KonMari for kids
How do you get a three-year-old to tell you which of their picture books sparks joy? Is a five-year-old capable of deciding if they feel happy in one particular shirt over another?
Those are a few of the questions that are not answered in Marie Kondo’s best-selling book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Yes, that crazy book that’s making everyone fold their socks gently instead of balling them up.
The book is full of sometimes-zany advice targeted toward adults living alone — or living with a spouse who is equally willing to KonMari right along with them. So what’s an organizing-obsessed parent of little ones to do?
Here’s how I modified Marie Kondo’s famous tidying-up methods in order to apply them to our kids’ belongings:
Clothing
There’s a very firm order to Marie Kondo’s categories, and she insists clothing must be first. I started in our son’s room because he has far fewer items. I dumped out all of his drawers as well as everything in the closet, as instructed.
Since kids outgrow clothing at a speed that adults (hopefully) do not, it was easy to toss the slightly-too-small stuff in the donation bag. There were also some items I just didn’t like any more. It’s amazing how much stuff you don’t even realize is taking up space until you take everything out of a dresser.
This was much harder in our daughter’s room because she has three times the clothing and it’s five trillion times cuter …
Continue reading in my weekly parenting column, The Mom Scene …
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| Why Instagram is a big, fat lie |
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| Toy organization tips |
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| How I use a Power Hour to tidy up |
Beados Shopkins Quick-Dry Design Station review + giveaway
The following is a sponsored conversation with Beados Canada.
My kids are obsessed with Shopkins … and crafts …
So when Beados Canada reached out and asked if they wanted to review the new Shopkins Quick-Dry Design Station where they could literally MAKE THEIR OWN SHOPKINS?
Oh boy.
#bestdayever
I didn’t know what to expect, so I was figuring we’d get one of those kits with the little plastic beads that need to be ironed together so they melt into one big piece — nope! The Beados Shopkins Quick Dry Design Station (about $39.99 in stores) is much cooler (pun intended).
You arrange the little beads in a tray to make your design, you spritz it with the World’s Tiniest Most Adorable Water Bottle, and then you sit the tray under a fan so the beads stick together. There are even special beads that allow you to add plastic Shopkins eyes.
Don’t ask me about the science behind it, because I don’t know, but it’s very neat.
(Also there are kid-friendly tweezers that make it easier for chubby little fingers to pick up the beads and get them in the right spot.)
There are templates so you can make an ACTUAL looks-like-a-Shopkin Shopkin, but my kids took the more, er, creative route and designed their own.
Now …
*** The contest is now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered! ***
GIVEAWAY TIME!
Want to win a Beados Shopkins Quick Dry Design Station? (Your kids, um, might do a much better job at following the templates!)
Leave a comment below or tag me on Instagram/Twitter (@HFXHeather) telling me about your kid’s favourite Shopkin!
Mine are obsessed with Kooky Cookie and insist it’s pronounced “Cuke-y Cookie” which bothers me more than it should. (My personal favourite Shopkin is the little sausage because it hurts the least when I step on it.)
(Open to Canadian residents only, which is kind of awesome because that never happens)
A DIY love affair: Our white subway tile backsplash
When you don’t have a backsplash, your kitchen walls get splashed with spaghetti sauce and the paint gets shiny where the kettle steams it up.
When you don’t have a backsplash, little flecks of grease mark up the wall above your stove and you’re constantly scrubbing at bits of dried icing near the stand mixer.
When you don’t have a backsplash, you dream of crisp white subway tiles glistening in the morning sun.
And so, after more than four years of wanting a backsplash but being nervous that it was too much for us to handle ourselves, we decided to just do it. We bought three boxes of glossy white subway tiles and a bag of pewter-coloured grout for a beautiful contrast (I actually recoiled when the salesperson assumed we wanted white grout).
But then, of course, we had to wait until we had a kid-free day and a rented wet saw. So I lovingly stroked the tiles … and waited.
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
Related projects:
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| DIY produce stand |
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| Kids’ artwork gallery (on the cheap) |
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| Turn cabinets into open shelving |
DIY pincushions from repurposed items
And filled ’em up so I don’t waste precious stuffing (from the really classy garbage bag in my office closet where I keep my stuffing) …
I wrapped the Pringles can in a piece of pretty scrapbook paper and secured it with tape. I could have Mod Podged it but that would have required too much effort. Yay tape.
I picked out a pretty piece of fabric from my (out-of-control) stash, wrapped it around a ball of stuffing and taped it shut. Super fancy-like. And then smooshed it into the Pringles can.
(Is it ironic that a sewing room DIY does not include any sewing?)
I may have used too much stuffing for the iPhone box and the tape kept exploding off the fabric quite dramatically. So I pinned it. Much faster than sewing and no one will see the pins because they’ll be on the bottom.
There you have it! Two cute pin cushions that took about five minutes to throw together, and now maybe I can finally stop enlisting my children to run to different levels looking for Mommy’s pins. #sewingproblems
Why a blogger’s home looks better than yours (it doesn’t, really)
1. We know how to hide the ugly.
As featured on …
