A mama with ideas...

My kids are no different to many others, in that they have an inability to hang the hand towel back up when they have washed their hands! It is often to be found damp, and scrunched up on the counter...




...on the stool...




...or, even on the floor!




It is something that easily adds to the untidiness that creeps up unannounced every day in my house. How it happens in such a short period of time, I'll never know! One minute, peace reigneth and everything is in its proper place. Then, BOOM!... you blink, and everything that's not bolted down has been strewn across the house. Sigh.

And therein lies the solution to the problem. If the towel was literally 'bolted down' it could not be dumped on the counter/floor!

You will need...

• a wall-mounted towel rail
• a hand towel
• 2 x sew on snap fasteners
• cotton in a coordinating colour to your towel and a needle

Fold a portion of the towel up.  You may wish to measure this on your towel rail so that there is enough room for the towel to hang and still be used.




Sew the 'male' halves of the snap fasteners to two corners of one of the short sides of the towel.







Line up the 'female' halves of the fasteners so that they are level with each other at the point you folded the towel to.  Sew them on.




Drape the towel over the rail and snap the fasteners together.







Done.

You can then easily remove the towel for laundering but it stays put while the kids dry their hands!  If you'd rather, you could use sew-on velcro instead! 

I have waxed lyrical about my obsession with Pinterest before... but it's really starting to become a problem. I am getting dissatisfied with perfectly functional areas of my home because they don't have perfectly coordinated accents and creative & ingenious storage solutions. The thing is, that functional does not equal pretty.

Take my laundry room slash cloakroom slash downstairs bathroom. It is what I like to refer to as an organised mess. There is:

• a cupboard above the washer & dryer to store cleaning supplies. Check.
• a row of hooks for coats & bags. Check.
• storage shelving for shoes. Check.
• a basket for dirty laundry and a basket for clean laundry. Check, and check.

But it's still a mess and quite frankly an eyesore. Unfortunately, this utility room opens directly from my open plan kitchen and dining area so everyone gets to see it. It is also where our downstairs toilet it is located, so most visitors need to actually venture in there. Cue embarrassed me. So after a recent depression-inducing browse through Pinterest, I decided to something about it. I felt there was no harm borrowing ideas from the grand schemes displayed by people with A, lots more money than me; B, no kids; and C, domestic help!!! I would just adapt them to suit my budget and lifestyle! :-)

Firstly, I took stock of what I had in this area and made an inventory of the things that needed storing and a list of activities/functions that the room had to serve. I employed this strategy recently when organising my kitchen junk drawer. While I call the area a laundry room, it is in fact much more than that. Functions carried out in the area include: laundry & ironing; storage of coats, hats & scarves, umbrella, bags & shoes; storage of cleaning supplies & equipment; storage of DIY items such as lightbulbs, flashlights etc... It is also where the washbasin for the downstairs bathroom is located!

Ultimately, what I needed was storage that worked! The biggest investment was replacing the wire cube shelving with some cupboards from the Stuva range from Ikea. I chose these because they are sturdy, well built and spacious, allowing laundry baskets to be stored on the shelves comfortably.

However, they are also not one-trick ponies! They are actually a range designed to be used as furniture in a child's bedroom. You can buy hanging rails for the interior to turn them into wardrobes. This is important to me as we rent our home and as expats are likely to move on in the next couple of years... I want multi-function furniture that can be re-purposed in other parts of the house! Taking inspiration from many of the aforementioned Pinterest gems, I purchased some extra laundry baskets to aid the sorting process. One is for the clothes ready to put away in the boys' closets upstairs. One is for Him Indoors & myself! The other is for items that require ironing. Each basket is labelled using some nifty box labels I found in Target (far more practical than fancy chalkboards)... these are similar!

The square Sterilite ones fit the shelves perfectly and they come in white or beige!

Another great aspect of this range of furniture from Ikea is the option for deep drawers.  These are perfect for storing shoes of all sizes (including the boats that Him Indoors wears)!!!

For taming the clutter in the wall mounted cupboards above the washer/dryer I bought a variety of plastic baskets and bins and sorted the contents of my cleaning storage cupboard, making things easier to find.

A major improvement was in de-cluttering the coat hooks and putting a basket for the school backpacks on the floor below. This helped remove some of the bulk on the hooks. I labelled each hook for a member of the family so that the kids can take ownership of their own items. I found this worked brilliantly for some stair baskets I set up. To label each hook without damaging the walls I used some brilliant Post-it Labels. I also invested in a wall rack to organise the brooms and mops that were cluttering up the corner. This has made a huge impact on reining in the clutter.

I used suction hooks to hang things like the clothes horse off the side of the dryer.

One of the best investments I made was to get a countertop ironing board. As with many ironing boards I found the pad that it came with was a little thin, so I also invested in a universal fit felt pad. I have another suction cup on the side of the wall mounted cabinets to store it when not in use, but it really doesn't take up any space so is actually easy to leave out.  It really streamlines the laundry process too, as if an item needs a quick iron I can do it as I pull it out of the dryer. I added an over the door hanging rail to help with this.  I store hangers here to put ironed items on.

One of the most effective things I employed in cheering up the room (without being able to actually decorate) was to pin a piece of bright patterned fabric to the wall behind the washer & dryer!! The fabric was only about $5 a yard from Ikea and really creates an impact... I love using cheap fabric for cheap & easy DIY wall art on a big scale!

BEFORE...





AFTER...

I am very excited to announce my latest project ... an e-book that I have been writing over the year and that is due to be published on Amazon in the next month or so (see the email signup sheet at the bottom of this page if you want to be notified when it's published)! The title is a bit of a giveaway, but I'll give you the lowdown anyway!

Him Indoors, the kids and I left our quiet, leafy village in Berkshire in April 2010 and made the very daunting step of moving to a new country. As first-timers to the expat lifestyle, we really didn't know what to expect and it was a nerve-wracking experience in many aspects. Understandably, my husband's immediate concerns were starting his new job; after all, his acceptance of the new role was the reason why we had uprooted our family and moved 6,000 miles to Texas, and I think he felt a huge responsibility to us to make it a success. Consequently, that left the management of the 'domestic' stuff up to me and it was a little overwhelming.

I have always been a born organiser and I love project managing things; our D.I.Y. wedding was a great example of this and I endured a lot of good-natured jesting from Him Indoors about the elaborate spreadsheet tracker I set up to keep tabs on all the details (this was back-in-the-day before Pinterest)!!! I attempted to manage the relocation process in the same way, and was somewhat successful.





The difficulty with moving abroad is that even the smallest differences can throw you out of your comfort zone, and even though the USA shares a lot of cultural & lifestyle similarities with Britain, especially compared to locations in Africa or Asia, the small differences can add up to a confusing and stressful situation.

When we moved, the twins were 17 months old, and the Big One had just turned 5. My biggest concern was maintaining a sense of normality wherever possible... kids are very adaptable but I just wanted to make it as easy as possible for their sake. One of the issues I faced (and still do) is that my boys are quite fussy eaters. They know what they like, and are happiest when we stick to the familiar. When we had been on holiday before, the boys had virtually stopped eating for the whole week. So, I was understandably worried about what food choices there would be and how they would adapt.

I turned to the Internet for some research, assuming that the supermarkets in Texas would have online shopping sites in the same way that Tesco's and Waitrose did in the UK. No such luck. I tried a few expat forums, but invariably, the discussions centered around how to find British food favourites in America!

So, we arrived in the States with no idea about what we would be able to buy in the grocery stores. It may seem a little dramatic to have worried about such a thing in the light of everything else going on, but as a mother, the ability to feed your children well becomes a bit of an obsession!

My first grocery shopping trip occurred the evening that we landed in the States. I had been awake for over 24 hours, was hot & sweaty (having left a chilly England wrapped up warm and arriving in the blazing heat of Texas) and really just needed to crash. However, I braved the supermarket to get some basics so that I could at least give the boys breakfast when they awoke in the early hours with jetlag! The supermarket felt very alien and what would have taken me 15 minutes in the UK (all I wanted was the basics) took almost an hour! Even the checkout process was different and confusing. It's almost laughable now how stressful I found the situation, because if I had been travelling on my own without the kids or if it had just been a holiday I wouldn't have cared at all. But it was strange knowing that this was going to be my new reality... and at that particular time, it didn't feel very real!





A few days later, I braved the supermarket again to do a 'big shop'. Thankfully, I had my Mum with me (who had traveled with us to help with the kids), but it still took 4-hours of dithering and stressing!

Almost three years on, grocery shopping is a routine chore, much in the same way it was in the UK. However, there are still times when I can't find something I need in the supermarket and have to try to explain to a confused American what I mean by 'marzipan'. Furthermore, in those years I feel I have gained enough insight to be able to share with others some of the key things you might want to know as a British expat shopping in America.

The e-book is designed to be a detailed source of information to ease the worries of an expat prior to their move to the USA. However, it is also designed to be used as a reference book for those occasions when you need to find something (like marzipan!) and haven't got a clue where to start!

The e-book includes the following:

• a section on where & how to shop, coupons, trolleys, bags, weights & measures and more...
• a load of information about food additives used in America and how to avoid them
• detailed chapters on the main food groups; vegetables & fruit, dairy, meat, fish, canned goods, grains, condiments, drinks, candy etc... with translations, recommendations and alternatives to your favourite UK brands
• a chapter specifically addressing baby & toddler food with comparisons to UK brands and recommendations for similar US alternatives
• information on shopping for people with allergies and food intolerances
• some details about household & cleaning supplies, including laundry products
• a chapter about food shopping for Christmas and other holidays
• a list of sources of British foodstuffs you can't live without and some suggested substitutions when you can't get the things you need
• a clickable index so that you can use the book as a ready reference guide

Finally, I have also included some printable shopping lists to ease the transition from the UK to the US.  One is to take with you on your first shop to get the basics... a list of suggested basics so you can survive your first few days!  The other is a more detailed list that will help you recreate your UK store cupboard once you are settled here in the states.

If you are keen to be notified when the book is released, simply enter your email address in the form below. I will send you a confirmation email and then when the book is released I will send you a notification.

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A while ago, I blogged an idea for storing necklaces using shower curtain hooks.  It was only as I was writing that blog entry and adding the photos that I got a little embarrassed about the state of the shelf above my neatly organised necklaces.  There was makeup items strewn all over the place.  Let's face it, ladies... makeup is a pain to store at the best of times.  I've given up using a makeup bag (except when travelling) as they always end up a bit yucky inside... it only takes a top to come off a kohl pencil or an eyeshadow case to open and the whole thing is a powdery, icky mess.  But at the same time, it's a bit of an eyesore to have it all strewn over the bathroom (or closet) counter.  So I was totally inspired by an idea documented on a blog called Laura Thoughts.  She used a picture frame with a sheet of metal to create a magnetic display for her makeup.  Fabulous and very creative.  So I decided to use her idea, but to use recycled bits to create my own.


You will need...

• An old cookie tray - in my case a very old, stained & rusty one that had been lurking at the back of my cupboard!
• Some fabric... I used some pretty laminated (hence wipe clean) cotton I had leftover from a table placemats project from earlier in the year.
• Glue - I used a hot glue gun, but a multipurpose adhesive would work.
• Scissors.
• Magnetic tape or some cheap magnets (you can buy packs at your local Dollar Store).
• A small cardboard box.
• Makeup items.

Cut a piece of fabric a few inches wider than your cookie tray all the way around.  Place the cookie tray on the wrong side of the fabric and fold the fabric up and over the sides of the tray.  Glue into place, making neat folds at the corners.  Turn the tray over and you have a pretty magnetic board!

Cut strips of magnetic tape, and glue to the back of your makeup items.  The heavier the item, the more magnetic tape you will need.  The items can then be put on the tray.

Cut a small box to the right size to store your smaller items such as mascaras, kohl pencils etc...  Wrap it in some more of the fabric and glue in place, neatening the edges.  Attach more magnetic strips to the back of the box and attach to the board.

You can either prop the board up on your bathroom counter or closet shelf, or hang on the wall next to your mirror.  All the items you need are easily visible and obtainable, and kept out of the way!  Easy peasy, and only 20 minutes to make!