Sharpie Decorated Bowl and Plate

This was another little project that I did for Christmas this year. This was for my families white elephant gift exchange. While normally this particular gift exchange is gag gifts, I had extra and went with cute and interchangeable. 
I picked up a couple random pieces of white glass at my local Homegoods store (for super cheap!) and then drew my design and baked it in the oven for about 30 minutes at 250 degrees. 

They came out pretty amazing, if I do say so myself!! I like that the two pieces go together, but they also look adorable separated.

 

 

It just so happened that my aunt, the first person to open this gift was willing to fight to keep it. Its not pictured, but I wrote "Made with love from Meghan" on the bottom of each piece, and the date. She said that she got chills when she opened it, and this was something that she really wanted to keep in the family for as long as possible. I know its really not that big of a deal, but to hear somebody say something like that about a gift I made really made my heart swell. I felt really proud that I made something considered that special to someone else...

 

Sharpie Decorated Coffee Mugs

 I made these cuties for my brother for Christmas. My mom got him one of those Kurig coffee makers, so I picked up some plain white coffee mugs, and got to work with my sharpie. 

When I finished with the design, I put them in the oven on 250 degrees for about 30 minutes to set the ink. 
 

I thought they turned out cute, and my brother was pretty jazzed on them as well!

Crochet Dish Towels

 For Christmas this year, I made most of my gifts. And they pretty much all revolved around cleaning. I figured they were things that everybody could benefit from. Over the course of the week, I will be sharing some of the different gifts I made. Starting off with these crochet dish towels. They were really easy to make, and took no time at all. In fact, once I was done, I decided that I had to go get more yarn and make some for myself!

I chose some bright fun colors, and got to work!

They came out to a pretty nice size, where you can use them to simply dry your hands, or you can use them to scrub your dishes and counter tops. Whatever your needs are!

 

 

I folded them in half, and held them all together with a ribbon. They were a pretty big hit!

Organized Pantry

I am almost always on a quest for more/better organization ideas. I really need everything to be organized in a way that makes sense, is easy to keep up on, and looks pleasing to the eye. After surfing around on pinterest, I finally decided that I was going to tackle my pantry. Since I don't have a lot of space in there, I really needed to be clever, and efficient. So off to Ross I went, and gathered together my supplies. I purchased some baskets, different kinds of racks, jars, and some plastic containers. 
 

This is where I stopped, so I could evaluate my progress. I decided to leave it this way for a bit until I was sure that it made sense, and the men in the house were even able to understand my system (which can be a little challenging! Who knew, not everybody thinks exactly like me!)

This is the very top two shelves. They are for things that we don't get into that often. In fact, the top shelf is actually for items that we never use, but are good to have in case of an emergency. Yes, its a little bare, but this is something we are working towards. With the limited storage we have in this house, its hard to find the space to have a large stockpile of necessities. Anyways, the lower shelf stores canned fruits, and soups, on the left, and my boyfriends vitamins and protein shakes.

This next shelf stores my baking supplies. In the basket are baking mixes and frosting jars. On the left are my jars of Flour, Sugar, Brown Sugar, and Powdered Sugar.

Up close of baking basket

This is the breakfast shelf. This is where you can find all things breakfast! The plastic containers on the right hold cereals, and the to the left of that is all the pancake mix.

The breakfast basket holds oatmeal. I know, we have a lot of oatmeal... My boyfriend likes to stock up on oatmeal for emergencys as well. They stay good for a really long time, and only require hot water to make. Actually as I'm typing this out, I am thinking the Quaker Oats canisters should be on our very top shelf...

This shelf holds snacks and sides. The plastic containers to the left hold chips and crackers. The little white tub holds other snacks such as trail mix and seaweed.

The basket on the right holds all of our rice and pasta sides, as well as some gravy packets.

The last shelf on the bottom holds our pasta and sauces. There are spaghetti noodles in one container, quinoua in another behind the noodles, and rice in the round jar. I haven't gotten to all of the labeling and whatnot yet. I was hoping to decorate the back of the shelves, maybe line the shelves themselves and then label everything. I guess I just really wanted to make sure this was an effecient way to keep the pantry before I took on the task of trying to figure out how to label those baskets. I know, that shouldn't be too hard but sometimes I just get stuck on the simple things.