Typical Suburban Family

To follow up on my previous post How to Organize Baby Clothes, I thought I would share some additional tips and tricks I’ve discovered over the years.

1. Pack clothes away by size.  Be sure clothes don’t get tossed in the wrong bin because you may miss the opportunity to use again if a 3 month outfit is packed with 6 month clothes and by they time you come across it your child has outgrown that size.  Bummer.  I have some outfits that are labeled 6 months for example, but ran very small and I used them with the 3 month clothes.  I pack outfits like that away with the 3 month clothes so that next time around I won’t miss using that outfit at the appropriate time.  Use your best judgement on where outfits need to go.
2. Pack clothes away clean.  This goes for either the clothes your child has outgrown or are yet to grow into.  I would have thought this was a given, but I’ve heard from so many people that they don’t do this.  Plan ahead folks.  Isn’t it much easier to just know all those clothes are clean already and don’t need to be washed.  Especially if you’re in a hurry and want to dip into a future bin and grab something quick.  Don’t get me wrong, they may need to be freshened up a bit if they’ve been packed away for a long period of time, but overall they are clean.
3. Fold the clothes.  Don’t just toss things in a bin.  Fold them.  Organize them.  You’ll be glad you did this 2 years later when you need to use them again and they aren’t all wrinkly and messy.
4. Organize by boy versus girl clothes.  Don’t mix the clothes together in one bin because down the road you may only need to pull your boy clothes out and you don’t want to have to go through all the girl stuff too just to get what you need.
5. Last, but not least, Label your bins!  You can see my previous post and download some free organizational printable sheets, or you can purchase stickers similar to the ones I use below.  They can be purchased in any color scheme.

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If you take the time up front to do these steps, it will make your life so much easier later.  You can’t predict when you may need these clothes; for what purpose; and what else will be going on in your life at that time.

It also makes it easier if you are ultimately going to consign your clothes.  Consignment sales typically want your cloths organized by size (and sometimes season!).  They need to be cleaned as well.  If all you have to do is pull out a bin and start labeling them, it will save you a lot of time.  Consigning can be a tedious and time consuming project, but it can pay off in the end when you receive your consignor’s check.

Now, go ahead and get organizing…..

I have decided to host a My Hello Designs giveaway every month in 2013!

What that means is that every month you will have a new chance to win your choice of products at My Hello Designs.  The giveaway will start on the 1st of every month and will end on the 15th of each month (January is an exception).  The winner will be selected and notified and will have 24 hours to contact me or a new winner will be selected for that month.

What you can win is your choice of a design-only product (up to $15 value), a set of monthly stickers ($14 dollar value), or (2) digital paper packs ($10 value).  The giveaway excludes the professional printing add-on option I offer in my shop.

Entering is easy and there are multiple chances to win.

• Follow Typical Suburban Family via email or RSS feed (both in right sidebar)
• Follow My Hello Designs on twitter
• Become a fan of My Hello Designs on facebook
• Leave a comment on one of my posts on facebook
• Add My Hello Designs Etsy shop to your favorites or add me to your circle (via Etsy)
• Leave a comment here telling me which item you hope to win
• Share this giveaway on your facebook wall daily
• Tweet this giveaway up to 4x per day! Suggested tweet: Win a My Hello Designs item via @myhellodesigns at http://tinyurl.com/agk9qtt #myhellodesigns #giveaway

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Leave a comment for each of the above that you do. Remember that some of them can be done multiple times for additional ways to win!

This months giveaway ends January 31, 2013 at 11:59 pm EST. Random.org will be used to determine a winner who will have 24 hours to respond to my email or another winner will be chosen. Open to US residents only. Good luck!

During teacher appreciation week I put together a few fun little gifts.  One of which included this one…

“Thank you for bringing out the creative juices in me!”

I purchased the insulated cups at Kohls and each one had the teacher’s initial on it. I then filled them with tissue paper for added color and printed out the little tags for each cup. I tied it on with a ribbon and included a Crystal Light Energy drink mix (hole punched the seal on it and looped it through the ribbon). I then tied the ribbon around the straw.

Aren’t they just the cutest? The total cost was about $10 each.

Last weekend was so beautiful we thought we would catch up on all things outdoors.  And we did just that.

We loaded the kids into the Passat and headed to Home Depot.  Of all weekends to have my car still loaded down with conference boxes and unusable, I chose this weekend to do our gardening.

We managed just fine though and we were able to get all the dirt, plants, flowers and even a rototiller attachment home safe and sound.

Let the fun begin!

We had to do some weeding first to clean up the garden area and the flower beds, but before long we were making progress.  The boys had fun digging in the dirt and helping haul away the weeds with their little tractors.

Ryan was a huge helper and filled all the pots with dirt for me so I could plant the flowers.

Owen?  Well, he always seems to do his own thing his own way.  He lost interest in helping after about the 2nd scoop of dirt into the pot. 

Oh well.  I still had one helper boy!

After the flowers were planted we stepped back to admire our handy work.  Not too shabby huh?

Daddy had to do the rototiller in the garden so mommy’s big ol’ preggo belly wouldn’t allow for such a chore.

Daddy found the early stages of numerous little green friends from last year.  Ryan did a great job helping collect them to dispose of them far, far away from the garden (aka the trash).

After we prepped the garden area, Ryan and I got busy planting. 

I actually stuck him inside the garden and taught him how to make the rows and place the seeds.  By this point of the day I was getting tired and sore and the baby was kicking like crazy telling me enough is enough.

Ryan didn’t seem to mind though.  He enjoyed being my helper and being inside the garden; an area normally off limits to little children.

This year we planted cauliflower, broccoli, a bunch of tomato plants, cucumbers, onions and peas. 

We have a few more packets of seeds that we want to plant (pumpkins, sweet corn, and carrots).  I also want to pick up some red and green pepper plants for this year.  Now I just need to find an area to plant these additional items.

Since I will be home all summer on maternity leave I figured I might as well have a big garden!  I mean, not that I’ll be bored or anything.  I will be home with a newborn, a 3 year old and a 5 year old and trying to entertain everyone while not losing my mind.  Easy peasy right?!

Where was Delta through all of this you ask? Well, supervising of course!

Update added February 1, 2013

If you’re coming from Pinterest, welcome!
I didn’t expect this post to get so much traffic when I originally wrote it a year ago.
I have since added a follow up post that you can check out here: 

5 Easy Steps to Organizing Baby Clothes

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You may be in a situation like me.  Too many baby clothes!  And the scary part is that this baby girl doesn’t even arrive until May 2012.  We are I am already overwhelmed with the amount of stuff we have accumulated for baby #3.

To make matters worse, I had saved all of the clothes and boy toys from Ryan and Owen because I wasn’t sure whether we were going to take the plunge and have a third child and then whether or not it would be a boy or girl.

So….. with all that said, I have a ton of boy clothes from newborn to 3T and recently I bought a bunch of girl clothes (newborn – 18months) from a friend of a friend.  So now what do we do with all these clothes?

Well, if you know me, you know that I’ve already washed everything and organized them all.  I’ve only had them in my possession about 4 days and already they are ready for baby girl.

Here is what I started with…..

And here is where they are at now…..

I printed each one on cardstock paper, but it’s not necessary.  You can print on regular paper and just place in each storage bin for easy identification.  If you need a helping hand in the first step of getting organized, I am making my organization printables free for you to download and use.  I have both a girl and a boy version of these available to you up to size 3T.  If you need them in a PDF format instead of .jpg, please email me at jean@myhellodesigns.com and I’d be happy to send them to you.

If you do use them, I’d love to see your completed organization!  Please send me a photo to jean@myhellodesigns.com and I just might feature your accomplishment on my blog.  This is not required, but would definitely be fun to see!

Now I working on consigning the boy’s clothes and boy toys to free up some room in our house for girlie stuff!  I forgot how much space a tiny baby takes with all of their bouncy seats, swings, boppy pillows and such.

And….. happy organizing!

View the girl labels and boy labels on facebook.

I’ve been seeing these all over Pinterest and I would credit whomever came up with it originally, but I have no idea.  I’ve seen it pinned with various photos to various blogs for the past several weeks now and I knew I just had to do this for the boys for their Valentine’s cards.

How cute are they?!

Cheesy grins and all.

Making them is simple.  Take a photo with your kiddo’s fist out in front of them.  If they have a difficult time with following directions and understanding why they are making a fist with nothing in it (as mine sometimes does), then you can always place a lollipop in their hand, pose them, and then pull the lollipop out of their hand.

Once you have your photo, you can add some simple graphics in whichever design software you use.  I use Photoshop CS4, added a heart, a banner and some text.  Simple and quick.  Then I ordered my prints!

Wa la!

After receiving my prints I added two hole punches on the top and bottom of their fists and inserted the lollipop.

I simply love these.  And my boys too of course.

For more Valentine card options, please visit My Hello Designs and let me do the work for you!

You could plan an ice cream party for just about any occasion.  It makes a perfect birthday party idea; a summer play date; a back-to-school neighborhood event; or a just-because-I-feel-like-hosting-a-party event.

This particular  party was for a neighborhood back-to-school event.

I ordered the cute little ice cream dishes and spoons from Oriental Trading to set the tone of the party.  Their was one per child and then the adults used paper bowls.  Sorry adults!

We had two flavors of ice cream with a variety of toppings! There were M&Ms, skittles, gumballs, Reeses pieces, peanuts, chocolate, strawberry, caramel, butterscotch and hot fudge syrup.

There were marshmallows, cherries, bananas, whipped topping and MORE!

Everything was labeled with these cute little ice cream food card printables so everyone knew what they were adding to their creation.

And to wash it all down we had custom ice cream water bottle labels in our theme.  These were a big hit with the neighbors!

If you are interested in ordering any of these DIY printables, you can visit my Etsy shop.  I do custom party packages so if you have another idea for a party, I would be happy to work with you to create your theme.

Are you planning a Halloween party?  Do you plan to bring cupcakes to your child(ren)’s school?  Well, you’re in luck!  I have some Halloween cupcake topper printables just for you and just for free.

I will send you a PDF of these fun Halloween printables. There are 12 toppers per sheet in the three images featured above.

All you need to do is subscribe to Typical Suburban Family via RSS, Google Friend Connect (GFC) or via email.  Then leave me a comment (or email me directly at jean (at) myhellodesigns (dot) com) that you did this and I will email your printable to you!

No customization allowed on free DIY printables.

With the chill in the air it feels like Halloween is right around the corner.  Yes, you heard me correctly that there is a chill in the air in Atlanta.  And by chill, I mean mid 70s.

So naturally, with the chill and Halloween approaching, I’ve been on Pinterest searching for fun Halloween goodies to make with the boys.

One of my favorites is the Candy Corn themed Chocolate Covered Pretzels.

Or what about the Spooky Spider Oreo Cookies? How adorable are these?!

Candy corn sugar cookies will be a hit in our household for sure!

Personally, I cannot wait to make eat these! I absolutely love Rice Krispie Treats and these Little Pumpkins are so cute!

And the house wouldn’t be complete with a little Halloween decorating. This is simple, easy and fun. I know the boys will enjoy filling our vases with candy and coming up with fun names for them too. I’m sure eating the candy will be high on the list as well. I’m just guessing on this one though….

Are you getting excited for Halloween, fall and chilly weather or is it just me?  I would have made my Indian Summer Turkey Chili today if I hadn’t broke my All-Clad crock pot the other day.  I’m not sure how many days I can live without it since we use it all the time!  It was a wedding gift and I’m so sad that I broke it.  If only a new one would magically appear on my doorstep since I’m on a we-are-not-spending-any-money without a very valid reason.

Maybe I should consider this a very valid reason.  What do you think?

What little boy doesn’t love choo-choo trains?  So why not incorporate the love of trains into your child’s birthday party?

We did just this for Owen’s 3rd birthday a few weekends ago.

We started with a train themed birthday party invitation (details have been changed for privacy purposes).

I used the colors of navy blue, lime green and turquoise.  These three colors are very popular right now making it very easy (and cost effective) to work into all of our decor.

I found a great turquoise bin discounted at Target with their summer clearance items and filled it with water bottles. I created a custom labels and added the party details in the nutritional fact section. Super cute!

For the cupcakes, instead of ordering decorated cupcakes, I ordered cupcakes in lime green and turquoise. By ordering plain cupcakes they were about half the cost of decorated cupcakes or cake and it allowed me to custom design the toppers for them in the same train theme.

All I did was use a circle die cut to stamp the image out, glue it to a popsicle stick and place them into the cupcakes.

For the party favors, I was able to pick up these cute little tins in turquoise and lime green from the $1 bins at Target.  How awesome is that?!  I created and added a little sticker to them to tie them together with the train theme.

I filled each tin with some tissue paper in alternating colors and added a box of crayons, a lollipop and a Reese’s peanut butter cup.  I created custom stickers for each item keeping with the train theme.

And there you have a cute little party favor take-away for your guests.

I ordered these adorable custom made sugar cookies from Edible Impressions. Annette was able to work with our colors and kept with the same train design that we used throughout the party.

Tie the entire party together with a custom designed pennant banner, and the party was complete.

And the thank you card?  Well, that is just absolutely adorable!  But….. I can’t share that yet because I haven’t mailed it out yet and I don’t want to ruin the surprise.  If you want to see it, please leave me a comment and I’ll email you a sample image of it.  I linked a sample thank you card below for an idea of what you could use.  The one I am sending includes a group photo of everyone at the party.  Super cute!

Are you interested in purchasing any of these train party printables from My Hello Designs Etsy Shop?

Here are the direct links for each item:

Invitation  |  Pennant Banner  |  Water Bottle Labels  |  Cupcake Topper  |

These additional items are available, but not pictured above: 

Cupcake Wrapper  |  Food Tent Cards  |  Return Address Labels | Thank You Card