Fruit Flies & Pinterest, who knew?

Out of the 384 brilliant bits I've pinned and 40 ideas I've Liked, never in my wildest dreams did I think the first one I would try at home is this uber simple fruit fly trap from The Idea Room!

Source: theidearoom.net via Trish on Pinterest

But........I did!  I don't know where they came from, but suddenly we had fruit flies and those little buggers multiply fast.  Thankfully, I saw this one night on Pinterest and immediately Liked it and headed off to its original source so that I could learn more.

And it works!!  No chemicals, no expensive sprays or traps, just a couple of pennies for a piece of fruit, some tape, and a piece of paper, rolled to make a small hole for them to enter, but not fly out of (I used lightweight cardstock...'cause goodness knows, I've got a ton o' that!).

Best, simplest idea of someone else's I've put to work in awhile!

If you're not on Pinterest already, get on there!  Email me & I'll send you an invite if you need one.  When you get on there or if you're already pinning away, come find me so we can share more brilliant bits to pin!

From Lego Landslide to Organized!

Do you remember when I posted about my boy's Lego Landslide last month?  Thousands (not exaggerating in the slightest here, more like an understatement!) of Lego bricks took over our living room floor, upon a full white sheet for a week.

But, I had us on a mission (inspired by this post by Ali Edwards), a mission to organize those little colorful plastic, hurt your feet when you step on them, easily get sucked up by the vacuum cleaner, fantastically imagination fostering bits, bricks, pieces, and parts.

And we did it!!  They took up so much floorspace that there was only room for two of us to sit on the floor at any given time and work on separating them.  So, we all took turns working and separating and sorting all those thousands of lego bricks by color.

Note:  These drawer units are no longer available, but many of these alternatives would work in the same way.

We used two Sterilite 5 Drawer Storage Carts (wheels come with the units, but we left them off).  One drawer each for white, blue, black, red, yellow, grey, and a combo drawer with brown, tan, greens, and orange.  Mini figures, animals, and accessories got their own drawer....none of us, not even our son, had any idea that he had that many mini figures!!  The two double sized drawers at the bottom are filled with specialty parts.

When I shared the original lego post, an old high school friend on Facebook commented something to the effect that there's no way he'll keep them in this order & sorted (only because she's a mama and knows how often & easily kidlets can redisasterize, I'm sure!). 

Its been a month now and every single Lego is still in its proper home.  Don't get me wrong, his room can (& does) still explode with his other toys, but the Lego organization seems to be working for him.  Truthfully, I think he likes having his bedroom floor back and being able to find whatever Lego he wants, when he wants it!

Wee girl is getting some room organization of her own!  Look what Hubby came home from work with one day!!  One of his coworkers had it and offered it to him.  Of course, he knew his princess loving daughter, our Princess, would adore it and she does.

Its the beginning of a New Year, what organizing tips, tricks, adventures & tales do you have to tell?

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Disclosure:  The link to the sanity saving, organizing friendly Sterilite Drawers is an affiliate link, as are the Lego links.

Frame it up!

Over the summer, the kidlets got their paint on.  I had held these two paintings aside as not only were the kidlets quite proud of their artwork, but their joint painting experience was a very pleasant summer memory of all of ours. 

Yes, they've painted many a time before, but this particular experience was unique in that my sweet boy attacked his blank piece of paper with a plan (to create a spaceship) and wee girl, who I believe was simply in that 'lay down color' mode changed her painting to share her experience with her brother and suddenly began painting space ships and asteroids.

And now they are hanging at the beginning of our hallway, still visible from the living & dining rooms and they make all of us smile to see those bright pops of color and sweet summer memories.

Do you have your kidlets art up on your walls?  Do you have your own creative pursuits up or out to share?

(Speaking of creative pursuits, the next page in the art journal started for the Inspiration Everywhere class by Jessica Sprague will be posted tomorrow, so come back & see where a pair of Levi's took me!)

Linking up for Wordful Wednesday at:

Parenting By Dummies

Seven Clown Circus

A Landslide of Lego Love

What toys whispered colorful stories to you in your childhood?

Here, Lego whispers many woven tales into inspired ears. If I listen closely, I might be able to share a tale or two told to a few in this house, but today, I am trying to bring some order so that those imaginations may continue to soar.

Our living room has become victim to a landslide o' Lego's!  Initially, Hubby was helping our son rebuild a pirate ship, but when they couldn't sift through the big overflowing tub o' Lego's to find particular parts (filled with thousands of Lego's comprised of remnants of Hubby's childhood collection & our sweet boy's), Hubby laid a white sheet in the middle of the living room floor & dumped that big tub onto said white sheet, so they could see the parts more clearly.

Then we had this really big pile o' Lego's to sift & dig through.  They've rebuilt most of the pirate ship now, but I thought it would be a good time to bring them back into my son's room in a much more organized fashion (to help him build his Lego creations and/or save my bare feet when I step on a rogue little itty bitty piece of hard, pointy plastic....yeeeouch!!).

I had recently read a great post on Lego organization, Lego love, and her boy, Simon's explanation of a Harry Potter Quidditch match via video (which my boy watched and thoroughly agreed with Simon's assessment) on Ali Edward's site.  And while the little drawers seemed too small to house my boy's Lego collection, I did really like the idea of the drawer units.  I picked up these two Sterilite 5 Drawer Storage units and we began sorting by colors, specialty parts, and mini figures & animals.

We've rallied the whole family in the process and sorted.  And sorted.  And sorted.  And as I write this, we're still sorting, but I can see the white of the sheet beginning to show through the pile we still have to finish. (I'm hoping for today, so that we can get the Christmas tubs into the Lego filled living room & light the lonely looking tree in the corner!)

A fun site to check out for some building inspiration with all those Lego's is Brickshelf.  Its galleries are full of pictures of quite a variety of creations that everyday Lego loving people (kidlets & the young at heart) have submitted.

What I have always thought is so cool about Lego, is not only that initial fun of building something new, but the imagination that comes in so many forms after that first building.  Whether it be the imaginary play with the mini figures and the scene, plane, ship, car, boat and surrounding creations or the imagination in building something new and original with all those fun, colorful Lego's, there is the opportunity for imagination itself, in whatever form suits the individual and the way their mind works.

Did you play with Lego's when you were growing up?  Do you have Lego's in your house today?  Are there any favorites? 

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Disclosure:  The links to the Lego sets & Sterilite storage drawers are affiliate links and are items that we are putting to good use in our home.  If you choose to use the links, they might cover the nonfat milk in my coffee.  All other links are to sites that have no idea what I like in my java or who I am.