Housewife Hacks: Part 2

It's time for another round of Housewife Hacks!  If you missed Housewife Hacks: Part 1, you can find it here.  

This first hack is more of a functional decorating tip.  Functional decorating...that's a thing, right?  Anyway.  We have floating shelves on either side of our hood vent in our kitchen.  I have a bunch of jars that I have collected over the years (some are our original canisters from when we got married, the one with the red lid was my Grandma's, the little one is from a candy station at a wedding) so I grabbed all the loose baking / cooking items in my cupboards (salt, sugar, flour, etc) and filled the jars.  Then I got some wraphia and brown paper labels from Michael's, and now my cupboards are a little less crowded, and my shelves functionally decorated.  

I got this next idea from this website. I put my husband to work, and this is the result!  It's just a giant board from Home Depot painted with chalk board paint and then screwed to our fence.  So simple to do, and the girls just love it. This definitely puts hubby in my good books.  For now, anyway.

I love all things maple.  I mean, LOVE.  We were recently at a farmer's market and I picked up some maple hot chocolate, maple tea, maple chocolate, maple sugar, and those little maple candies that are shaped like maple leafs and melt in your mouth.  But I didn't buy maple syrup, because of this little tip that I came up with all by myself.  You can buy, at the grocery store, real maple syrup in a can.  Buying it in the can is a lot cheaper than buying it in a glass bottle.  The container I keep it in is one of those protein shake shakers, the ones with the little whisk inside, because the drinking whole in the top makes for a good maple syrup spout.  Just take the little whisk out.  Maple syrup is way better than protein shakes, so you'll be happy you did.  

These are poor man sausages.  My parents made them all the time when I was growing up, and now, so do I.  Just slice a hot dog and cook the slices in a dry non-stick pan for a couple minutes on each side.  They're delicious.  Oh, and I know the waffles look burnt, but they're not.  They're chocolate.  And they're amazing.      

Do you ever buy those pizza kits from the grocery store?  They usually come with two crusts and sauce.  I make both pizzas, cut them into slices and then freeze the slices either in a Tupperware with wax paper between the slices, or in freezer bags.  Then, when the girls want pizza for lunch, I bring out two slices and heat them from frozen in the toaster oven.  Sometimes, I take a jar of carrot baby food and mix it with the pizza sauce.  It doesn't really change the taste, and I feel like they're eating some veggies.  On a side note, how dirty is the bottom of my toaster oven?  Geeze...someone better clean that.

The cupboard under the kitchen sink can get pretty dirty, with the soaps and detergents and cleaners that are usually stored under there.  I put a shoe mat in the cupboard under my sink, and keep the detergents on it, so there is no soapy, sticky mess in the cupboard.  The idea is, when the mat gets dirty I can take it out and rinse it off...but...I have yet to do that.  But when I do get around to it, it will clean up easily.

This hack may only apply to my family, but nonetheless, here it is.  My husband's office is in the basement.  I got a file holder from Staples and hung it on the wall at the top of the basement stairs.  Ok, my husband hung it on the wall.  Anyway, when I get the mail, I sort it, and put his mail in the file holder so he can grab it on the way to his desk.  

I saw this idea on the Steven and Chris show and I just had to try it.  I tried it and I love it.  I picked up this super cute paper towel holder at Homesense.  The little knob on the top looks like a big crystal, perfect for little girls.  And big girls.  I took a a pink pillow case and wrapped it around the paper towel roll.  I cut the pillow case in half first, cutting around the edges so the size didn't change, but I was just wrapping one layer of fabric over the paper towel roll instead of two.  Once you've wrapped the paper towel roll, tuck the extra pillow case fabric at the top and bottom into the roll itself.  Then put the paper towel roll back on the paper towel holder and it makes a super cute way to store headbands.

This idea is so simple, but it took a few trips to the beach with friends for me to think of it.  Every time we'd go to the beach, the toys would get mixed up and us moms were left trying to figure out which pails and shovels belonged to which kids.  I had some extra Mabel's Labels left over from the last school year, so I got them out and labeled all the beach toys.  Problem solved!

That's it for Housewife Hacks: Part 2.  As always, if you have any hacks to share, please do so in the comments.