Defunkifying my Life...Food Cupboards

Another defunkifying video...don't worry I will share with you some crafty stuff soon :)
I had worked on my food cupboards (I don't have a pantry) back in 2014 and because I had finally decided to start my Defunkifying my Life series again (but this time with videos as well) , I can now share them with you.

My cupboards are very deep.....deep and useless.
There is one shelf that runs the whole length of the cupboards as well as around the corner.
I sure can fit a lot of stuff in there.....but have fun finding it when I need it as it gets shoved to the back of Never Never Land, lol.
Not only was all of this in these cupboards, but the kitchen table was full, as well as the other side of the counter!!

I added these bins on the shelves so I could corral all of my "like" supplies and have easier access to what I need.
When I need bread, I just slid out the bread bin.
When I need sauces, I just slid out the bin with the sauces.
I had mentioned that I did this back in 2014 and you know what....it is still working!!!!
I haven't really changed it up to much :)

Tips to Defunkifying my Food Cupboards

1. Remove-
Take everything out of the cupboard.
To make it less stressful (or if you have limited time), you can do one area at a time.
With food though, I would recommend taking all of the food out, so like food can be put together.

2. Clean-
Take a damp soapy cloth and wipe the insides of the shelves, the back and sides of the cupboards, I even wiped down the underside of the shelves.

3. Purge-
Go through all of the food and check the expiration dates.
Time goes by faster than you think. It may have seemed like you just purchased that jar of sauce, but in reality, it was a few years ago....ask me how I know this, teehee.
I recycle, so I dumped the contents of the expired food in the trash and recycled the box or the jar.

4. Sort-
Put like things together. It is easier to find something when you need it. Plus (hopefully) your family won't keep bugging you as they will be able to find it on their own ;)

5. Organize-
Put away and organize the remaining items.

Here is my video on how I Defunkifyied my Food cupboards.

I hope you are following along with me on Defunkifying your Life :)
If you are, I would love to hear what you are working on :)

Onto my Day:
We all know I am NOT a morning person. But I was today.
My sister had an early morning appointment...early as in 7:00 am, and her car was in the shop.
So I was up before 5:30 am to pick her up
Don't feel to bad for me as I picked up breakfast for the family on the way home and then Heather convinced me (it didn't really take a lot of convincing) to go back to bed for an early morning nap before she headed off to work :)

Tracy :)

Defunkifying my Life...Kitchen Tour

Continuing on with my Series of Defunkifying my Life, I thought I would share a tour of my kitchen, since this is the first room I am tackling.

I have a tiny, yet functional kitchen.
I had watched a show where most chefs had said they would rather work in a small kitchen as they didn't need to walk as far to get what they needed.
I keep telling myself that when I cook in there ;)

If you would like to watch this video on my YouTube channel...just click the link :)
"Tracy's Treasures24"



I hope you enjoyed a peek into my home :)

Tracy :)

New Series....Defunkifying my Life

Remember I had mentioned that I have been busy lately and I would share with you soon...

Well soon is now.
I have started a new series (or playlist) on my YouTube channel called Defunkifying my Life :)

If you are familier with my posts and videos on Defunkifying my Craft room then you know where I am going with this.
It is going to be organizing my whole home and sharing the process.
I have been toying with this idea for a couple of years now and finally decided to just go for it.

There are a few reasons why I have been debating with myself on sharing this.

1. I wasn't sure if I should start a new YouTube channel devoted just to my home.
I even asked my viewers and a high majority told me to keep it on the same channel....even though I had a cute name for it, lol.
2. When I share, I share whole heartily.
Which means you will see the good, the bad and the ugly. Yup, I will share it at its worst.
I know there would be some that will judge and I wasn't sure I wanted that negativity.
But then thought, I know that others may benefit, or feel like their homes aren't as bad as mine, and be encouraged to come along for the ride :)
3. Do I really want to open my home up to everyone!!!!
Like seriously sharing my crafts and sharing my messy closets are 2 different things, lol.

But in the end I thought, if I have been playing with this idea for 2 years and it is still tugging at me to share, I guess that is a sign to just do it.
Plus I can't put off cleaning out those closets any longer, lol.

So if you want to follow along and join me, or just snoop in my closets, I would love to have you do so....just no judging ;)

So without further ado....here is my first video on this :)
Tracy :)

Defunkifying my Dresser

I haven't been very creative lately…..unless you feel that defunkifying my life is being creative ;)
I was tidying up my bedroom, and I needed to go through my clothes in my dresser….as I was running out of room in there ;)

So I took everything out and put them on my bed.
Then I tried everything on….not the most fun thing to do, but it needed to be done :)
I am donating the items that I don't care for or that I don't like how they fit.

This has always been my nemesis.

I have these 2 big gapping cupboards in my dresser.
What I usually do is stack my shirts in one and pants in the other.
But with no shelves, the clothes topple over.
Or I would want a shirt on the very bottom, and the rest of the shirts fall out and then I just jam them back in and shut the doors, lol.
I have been thinking of a solution to this for the last few months and have finally put it to action.

I have these wire grids (used to make cubbies out of) that I have used in my scrapbooking room to house supplies, in my laundry room and even some at the cottage to organize numerous things.
So why not for my shirts and pants :)
They fit nicely in the cubbie holes in my dresser.
So I grabbed 3 of these wire grids and zip tied them together to form an "H" shape.
See how great they work!!!!

There are 4 drawers in this dresser, but the 2 bottom drawers were a pain to use, so I would put seasonal clothes in one, and the other one was even worse to open, so put some of my favourite children's books in there.
My mission was to take back my dresser.
So I took out the rail that holds the drawer and it was in 3 pieces, lol…..no wonder it didn't work properly.
So I fixed it with wood glue and then waxed the rails and they work like a charm :)

Next project….the closet, oh fun, lol

I hope you all have a very creative day :)

Tracy :)

Defunkifying my Laundry Detergent

I was on a FB site, and someone shared a laundry drip/cup holder thingy that they had purchased.
I thought it was such a great idea.

I don't have a problem with my liquid detergent dripping, but my measuring cup sure gets gunky, which then gets on my washing machine as that is where we keep, or should I say, kept our cup.
Everyone does their own laundry in our home, so I thought this would be perfect, as I seem to be the only one who cleans the gunk off of the washer.
I hadn't seen anything like this in stores and I am not an on-line shopper, so I thought of a way I could make it myself :)

What I did was cut into a plastic water bottle.
I cut the top of the bottle off, then cut down on the sides and cut close to the bottom, so it still had a lip around it for a place where the measuring cup can sit in.
I then cut a hole in the back of the long side so it can fit over the detergent nozzle.

Easy, free and now my pretty washing machine doesn't have a round shaped gunky mess from the measuring cup :)
Its the little things that make me happy….and this is one of them :)

I hope you all had a very Creative Day :)

Tracy :)

In the Zone…..my cleaning lists

I have had so many requests, both on here and on my YouTube channel, for my cleaning lists and on which days I do them.
So I thought I would share them in detail.
I don't know how to do a pdf, so get out your pens and note pads ladies ;)

Now before we start, I want you all to know that I got the zone idea from Flylady.net
She adapted the idea from Pam and Peggy, the ladies that originally came up with this system.
I would suggest you go and check her out for her lists and ideas.
I don't follow her site anymore. Her site has changed and I find it confusing (not a hard thing to do to me). Plus most of the emails sent to me, were advertising for her products, which I don't have.

Okay onto the Lists :)
I love lists…I know many will say "You need a list to clean?!"
No, but its more fun this way ;)
Here is my Weekly Home Spritz Up
I do this every week. I try to make this happen on Monday, but most times it doesn't work out this way.
So I break this down to do a chore or two a day.
For the porch and basement..this is just a quick pick up, not a total clean.

Once a week I work in a zone.
My dining room is the most organized and clean room in my home, as we don't use it that often, so this room is a quick one for me.
The most clutter I have in this room, is a few things thrown on the dining room table…or the cabinet where are bills are kept.
Because of this, I added more rooms to this zone.

I added the front and back entrance to zone 1.
My front entrance is part of the living room and is hardly used, so that isn't a big job.
I do have my Front closet that houses our coats, recycles and a shelf full of odds and ends, that I should tackle when this zone comes around again.

This one is self explanatory…probably the lest favourite zone in the house, because it is the one that should stay the cleanest as food preparation is done here.

I have a small bathroom and I keep up with it daily.
I don't do this list daily, but it do wipe down the bathroom daily.
I will let you in on a little secret on how I keep up with this room daily.
I wash my face with a disposable face wipe twice a day….then I use this same face wipe and wipe down the bathroom counter or the floor around the toilet. The face wipes remind me of those cleaning wipes, but less harsh with the chemicals.
It takes 3 seconds to do this.

Because Zone 3 doesn't take the whole week to do, I have added another room to that zone.
I don't do both of these…actually the Office should be added to my Dining room (Zone 1) as my office supplies are in a cabinet in the living room…nothing wrong with changing things up to suit our ever changing needs.
I sometimes add my Craft room to the extra room in this zone….but not lately, lol.

Another self  explanatory zone.

And the last zone :)
I added my Rec Room to the Living room zone.

So there you have it all of my zones for the month.
I work in each zone for one week and then go to the next zone the next week.
But the end of the month, you have done all of the zones and you have done you whole house.
It is easier to complete these tasks once your rooms are organized though.
I don't always get each task completed in my zones, if that is the case, I will start with the unfinished task the next time that zone comes around.
That is another reason I like to keep my lists in a page protector of some kind, because then I can use a dry erase pen or crayon and check off the tasks that I have completed.

I did a video explaining in more detail…if you would like to watch the video on my YouTube channel, just click the link "Tracy's Treasures24"

Put on some fun upbeat music and go tackle a zone :)

I hope you all had a very Creative and Organized day ;)

Tracy :)

Defunkifying my Life Revisited

I decided to revisit some of my "Defunkifying my Life Missions".
The reason, I really needed to revisit my stationary drawer.
You can check out my first post here "Defunkifying my Stationary Drawer"
As you can see it really needed a revisit ;)

I did what I normally do when I decide to organize.
1. Empty-Take everything out of the drawer.
2. Clean-clean out the drawer.
3. Sort-Put all "like" items together.
4. Purge-Get rid of papers you don't need, pens that are dead and anything else that doesn't belong.
5. Organize-Put away the remaining items.

I am sure there are still objects in here that I don't need and other objects that belong in here.
Even though I have been retired from doing the book work, I still think like a book keeper and usually have to many office supplies on hand…mind you what crafter doesn't enjoy office supplies ;)

 Now to find a new home for all of these supplies ;)
I have an area downstairs, where I kept my work stuff, that has extra packages of pens, pencils, white out, paper and such.
So a lot of these supplies will go in there.
The rest is mostly receipts that should be attached to my bills. I seem to have fallen behind on that task these last few months.
I am going to try and dedicate organizing my bills and such on Mondays.
I will call it "Mail Day Monday"…pretty catchy eh, teehee.
Oh ya, the reason for the dish clothes on the table….my table gets scratched very easily, so I need to protect it.  I honestly hate this new table….but guess I have to live with it now :(

I still have to work on my craft room, but because it is summer and my room is downstairs with no windows, I will wait a bit to finish it. I like the summer sun too much ;)

Have you been organizing/defunkifying anything lately?

Tracy :)

Defunkifying My Life…..The Dungeon.

Here is my dungeon with me hiding my face in shame.
This room is very narrow. Maybe 4'x10'.
This room used to be uber organized, but not so much lately ;)

I was ruthless. I purged, purged, purged.
It was obvious to me that I don't use gift bags, as I had a ton of them.
I also noticed that there was quite a bit in my dungeon that didn't belong in here.
I think because of it being winter and us not being able to get to the shed outside because of the snow, that there were a few things that didn't even belong in here.
I was shocked that it only took us 1 1/2 hours to complete this room from top to bottom, side to side.

But Lynne didn't want to stop.
She wanted to keep organizing.
So I made us stop for lunch and then we continued.
We worked in the rec room.
A lot of the stuff on our pool table was craft related.
Also a lot of the stuff was my girls things that they need to still go through.






















Lynne found this photo of me. I have no idea why it was on the pool table.
This was taken the day after Kristy was born, so 19 yrs ago….nice hair eh ;)

Here we are the organizing ladies ;)

Look at everything I am getting rid of!
Some is trash but most of it is to be donated.
It snowed all day today so I didn't bring this to the donation centre.
It is suppose to snow all day tomorrow as well.
I may just bring it any way. But it is for sure going to be out of my home before Friday :)
Don't worry the Cricut and the sewing machine boxes are just boxes, teehee.

So that is how I spent my Monday how about you ?

I hope you all had a creative Monday :)

Tracy :)