SIMPLIFY

PANTRY & FRIDGE MAKEOVER

Posted on March 17, 2019 by Graceful Mommy

17
Mar

If you know anything about me, you know I love organizing and I love decluttering. You’ve probably heard of Marie Kondo and the whole Konmari method, right? I read her book when it first came out and have been on the Konmari train for a while. It was a system I could understand and I saw results the second I started it! I redid the whole house from the kids toys to our closets and bathroom.

But I never did our pantry and fridge – until NOW!

I just finished with our pantry and fridge makeover and I am so happy with it! There is nothing better than wanting a snack and knowing exactly what you have and where everything is. This project has made cooking SO MUCH EASIER, not to mention we’ve saved a ton of money of groceries simply because we discovered tons of ingredients we didn’t know we had.

Are you ready to see the before photo? Please don’t judge – ha! I promise it’s not usually this bad, but at this point, I hadn’t done a proper clean-up in a while and it really looked bad.

Here is the after. My minimalist heart is SO HAPPY.

Completely overhauling your fridge and pantry takes a couple of hours and a few must-have products, but I’m going to walk you through it all – exactly how I did it!

There is no better time than now to tackle your kitchen projects because The Container Store’s annual Kitchen Sale is going on now through April 7th. You can get 25%-off hundreds of kitchen products you need to accomplish any of your kitchen projects. Everything we used in our pantry and fridge makeover was from The Container Store.

5 STEPS TO CREATING YOUR DREAM PANTRY AND FRIDGE

1 – Clean it out // Just like the Konmari method, you have to literally take EVERYTHING out of the pantry and fridge. Throw away everything that is expired or things you just don’t eat anymore. I’m a tiny bit embarrassed to mention this, but we had some old canned goods that were like years past the expiration date. EW. I also wiped everything down to give it all a fresh new start. This felt sooooo good.

2 – Select & fill organizers // Move most of your pantry items into canisters and bins. This honestly made the biggest difference in our kitchen makeover. By transferring food into see-through canisters and containers, you can actually SEE what items you have. And – they keep your food super fresh! Also, the containers are stackable, which makes organizing the pantry + fridge a breeze!

I love everything at The Container Store, but some of my favorite bins/containers are The Artisan Jars, The OXO Good Grips POPS canisters , and The OXO Pop Cereal Dispensers.

3 – Zone out the space // I took all of my bins, canisters, jars and containers and made zones in the pantry and fridge. Basically, you want to keep foods that are similar together. So, decide where you want your canned goods, breads, dry pantry staples, and cereals to go. This step was tricky, but I think it was the most important. It took me a few tries to get the containers to be in the right spot that made sense, but once I did this, everything fell into place. I wanted the pantry and fridge to not only look great, but be super practical.

4 – Keep everything visible // We had a big problem of not using all of our groceries, simply because we couldn’t SEE them! One tip is to keep your food visible. A great trick to this is to use one of those can stackers from The Container Store. You can easily see all of your canned goods at one time! Another tip is to use the OXO containers so that you can stack them in your pantry instead of letting food slip to the back of the pantry.

5- Utilize snack bins // One of my favorite parts of the kitchen makeover is the snack bins! I dedicated a few bins in both the pantry and the fridge to be for the kids’ snacks. In the pantry, I made sure to put this bin low enough so the kids can reach it! It also makes the pantry so much cleaner because I no longer have a ton of mix-matched cardboard boxes everywhere. I take the snacks out of their boxes and put them in the snack bin!

We had so much fun re-doing our pantry and fridge and we are LOVING the makeover! Don’t forget The Container Store’s annual Kitchen Sale is going on now through April 7th. You can get 25%-off hundreds of kitchen products you need to accomplish any of your kitchen projects!

I can’t wait to see what you do!

SIMPLIFY // YOUR DIGITAL LIFE

Posted on November 7, 2018November 7, 2018 by Graceful Mommy

07
Nov

I am very easily overwhelmed with clutter. Too much stuff around me can easily stress me out. Just as physical clutter can distract you, so can digital clutter. Our phones and computers hold so many things – and these things actually take up mental space!

However, just like we can clean up and organize our physical stuff, we can also do the same digitally! If you’re ready to simplify your digital life, let’s dive right in with some tips!

EMAIL

Our inboxes can be overwhelming at times. As a business owner and an influencer, I receive tons of emails each day. My goal each day is to be at INBOX ZERO – that’s literally when your inbox is empty. When’s the last time that’s happened for you? It’s so relieving to get to inbox zero + takes so much stress off! But how do we get there?

1 – Unsubscribe to the junk. Sure, it’ll take some time to scroll down to the bottom of the emails you don’t like + hit that unsubscribe button – but it’s so worth it. Take a little bit of time each day to do this. Eventually you won’t even have all the random emails coming in!

2- Stop signing up for stuff. Gah, I’m so guilty of this. I enter my email into everything. But lately, I’ve stopped doing this so my inbox can stay minimal for a while.

3- Delete as you read. As you check your emails, try to get into that habit of deleting as you read emails. Don’t just read it and move on.

4- Empty your trash + spam. It just feels good.

NOTIFICATIONS

As the owner of The Graceful Company, a digital agency, I work on my phone + am constantly checking in on clients. When I have my notifications on, though, it’s insane. My phone is constantly lighting up – and it’s very distracting. My biggest tip is to just TURN OFF NOTIFICATIONS.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Go through your subscriptions like Netflix, Spotify, dropbox and see if you can delete and unsubscribe from any. You might be surprised by the subscriptions you haven’t used in a while.

APPS

Go through every app on your phone and ask yourself if you’ve used it in a while. Delete the ones that you haven’t touched. Remember, you can always re-install apps later, even the ones you’ve paid for.

Another great tip for apps is to rearrange them! I recently organized my apps by rainbow color and honestly it’s amazing. It’s so easy to look at – I really will never go back! Other ways to organize are by folder or by favorites.

CAMERA

As a product + brand photographer, I take a millllllllion photos. However, I often forget to go through the old photos and delete them off the memory card. It’s important to go through the memory card and remove any unneeded photos. Actually, what I like to do is totally remove all the photos + move them to my computer in the right folders. And I DO NOT keep everything. I cull through all of the photos and just choose the best of the best.

Once you’ve done this, you can actually format your memory card!

Now, you’re camera is all ready for new photos!

PHOTOS

Okay, speaking of photos. Organizing photos is so important for reducing that digital clutter. Our phones these days can hold THOUSANDS of photos. But what’s the point of it all if you can’t find what you’re looking for.

I’m first to admit I take too many photos. But I also am trying to narrow down my photos to the best ones of that moment or event. You don’t need to keep ALL the photos you take (yes, even of your kids). You wouldn’t put bad photos in a physical photo album. Holding on to those bad photos in your phone makes it a million times harder to find the high quality ones.

So, take some time this week to go through your photos. If you took 15 of the same moment, try to choose 1 or 2 of those to save and delete the rest. Maybe choose 100 of your favorite to print out and make an album out of them.

COMPUTER

Documents, photos and files on the computer can easily get overwhelming + extremely cluttered. Here are some tasks to do to get it clutter-free again.

Organize your desktop – the desktop is designed to hold the documents and files that you use daily. Anything else can either be put in the trash or organized into folders in the documents section of the computer.

Delete old documents – You probably have a lot of documents on your comp that you don’t need anymore! Go through those + see if you can trash anything. Anything you do need, make sure to put it in a folder that is easily accessible and searchable.

Update the software. This is one of those things that I’ll know I have to do, but I procrastinate forever to do it. This week, check to see if your computer software is up to date – if it’s not, do it! Your computer will be running way smoother!

SOCIAL MEDIA

It’s important to also simplify your social media! One of my biggest tips for reducing clutter on social media is to simply unfollow the people that are not interesting, make you feel bad, or post too much (LOL!). It’s okay to unfollow people. Now, when you scroll through instagram or facebook, you will feel a little less bogged down + a little more inspired.

Speaking of facebook, feel free to leave any facebook group that doesn’t apply to you. Those tend to get out of hand every now and then.

I would love to hear your best tips for simplifying your digital life!

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