Spring Declutter: Pantry Complete (+Tupperware Winners)

So here we are at last: the final stage of our Pantry Project, where we add some beautiful new storage and finish it off with a flourish.

The first exciting thing that happened was hearing a knock at the door and discovering two boxes of beautiful new Tupperware had been delivered right on schedule...

I've never had Tupperware before, though I've admired it in other people's pantries. When Tupperware emailed me about reviewing some baby feeding sets, I cheekily suggested they might want to come on board with this project instead... and they agreed*! Very exciting. As I unpacked the box I was rather surprised just how big the containers were - much bigger than what I'd imagined from the photos. And I am in love with those black lids...

I had fun transferring all my baking ingredients, rice, pasta and whatnot into the containers ready for natalie's next visit, where she "went to town" with her label maker...

Now there will be no confusion about what's what. Everything stacks beautifully - Tupperware's Modular Mates system is designed that way - which means that although the containers are really big, they take up far less room in my pantry than my old cylinder ones from the supermarket.
I can quickly see what I am running short of, Miss Fab can find everything she needs for her baking adventures, and things will last and last inside those magic airtight seals.

*(Tupperware supplied me with 2x Super Pantry Sets for this project - plus one spaghetti dispenser which I love to bits. Thankyou Tupperware! I'm a convert forever).

A few other exciting things arrived in the post too. Some lovely bits and bobs I found on TradeMe (NZ's answer to eBay) after Natalie suggested some other clever space-saving devices....

A Door Mounted Spice Rack...

I'm so glad clever Natalie suggested this. As well as saving space, the door mounted spice rack also makes stuff really really easy to find. I can swing open the door and Hey presto! there's my Tumeric/Vanilla/baking soda. Mr G was very clever at positioning the rack so the door would close. the shelves are easily adjustable and fit the salt and pepper grinders as well as the cute spice jars I also found on TradeMe (and which Natalie labelled so sweetly)...

Then as if all this is not enough to have me leaving the pantry doors open, just for the view, Natalie had one last brilliant idea:

A Pantry Door Blackboard Shopping List

This brainwavey idea is like the icing on the cake. I found the blackboard stickers on TradeMe, being sold in a 200cm x 45cm roll for the princely sum of $16.
It's removable. Easy to cut to the size you want (if you use the handy gridlines on the peel-off back, which I didn't discover til afterwards so mine is slightly crooked on one edge...). Perfect if you're in a rental property or simply don't want the hassle of painting a blackboard.
And it looks so very... Pinteresty.

(It is a two person job though. You'll need a buddy. Me and Nat had a good laugh taking these photos).

I love my new pantry. If you come visit me for coffee (or deliver me a pizza) you'll most likely be dragged into my kitchen to ooh and ahhh over my domestic miracle.

I can't tell you what a different this decluttered, reorganised, upgraded cupboard has made to my everyday life. I'm no longer nervous about looking for a bikkie to dunk in my cuppa tea. I no longer tremble in fear when Miss Fab announces she wants to bake (as she does. A LOT). When we run low on stuff, I know about it. When We have enough of something, I know not to order it on the shopping. Dave the Cat's pet food is now written on the purty new blackboard shopping list. She won't be going hungry next week.

[Top Left: The Pantry BEFORE; Top Right: the Pantry STAGE 1; Above: The Pantry COMPLETE]

A friend once remarked that she didn't know how I did it with such a small amount of pantry storage for a family of five. I agreed with her, sadly nodding. But not anymore.
I can't wait to show her my new pantry, where there's now plenty of room for everything...

I am in love with my new pantry, where there's a place for Everything, and Everything is in its place, thanks to my decluttering guru Natalie. I can't recommend her enough.

(If you need help getting started on decluttering, if you're moving house or have a really tough mission that you could use some help on, give Natalie a call. She's clever and so good to work with and she's willing to tackle anything. She's non-judgemental, full of great ideas and really really good at what she does.)

I'd love you to join with me for the Spring Declutter. Natalie and I have more projects planned down the track.  If you want to tackle your home's problem areas, make sure you take "Before" photos - so you can share your "before" and "after" photos to my Facebook Page and/or blog about it and link up below and/or post to my Facebook page. (If you're blogging your decluttering projects, here's a button for you to grab; the linky will remain open until December.)

<div class="Spring Declutter" style="width: 180px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href=" http://www.greatfun4kidsblog.com/search/label/Spring%20Declutter" rel="nofollow"> <img src="http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy162/donnasimone/springdeclutterroundsimple_zps357b9eeb.png" alt="Spring Declutter" width="180" height="180" /> </a> </div>

And now what you've all bee waiting for: The Winner of the Tupperware Giveaway... Who has won the two beautiful Modular Mates Pantry Starter Kits, valued at $NZ190. (One, a reader in New Zealand. One, a reader in Australia. Visit the Tupperware website to see the range...)

And the Winners are:

NEW ZEALAND: Melissa Jack
AUSTRALIA: Emma Rowe

Congratulations ladies! I wish I had More Tupperware to give away to more of you :(
The entries were randomly drawn on Rafflecopter - the first name up was Melissa (from The Best Nest) who happened to be Kiwi; then I had to keep drawing names until I got to an Aussie... first Aussie up was Emma Rowe (from Frog Goose and Bear).

Ladies you need to email me your mailing details so I can pass them onto to Tupperware and your prize can be dispatched.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

P.S. If you didn't win and are now heartbroken and weeping into your trim flat white, because you had your heart set on Tupperware but find it usually out of your price range, my friend Lyn might be able to help you find a way to get discounted Tupperware. You can email her on lynmareeb@gmail.com; mention my blog and she'll help you out.

Find more posts about Home & Living on my At My House Page

Tupperware Giveaway ends Today - have you entered yet?

Have you entered yet?
Quick get in there!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tomorrow the winners will be revealed here on the blog along with Stage Two of our Pantry Declutter - Complete (with Tupperware installed, and some other nifty ideas)

P.S. Just to be clear, the Tupperware in this picture is the the stuff I now have in my pantry (which is Two Modular Super sets). Here's what YOU could win from Tupperware (valued at $190):

Blog Outrage and Viral Indignation

DISCLAIMER: This post may contain a bit of a rant. All opinions and experiences are this blogger's own. No small animals were harmed in the making of this story.
.................

If you visited my blog in the past four days you might never have come back again. In fact, it's a miracle you are here at all and I am breathing many sighs of relief.

If you missed it, or if you follow in a reader or subscribe by email you will have missed the excitement, the drama, the teeth-grinding frustration of having my beautiful blog infested by ugly green adware hyperlinks.
Did you spot them? Did they annoy you? Did you think I'd sold out and was letting some company turn harmless words like "young" "family" and "fun" into pop up video ads for Fiji holidays?

Let me say this and say this once: IF YOU KNOW ME YOU'LL KNOW I WOULD NEVER DO THAT.
It wasn't me.

Somehow an evil script had invaded my blog, and I was mortified, terrified and horrified all at once.

Calm down, Simoney, the more phlegmatic of you may be thinking. It's only a blog. It's only annoying pop-up video ads that could turn away your readers forever...

Exactly.

I was at a loss. Where was this plague coming from?
The only thing I could think that I'd added recently was the Rafflecopter gadget for my Tupperware giveaway. I googled for answers, I posted on the PONZ online blog forum, I turned off all my Google chrome extensions. I painstakingly went through my last four posts and eliminated the words that were being spammed. And through it all I blamed Rafflecopter.
Poor innocent Rafflecopter. Almost as soon as I emailed my outraged complaint to their help desk I received a reply. From "Greg", one of the founders, no less.
He was so sympathetic. So helpful. So genuine in his outrage ("That would be illegal! We would never do that!") that I was convinced Rafflecopter was not the culprit. I withdrew my accusation, apologised profusely... and then sat there stumped. Perplexed. Heart sick.
I mean, I know this is "just a blog" to some, but to me it represents five years of painstakingly building trust and rapport with a community of readers. It represents years of blog-tweaking, learning skills, sharing my life and creativity here in what is to me a kind of home.

I felt invaded. I worried that my readers would be so turned off by these bloddy annoying popups they would leave and never return, thinking the worst.

I knew it wasn't a browser issue, because these awful green links were only visible on my blog, nowhere else. It must be a script. Something I had added unwittingly that was doing this from within. But what?

I ran back through everything I'd installed, everything I'd signed up to. In my mind I went back months, and just before I blinked off to sleep, I remembered: Viral Planet.
Months and months ago I'd been approached by a company in the UK called Viral Planet. they were doing a Huggies Little Swimmers campaign and wondered if I'd like to have a video on my blog. Some passive income. Sitting unobtrusively in my sidebar, bothering noone. I checked it out. It looked legit. I'd done a similar thing through eBuzzing with Persil. Very above-board.

"To make our videos run properly on your blog you need to install this piece of code" I was told.
So I installed the code. Emailed them to say, it's done, now what?
Nada.

I forgot all about it. Until the night I was laying in bed trying to discover which piece of script might be causing me so much grief. Viral Planet.

The next morning, I went straight to the computer, found the piece of Viral Planet code, removed it and HEY PRESTO. Problem solved. Nasty green hyperlinks vanished. Infestation over.

You can bet that the very next thing I did was go to the Viral Planet website, delete my account and write a strongly worded email to my contact there. Not that I expect a reply, or think it will do any good. But it was such a relief to discover the source of the problem, get rid of it and lambast the culprit's representative.

I'm sure this is highly illegal. Taking over someone's blog without their permission, spreading dodgy links like a virus through someone else's property. It's cyber vandalism and guerrilla tactics at their worst.

So bloggers be warned: Whatever you do, avoid "Viral Planet" at all costs. No matter what they offer you and how tempting it might be to make a bit of passive income through their scheme, don't do it. They are dodgey as heck and their script will infest your blog with nasty pop-up ads (without your permission!!!) like it did mine.

I'm just glad I got rid of it before I lost you all. You are still here, aren't you?
Hello??? Hello???
Anybody out there???


...................
P.S. Did you see those nasty green hyperlinks? How annoying were they to you? What did you think was causing it? Did you think it was me trying to make a quick advertising buck or did you know better? Just curious.

Spring Declutter: The Pantry (Stage 1)

I've been waiting for this for what seems like years: finally decluttering and sorting the disaster zone that was my pantry. It seemed there was simply not enough space, and far too much stuff for all the things required to feed a family-of-five. Find anything was a mission; I couldn't see what we already had "in stock" so shopping double-ups were epidemic (taking up even more space); I avoided baking where possible and dreaded having to search within the depths to find the sugar/flour/choc chips.

More than once I've attempted to "declutter" this cupboard. I've shuffled things around, forked out $$$ for storage containers, stacked cans on one side, breakfast cereals on the other... but sure as eggs are eggs, within a week we were back to a mess.

Could anything be really done with this too-small space, to make it functional and organised on a permanent basis? I had my doubts, but Natalie assured me that we would triumph in the end.

Today I am going to share with you Stage One of our Pantry Declutter. We achieved a pretty amazing result in a four-hour period without spending a cent, but by being clever at repurposing, rethinking and reorganising. Natalie's ideas were ones I'd never considered - and they made all the difference.

Stage Two will be next week, where we will add some fabulous Tupperware storage and a few other bits and bobs, to take this pantry to a whole new level of organisation and usability. We need never fear going on a sugar hunt again.

Here we go then, The Pantry: Stage One...

In case you can't quite appreciate the mess my pantry was in, let me break it down for you with some closeups...

Is it any wonder I could never find anything, and was always doubling up on the shopping? I'd think we had no baked beans/curry sauce/peaches... but in actuality we were drowning in double-ups. (When we pulled everything out, we discovered three jars of vegemite, four of peanutbutter, six cans of tomato soup and eight cans of peaches. And that was just for starters...)

Step One: Take it all out! 

We need to see what we have, what we don't need and what we need to get.

Shelf by shelf we (*ahem* Natalie) took everything out and stacked it all on the dining table. I assisted with wiping stuff down and choosing what we needed to keep or get rid of (I was still in recovery, remember? honest).

When we ran out of room on the table, we stacked stuff on the floor, cleaning as we went (*ahem* Miss Fab did most of the actual wiping; it's great to enlist enthusiastic cheap free labour while you can)...

Once the pantry's contents were laid out in all their glory, we could go through it all and figure out what we were dealing with...

Step Two: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

When you get to this bit here's what you do:

• Make four piles
• One of stuff to give away to charity (e.g. unneeded containers, double-ups, things you no longer need)
• One of rubbish; recycle where you can (e.g. cardboard packaging, plastic and tin)
• One of things to keep and which need better storage (e.g. baking ingreds, sauces, spices)
• One of things which need to be re-homed (e.g. my giant medicine box which was hogging the top shelf of the pantry)

Figure out what storage containers and trays you already have (maybe being used elsewhere?); reuse what you already have wherever you can.
We repurposed some old Ovaltine containers (with the labels peeled off). I might have biffed them, but wise Natalie said, no these are great. Keep them, we'll reuse them. Now they look pretty snazzy with their cute labels - and who would ever know what they once were? We did the same thing with some old jam jars. Waste not, want not. (The labels make all the difference).

Once you've reused or upcycled what you can, make a list of what storage containers you will need to purchase. (Invest wisely. Tupperware has a lifetime guarantee. Enter the giveaway, you might win some.)

Step Three: Rethink, Repurpose & Reorganise
Rethink what lives where. Repurpose items from other places to help organise your space (e.g. trays, boxes and containers to keep sauces/meal ingreds/cake decorating stuff tidy). Reorganise the space.
Ask yourself:

• What is used most frequently and needs to be easily accessed (e.g. breakfast cereals on reach for kidlets to get their own breakfast)
• What is used least frequently and can live at the back, at the top or at the bottom of the pantry
• Is there a better place for things than where I've always put them?
• Is there anything that doesn't need to live in this pantry at all?

Previously my spices had lived on the tiny recessed shelf at the back of the pantry, in various mismatched packets and jars. Natalie's brilliant idea was to put the cans there. Now at one glance I can see what I have and know when I'm running short of anything.
Meanwhile, the spices were collected (temporarily) in a tray repurposed from the bedroom (I actually found two, so one for the sauces). Stage Two will see the spices move to their permanent spot, which will free up even more space... wahoo. Watch this space!

We reused storage wherever we could, to cut down on costs and avoid being wasteful and un-eco-friendly. My large storage for things like flour, had to be replaced though, as they are an awkward shape and waste valuable space. These will be replaced by beautiful Tupperware in Stage Two (can't WAIT!)

Natalie fired up her label maker, leaving no room for guesswork by other members of the clan. With a place for everything and everything in it's place, there is now no excuse for not knowing where the biscuits/noodles/sprinkles live. That fact alone should help keep things in my pantry clutter-free.

Thanks to Natalie's clever ideas and upcycling tricks, by the time we had put everything back in, my pantry was unrecognisable without spending a cent....

There is actual shelf space left over - and we're only on Stage One! I can tell you, I was jumping round the room. Everyone who has ever tried to find anything in that pantry is now super-impressed.

I simply cannot wait to show you Stage Two, where we install my new Tupperware and all my baking ingreds will get a proper home. So make sure you come back next week, OK?

.......................

(If you need help getting started on decluttering, if you're moving house or have a really tough mission that you could use some help on, give Natalie a call. She's clever and so good to work with and she's willing to tackle anything. She's non-judgemental, full of great ideas and really really good at what she does.)

I'd love you to join with me for the Spring Declutter. If you want to tackle your home's problem areas, make sure you take "Before" photos (not like me)! You can share your "before" and "after" photos to my Facebook Page and/or blog about it and link up below and/or post to my Facebook page. To enter the Giveaway see below. (If you're blogging your decluttering projects, here's a button for you to grab)

<div class="Spring Declutter" style="width: 180px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href=" http://www.greatfun4kidsblog.com/search/label/Spring%20Declutter" rel="nofollow"> <img src="http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy162/donnasimone/springdeclutterroundsimple_zps357b9eeb.png" alt="Spring Declutter" width="180" height="180" /> </a> </div>

The Tupperware Giveaway is on!  Tupperware have come on board for this project and are offering my readers the chance to win one of two beautiful Modular Mates Pantry Starter Kits, valued at $NZ190. One for a reader in New Zealand. One for a reader in Australia. Enter the giveaway below! Visit the Tupperware website to see the range...

If you join in and post before and after photos on my Facebook Page, it will give you four extra entries to the draw, plus there are lots of additional ways to get extra entries. Spread the word and start decluttering...
(Use the Rafflecopter widget to enter the giveaway)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: I have fixed the viral links!!!! It wasn't the Rafflecopter gadget - Rafflecopter are INNOCENT. It was a Viral Planet script - you can bet I won't be working with them EVER. YAAAAAYYYY!! My blog is back!


NEXT WEEK: The Pantry Declutter completed!

Find more posts about Home & Living on my At My House Page

Kids Cook: School Holiday Cookie Fun

What do you do in the schoolholidays if you're stuck at home, unable to drive? You invite friends to come over, of course.
And you also let your daughter loose in the kitchen to whip up a few batches of cookies, if that's her thing (which in Miss Fab's case, it totally is.)

On Monday, my budding baker pulled out her favourite cookierecipe, and completely unaided baked a batch of about fifty cookies...

Miss Fab's Favourite (Edmonds Book) Recipe

INGREDIENTS:
125g-butter, softened {online measurement converter}
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 egg
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

METHOD:

• Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together until light and fluffy (use an electric beater to make it really quick). Add the egg and beat well. Sift flour and baking powder together and mix into creamed mixture.
• Use your hands to combine and knead into a ball of dough.
• Break into smaller pieces and roll out; cut out shapes with cookie cutters and place on an oven tray lined with baking paper.
• Keep rolling the dough and cutting until there is no mixture left.
• Bake at 190°C for 12 minutes or until pale golden.

Once they are cooled, the decorating-fun begins.

My party partner, Sandra from KiwiCakes, had sent me a bunch of edible icing pens to try, and I figured since we are stuck in the house, with visitors coming, this might be the perfect time to try them out. (The ones we played with are metallic colours and have a brush tip. Check out the range on KiwiCakes)

We rolled out white fondant icing (left over from a party), cutting out a round shape which we stuck to the cookies by brushing one side with a little water... very quick and easy, and makes the perfect cookie decorating surface.

Then we played with the icing pens...

They are really easy to use and I reckon they'd be great (as an activity) at  parties too - 

even Scrag could use them without a problem and no mess.

When friends came over, we offered them some cookies to decorate...

It was plenty-fun for us stuck-in-the-house peeps and our cookie-loving pals.

(yummy too)

Thanks Sandra for sending us the pens to try!

The Spring Declutter Begins (join us!)

Welcome to the first day of our Spring Declutter! I am so pumped to make a start; I've had to put this off for weeks with being in hospital and recovery, and I am determined that there is now no better time to declutter and organise my house one zone at a time, with the help of my newfriend and partner in mess reduction, Professional Organiser, Natalie Jane.

Mess has long been my nemesis.

Look closely, it's even in the word: ne-MESS-is. I fight a losing battle with mess, as we all do. It's like the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends.
I've come up with a theory. Why do I battle so much with mess? I have too much stuff.

There are too many toys and not enough places to put them. Too much dirty laundry and not enough room in the washing basket. Too many clothes and not enough wardrobe space. Too much clutter, too much stuff, too much mess.

A few years ago I even came up with a scientific equation for it:

Too Much Stuff x Not Enough Space = Lots of Mess (TMSxNES=M3)

I've been waiting to sink my teeth into this Decluttering project for months. The idea was suggested to me by the psychologist back when I was first diagnosed with Dyslexia. She suggested enlisting the help of a professional-declutterer to help me get things in my home-sweet-home into order, to help reduce "environmental stress" (cluttered house, cluttered mind), so I went on a Google hunt and landed on the webpage of Natalie's company, Be Organised.

Since Natalie gives a free initial assessment and consultation, I figured there was nothing to lose in getting her over to survey the damage, and see how we could maybe collaborate. In that first brief half hour session, Natalie gave me enough tips to get me started on decluttering and reorganising two of my worst problem areas (my Laundry-in-a-cupboard and my linen cupboard) without spending much at all.

Today I'm going to share those tips with you, for starters, and next week Natalie and I will tackle the bane of my life, The Pantry. (In an exciting aside, Tupperware have come on board for this project and are offering my readers the chance to win one of two beautiful Modular Mates Pantry Starter Kits, valued at $NZ190. One for a reader in New Zealand. One for a reader in Australia. Enter the giveaway below! Visit the Tupperware website to see the range...)

So without further ado, here we go... the Spring Declutter begins...!

My laundry is in a cupboard. Behind those bifold doors lurked a hoarder's delight. On one long shelf was stuffed every conceivable object-without-a-home: Soccer boots, swimming goggles, paint cans and broken waiting-to-be-fixed toys, all competing for space with boxes of washing powder, rampant cleaning-products and half-opened packets of toilet paper.
It was a case of "open the door and pray it doesn't all fall on you".
Hear a knock at the door and run to click those doors shut to hide the shame.
Looking for something you need in there? Good luck with that.

You get the picture.
Unfortunately I have no pictorial evidence as silly me forgot to take a "Before" picture. Never mind. I have recreated the scene for you with the help of Photoshop and a Google image tagged "hoarder"...

With some helpful suggestions from Natalie on that first initial visit, I was able to declutter and transform my diabolical laundry nightmare into something I'm proud to show visitors.
In fact, usually when I attempt to declutter myself, it will last for only a week or two and then return to it's natural (messy) state. Not this time. My Laundry cupboard has been pristine now for nearly two months. It's some kind of record. And a miracle.
The trick, according to Natalie,  is having "a place for everything, and everything in its place".

Here are the simple tips I used to turn my laundry from "nightmare" to "nice-and-tidy":

• Get rid of everything that doesn't belong there. Sounds obvious, but this is the first and most-important stage. Throw out what is broken, recycle or donate items you don't want but which might be useful to others, re-home items like paint tins and sports gear in the garage where they belong! 
• Create extra shelving/storage space using cube shelves turned on their side. This gives a whole extra long "top shelf" and helps keep items organised in the "cubby holes". 
• Reuse storage from elsewhere; no need to outlay loads of cash on specialised storage. Re-purpose items you already have and put them to better use. We already had the cube shelves being used in other rooms; I relocated them to the laundry cupboard and they made all the difference
• Storage is key: spend a little to get some specially purposed items that will help eliminate clutter. At Natalie's suggestion, I bought a rectangular bucket for my cleaning products and an enamel tin for my washing powder. No more washing powder towers cluttering up the place, or bottles of spray'n'wipe toppling off ledges. I also found other containers for things like the batteries, our collection of torches, sunscreen & insect repellent and our First Aid kit (which now resides in the laundry cupboard instead of taking up valuable space in the pantry)

• Cleaning products: keep these all together in a bucket, so you can just grab the whole thing and take it where you need it. It also helps your cupboard look tidier.
• Once everything has a place, you can easily see what you are running low on, making shopping easier and eliminating double ups. Family-members will be less likely to dump stuff in a well ordered space where there's no room for dumping because everything has a place. It will also be easier to find what you are looking for... batteries, mozzie spray, sticking plasters, a torch during a power cut. Brilliant.

I think Natalie was proud of me. (Pssst! that's Natalie there in the photo looking pleased/impressed)

This next bit is not a comprehensive guide to linen organisation, but is just a brilliant simple tip Natalie gave me for my diabolically short-on-space linen cupboard, which has made all the difference...

I have tidied this cupboard so many times over the years I've lost count, and frankly I'd given up. We are so ridiculously short on space there seemed to be no way to fit it all in and keep it stacked neatly. I've tried lots of things, including Martha Stewart's tip on folding top and bottom sheets in a pillowcase and storing sheets in sets. Nothing lasted.

The reason was plain: Too much stuff, not enough storage.

Natalie's solution has revolutionised my linen cupboard. Again, it is still neat and tidy after six weeks. I can fold the towels and put them away without drama. I can find the sheets when it's time to change the beds. I even have room for tablecloths which had been homeless for years.

The trick? Purchase a couple of "rolling storage containers" and sort sheets into "Summer" and "Winter".

When the winter sheets are in use, keep the summer sheets in the box, in a cupboard elsewhere (e.g. a wardrobe). When the season changes, swap them over. Do the same with the duvet covers: keep them from taking over the linen cupboard by condensing them into a container and sliding that into the bottom (usually unusable) shelf of the cupboard. Suddenly  you have a whole lot more space. And a whole lot less mess.

So simple, but so effective. It works. 

Mess comes from having too much stuff and not enough space. So declutter. Make a place for everything, and everything in it's place. Then take a deep breath and step back to admire your neat and tidy cupboards. Even weeks months later.

(And if you need help getting started, give Natalie a call. She's so clever and so fun to work with. Non judgemental, practical and blimmin good at what she does. So glad I called her.)

I'd love you to join with me for the Spring Declutter. If you want to tackle your home's problem areas, make sure you take "Before" photos (not like me)! You can share your "before" and "after" photos to my Facebook Page and/or blog about it and leave a link in the comments or on my Facebook page. To enter the Giveaway see below. (If you're blogging your decluttering projects, here's a button for you to grab)

<div class="Spring Declutter" style="width: 180px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href=" http://www.greatfun4kidsblog.com/search/label/Spring%20Declutter" rel="nofollow"> <img src="http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy162/donnasimone/springdeclutterroundsimple_zps357b9eeb.png" alt="Spring Declutter" width="180" height="180" /> </a> </div>

The Tupperware Giveaway starts now! There are TWO Pantry Starter Kits to be won: one for a New Zealand reader and one for an Aussie reader! Use the Rafflecopter widget to enter.

If you join in and post before and after photos on my Facebook Page, it will give you four extra entries to the draw, plus there are lots of additional ways to get extra entires. Spread the word and start decluttering...

a Rafflecopter giveaway

SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: I have fixed the viral links!!!! It wasn't the Rafflecopter gadget - Rafflecopter are INNOCENT. It was a Viral Planet script - you can bet I won't be working with them EVER. YAAAAAYYYY!! My blog is back!

NEXT: The Pantry Declutter Part One! 

Find more posts about Home&Living on my At My House Page