Gift Tracking

Father's Day is coming up on June 16 and as I was thinking about what to get my dad, I was reminded that I need to start keeping better track of birthdays, anniversaries, and other occasions that require gifts or cards. 

I came up with a simple little gift tracker to help me out and if you like, you can get it for free too! 

Click here to download!

Just click on the link below the photo and it'll take you to where you can download this free printable.

Here's hoping that we never give a duplicate gift, or forget an important gift-giving occasion again! :)

Read full Post >> Share This Post: Pin It	1 comment

A Special Mother's Day Greeting

Mother's Day is coming up and I decided that I wanted to add a special touch to my mom's gift:

Click to Download This Free Printable!

Instead of giving her a card, I'm going to print this out on some nice paper and write down ten reasons why I'm glad my mom, is my mom. I think she's really going to appreciate it! :)

This printable, was inspired by a guest post that I saw on the Money Saving Mom blog. The author, Victoria (of the Snail Pace Transformations blog) wrote about the time when she presented her mom with a simple list, titled, "10 Reasons Why I Am Glad You Are My Mother."

This list turned out to be one of her mother's most cherished possessions, and reminded me of how simple words can go a long way towards making someone feel loved.

I want my mom to feel the love this Mother's Day, and if you'd like to do the same for yours, you can download this free printable by clicking on the link under the photo above.

If you'd like, please share this printable with your friends so they can give their "10 Reasons" list to their moms too! :)

Join the Pinterest Challenge Here!

Read full Post >> Share This Post: Pin It	No comments

Digital Maintenance Checklist

Something we've been meaning to do for awhile now, is to try to keep up with the maintenance of all our gadgets and other electronic devices. Doing this should keep our stuff in better condition and since we usually sell our devices when we upgrade or no longer use them, we can get better prices from buyers.

To help with this challenge, I did a bit of research on the best way to maintain our computers and gadgets, and I made a digital maintenance checklist with a schedule we'll attempt to follow. Even if we don't follow it strictly, I figure it will still help us to have a nice visual to remind us of what we SHOULD be doing! :D There are also some blank spaces in case we want to add more tasks to the list.

Since spring (cleaning) is in the air, I'm making this printable (PDF) available for you to download in case it helps you too!

Click here to download this printable!

Read full Post >> Share This Post: Pin It	2 comments

The 31 Day House Cleaning Routine

Cleaning can be such a chore! Excuse the pun, but it's true that keeping a clean house can be an overwhelming experience -- especially when you're used to living in a smaller place like an apartment. 

My husband and I usually try to deep clean our house once a week, but after reading (and pinning) this article on Apartment Therapy called, 'How to Clean Your House in 20 Minutes a Day for 30 Days,'  I was inspired to try this method. Basically how it works is that instead of doing everything in one day, you follow a schedule where in addition to your typical household chores like doing the dishes, you do a 20-minute (the use of a timer is encouraged) cleaning task per day. The schedule has a list of rotating cleaning tasks to do and by the end of 30 days, you start over on day 1 and by doing this, your house should be nice and clean. 

Since I enjoy making printables, I decided to come up with my own version of the schedule and here's what it ended up looking like:

Click Here to Download This Free Printable!

• Instead of the 30 day schedule, I named it the, "31 Day House Cleaning Routine," so the list can be used for months that have up to 31 days.

• On the left of the page are the 31 days and next to that I can write the first letter of the corresponding day of the week. For example, since March 1st is on a Friday, I would just write in the letter F, right next to the number 1. 

• For the cleaning tasks themselves, I pretty much followed what was on the schedule in the Apartment Therapy article, with just a few minor tweaks.

• Since my husband and I share some of the cleaning tasks, I added a 'Who' column so we could write the name of the person who would be doing each particular task. 

• Finally, on the far right of the page are checkboxes for checking off all the tasks that have been completed.

My husband and I are going to start the 31 Day Clean Routine this coming March! I don't think we'll be timing ourselves though. 

If you'd like to try this method of cleaning for yourself, you can download it for free by clicking the link under the photo of the printable. I'd love to know how it works out for you in the comments below.

** If the free version of this printable doesn't fit your needs, I also have a blank, editable version of this printable in my Etsy shop.

Enjoy!!

Read full Post >> Share This Post: Pin It	205 comments

Kitchen Cheat Sheets

Lately I am loving infographics that have useful information for the home. According to Wikipedia, infographics are, "graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and clearly."

Here are three that I really like:


Fridge and Freezer Storage Cheat Sheet

Metric Conversion Cheat Sheet

Cooking Times Cheat Sheet

Aren't they pretty? As you can tell, all this information will come in handy in the kitchen and since I'm not the best cook I could use all the help I can get! Haha. 

These infographics are from a company called Everest, and the best part is they offer free PDF versions that you can print and keep for easy reference. Pin it to a bulletin board, stick it on the refrigerator, keep it in a binder, or attach it to a clipboard that you hang up in your kitchen. If you would like, you can visit the company website to download and print now!

Read full Post >> Share This Post: Pin It	1 comment

A Weekly Meal Planner

"What's for dinner??"

If you get asked this question a lot, or if you just want to get more organized, it may be time to start planning out meals so everyone always knows what's on the menu!

I was experimenting on my computer the other night and came up with this simple, but functional weekly meal planner:

Click Here to Download

You can use it to plan out breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all seven days of the week. Under each day you can list all the ingredients you need to make the meals, and that way you know exactly what you need to buy at the grocery store. This may even help you to save money!

This printable is FREE (yay!) and to top it off, I've also made it editable. This means that if you don't feel like writing, you can open up this meal planner on your computer, Apple or Android smartphone or tablet, and just type in the fields.

How to Use Editable Printables on Your Computer:

In case you're wondering how the editable aspect of it works, here is a quick tutorial.

1) First make sure you have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software installed on your computer. This is what allows you to open up PDF files and you most likely already have it installed on your computer. If you don't, click here to download it.

2) Open up the Weekly Meal Planner and on the top right you will see where it says 'Highlight Existing Fields.' If you click on that it will highlight (light blue) all the places on the document where you can type. You can see what it looks like below from a screenshot I took.

3) The next step is to simply start typing! Don't worry if the text looks like it won't fit in the space, as the text will automatically become smaller to fit.

4) When you're done filling in the meal planner, click the 'Highlight Existing Fields' to remove the blue highlight and this is a sample of what you'll see:

5) Now you can either save and print the document or simply leave it on your computer for your personal reference.

If you want to see how this works on a tablet such as an iPad, read on. If not you can skip this part and just go ahead and download your printable!


How to Use Editable Printables on Your Tablet:

My tablet is an iPad Mini so you'll see screenshots of that in this tutorial, but it works pretty much the same way on an Android tablet.

1) If you don't already have it, download the free Adobe Reader app from the app store.

2) After clicking the download link below, the file will pop up. On the top right you'll see a button that says, 'Open in Adobe Reader.'

3) Once the PDF is open in Adobe Reader, you will again see the blue highlighted fields. 

4) Now you can just start typing! When you're done with the file you can close the Adobe Reader app and your edited PDF will just live there until you delete it.

Using this Weekly Meal Planner on a small tablet is a portable way to bring it with you when you go shopping.

If this all seems too complicated to do, simply open up the PDF, print, and write on it. 

Hope you find this useful and please do comment to let me know what you think of this printable, or if you have any suggestions for improvements.

In the meantime, please feel free to share this Weekly Meal Planner by tweeting, liking, or pinning it. Enjoy!

Read full Post >> Share This Post: Pin It	6 comments

Your Daily Household Routine

You know how in school and college you had a class schedule? Well, why not create a schedule for your daily household routine? If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the tasks involved in running a household, this schedule will help you and everyone in your family to keep track of what needs to be done. Here is a Daily Household Routine printable that I made, which you can download for free.

Click here to download this free printable!

This printable is also editable, which means that instead of printing out the worksheet and writing on it, you can open it up in the free Acrobat Reader software and simply type in the fields. Please note that the document design can't be changed.

How to use this printable:

1) Starting with the Monday, take time to sit down and type in your daily routine for all five days of the week. (Take a break on the weekends! :) ) As you can see, the worksheet is two pages long in case your tasks don't all fit on one page.

2) On the right side of the document, you'll see a section where you can enter in other tasks and a day. This part can be used note down tasks that have a more irregular schedule (ie once a week, every two weeks, monthly, etc), and that don't necessarily fit in your daily routine. In our house for example, grocery shopping is usually done on a Monday, but not every Monday. This is the section where I would put this information.

3) On the top right of the first page of the document, you'll see a box with circles and blank spaces. This space is optional and should only be used if you want to assign specific tasks/chores to certain members of the family. If for example, my husband usually prepares breakfast and I'm the one that brings the kids to school, I would take a pink highlighter pen and a blue highlighter pen and color one circle blue and one circle pink. Then I would put my name next to the pink circle and my husband's name on the blue circle. I would then highlight where I typed 'Prepare Breakfast' in blue since it is my husband's task and I would highlight the 'Bring Kids to School' in pink since it is my task.

If you have more that two people who help out with the chores at home, just use a different colored highlighter pen per person (up to 5 people).

Below is an example of this printable with a Monday daily routine filled in, for a couple with two children:

This printable would work well in a household notebook or even on a bulletin board in a central part of your home, like the kitchen.

If you do choose to download this free printable, I hope you and your family will find it useful! :)

Read full Post >> Share This Post: Pin It	9 comments

Ready, Set...Get Organized!

Life and other things happen to all of us, so if you feel the need to get organized but just don't know where to start, I suggest sitting down and simply making a list.

Don't worry about categorizing anything and don't think too much. Just get some pen and paper and start listing down every single thing that you need or want to get organized! This method works well because you're clearing clutter from your mind and you avoid analysis paralysis, where you over analyze things so much that you end up not doing anything at all. (I'm guilty of this a lot!)

For a little added flavor, I whipped up a simple and free 'Organizing Projects' printable that you can download now to get started! Good luck! :)

Click here to get this free printable!

Read full Post >> Share This Post: Pin It	3 comments

Laundry Woes and a Fabric Care Guide

If you've ever ruined clothes while doing laundry or had a hard time trying to decipher the symbols on clothing labels, you may find this guide to fabric care useful:

I found this document from a website called The American Cleaning Institute, where you can get great tips for clean living and you can download the Fabric Care guide here.

Once you've downloaded the guide, you can print it and keep it handy in the laundry area of your home. Some ideas for ways to display it:

1. Keep it in a frame in your laundry room.

2. Put a bulletin board in your laundry room and pin the fabric care guide to it.

3. If you have a clothes line or drying rack in your laundry area, hang the guide up using clothespins.

Whatever method you choose, I hope this helps you to keep your clothes in tip top condition! :)

Read full Post >> Share This Post: Pin It	No comments