjusted shelving (this took 30 minutes as my pantry was not completed well by the cabinet maker, the only hiccup in our build, but we got there again hubby came in handy) and rearranged all my containers and food stuffs. So by the time I went to bed, at midnight, everything was sparkling and fit for the queen (I had to vacuum/mop kitchen floors this morning as we have ducted vacuuming so can't use it after 9pm) it was a highly satisfactory day.

I know when a job is going to be done so it is easier to leave other tasks and focus on the task at hand. Such as while cleaning the kitchen I got rags and noticed the laundry needed a clean but knew that was tomorrow's task so was able to leave it. I got it cleaned and re-organised in an hour and a half, it is much smaller than the kitchen, in fact it lives in a large cupboard, one of my favourite features . The box on the bench is all my homemade Christmas gifts packed and ready to go.

Now you see it

Now you don't

My house has never been cleaner everything looks shiny and new especially my oven (can you tell how thrilled I am) as we moved in when Boo was around 7months old having lived underneath while the build was happening. We were so keen to move in that we didn't give it a final clean after the builders finished just cleaned as we went meaning there have been a few dusty residues I have discovered.

I love reorganising I already knew I loved this but there is a whole new joy in facing individual spaces at a time, such as seeing a way I could improve my pantry while I was cleaning. Which is awesome. 

Lastly some pics of the pristine kitchen. Unfortunately I didn't do before pictures as I hadn't realised how into it I would get. So you will just have to trust me when I say the oven particularly was filthy :D

On beautifully clean oven, yay for pyrolitic cleaning and the wikihow on cleaning oven glass. 

Below is my pantry/appliance cupboard closed and open, inside I have all my cup & spoon measures up and available with an awesome conversion chart, as well as attachments for my mixer. this was one feature that i had been dying to put up so was in a month after we moved in. The top shelf is now higher meaning i can stack containers in the middle shelf, it was worth moving.

The Cabinets for the fridge are the next thing I want to build just have to save my pennies

Thanks for reading have a great day and I hope you are leaving inspired.
Andii

Gifts for a crowd

So how do you manage gifts for an extended family of 30+ and friends on top of that, while on a single income.

The answer is with plenty of planning, research, confidence and handmade love. Oh and time.

Each year I bake for my family always trying a new recipe or two. However this year inline with my own health consciousness I am altering that slightly. I will still bake my traditional reindeer with green and red noses for the kids. This year as I am giving gifts to little ones I made it possible to hang them on a  tree incase people didn't want their child to have biscuits.

For the ladies I have made an Energising sugar based foot scrub using grapefruit, bergamot and peppermint essential oils. Thanks to this lovely recipe for an Easy Sugar Scrub. I made a bulk scented base oil then measured and mixed each jar individually. I used 10mL Bergamot and Grapefruit to 5mL peppermint for 1L of oil.

. The foot scrub smells divine

For the gentleman I have made sweet and spicy nuts, using this BBC Good Food recipe. I only added 1Tbsp of honey as I found that sweet enough and saved me an additional step. I chose this recipe as it contained the fewest ingredients with no egg or other ingredients I would be concerned about storage wise.

Gifts when I ran out of jars for nuts. For those who are not Dad's I named their
 labels i.e. AJ's Sweet & Spicy Nuts

To ensure the gifts feel special I always make an effort to package them nicely. To achieve this I generally purchase cellophane bags from my local party supply store. However this year I purchased jars from a lovely company called just jars. My package was delayed due to the postage provided but was promptly chased up and delivered when I brought this to their attention. I also purchased Christmas cord at spotlight, twine at my party supply store and made ceramic tags in pottery to dress the gifts.

A new thing I did this year was create and print product labels using Avery labels which I got from

Officeworks. I found the online software easy to use and the end product looks really great. If purchasing labels head to the business label section as they are better value. I bought 180 labels for $16 where as the exact same labels in a differently presented packet containing 90 was $15.

Labels I used i have 8 sheets of labels left to use
another time.

So the moment of truth lets do the cost calculations. I have omitted cellophane bags and twine as both are bul purchases of 100bags for $12 and 10metres of twine for $10 meaning what I used this year is negligible.

So excusing my awful writing here is the break down.

So in summary, the girls gift was $6.79 per person. Gentleman work out as $4 per person ( slightly cheaper as I used bags for friends as I only had enough jars for family.) and kids work out as 60cents each. Meaning in total for gifts for 47 people I have spent $175.96 avergae of $3.74 per person. Definitely the most frugal way of going.

Have a Merry Christmas and I hope you find some inspiration for your own homemade gifts. My thoughts are with those in Sydney who are experiencing a hostage situation, hopes for a resolution with no injuries or fatalities.

 Andii

All opinions expressed are my own, about my own property and are not sponsored in anyway links are not sponsored but are provided for your convenience.

Welcome to December.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Putting up my felt nativity my family made for us as a wedding gift, they had never felted before, is a favourite Christmas tradition which was not observed last year due to living in a building site. It was nice to have Boo running around while we unpacked and set everything up this year.

Our lovely little red tree that we bought for our first Christmas as a married couple is beginning to look a little worse for wear so this year will be it's last outing as our tree and we will be hunting the post Christmas sales for a house sized green fir. 

So in addition to Christmas, December is when we take our annual family holiday to Queenscliff with my parents and my brother and for the first time this year our little family. It ids a time filled with beach visits, leisurely strolls and a weeks worth of Christmas lunches from leftovers.

In Melbourne for December we are blessed with beautiful berries and stone fruits which I will happily purchase to share with my family.  I am also hosting our Christmas day lunch and have some delicious recipes in mind. So by the looks of it December should be a month of Good food and good cheer. I have also been using my lovely Lush Bubble wand so much fun.

November FMS Photo-A-Day

Welcome to December!

As Promised a Collage of my Photos from the November FMS Photo-a-Day challenge and my first ever attempt at this. It was actually really good fun thank you Chantelle I got to capture and share some awesome moments. I am looking forward to the December challenge.

 November 2014 FMS Photo a day prompts and explanations -my favourites are below

1. Something Blue - My favourite doona 
2. I saw this! - About Time a favourite film
3. Weather - shorts weather
4. Can't live without - My boys and Bean to be can't live without me
5. 8 O'Clock - Morning game of Cribbage
6. Made me smile today - Boo took his first steps
7. On the floor -a mosaic at my community arts centre
8. A place - A place to grow a family
9. Heck yes! - to a polka dot dress
10. I do this every day - wash nappies
11. A set - table for afternoon tea
12. Normal - Hair according to my shampoo
13.  Letters - a letter made my husband want to marry me
14. For me - a little cheesecake I sat and enjoyed
15. hot + cold = Affogato
16. After - my fall down the stairs
17. Cooking - a precooked reheated dinner
18. I love this - nap time, makes playtime more fun
19. Whole - lot of fun being had
20. Bright - A bright place I made for a rainy day
21. Shoes - puss on boots
22. A favourite thing - A picture I took on our honeymoon
23. i made this! - tarte aux fraise from scratch for Boo's Birthday 
24. i need to do this! - put my feet up
25. time - for a story in our reading chair
26. wal l- a favourite wall in Paris
27. I'm thankful for this... - being able to be at home with this little one
28. black - my mum's dog who lives downstairs
29. so, this happened - we put up our first baby gate
30. I bought this! - Children's tool set for my dad for Christmas, shopping complete.

My Favourites from this month

4. I can't live without my boys or trips to the coast for that matter,
this is one of my favourite pictures of hubby and Boo.

8. Our house last year

8a. Our house this year - all complete

18. I love this & 25. Time -  the nursery I finally got to create  for Boo, when we moved in he was 7mths.

22. A favourite thing - a photo I took while on our honeymoon of Marie Antoinette's hamlet at Versailles, I had it framed as a gift for hubby last Christmas

26. Wall- Shhhh! I had to go into the honeymoon archives again. Taken in September 2011 around the corner from Place Georges Pompidou.When finding this I found a few interesting Parisian walls I photographed but this is my favourite 

 Finally 

27. I am thankful for this... Being able to stay at home with this little man thanks to My darling hubby. Boo wanted to go in to I didn't get to move the stroller and retake the photo.

Until next time when i will look at the coming December one of my favourite months.

Bye, Andii

P.S. let me know if there is another photo you would like to see larger and I will post it in the comments.

All photos are my original images and remain my property.

Collage created using BeFunky