The Organised Housewife » Tips, ideas, inspiration and motivation to help keep you and your household clean and organised

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Sep 18 2012

20 Days to Organise & Clean your home Challenge – Day 13

Category: Organising

Thank you to the Hip Kids for sponsoring todays challenge tasks

unique and funky kids toys, furniture and cubby houses

It’s not too late to start!!  Subscribe to the challenge here.  Share your photos on instagram or twitter using #TOH20daychallenge.  Follow along with the discussion on facebook.

<< View the previous task

Please share your progress of the challenge below

The cornices - Despite getting my house regularly pest controlled I still get the odd little bugs nestled into my cornices.  Todays task is clean away any dust or bugs hanging from your cornices or ceilings.  There are a few different ways you can clean them:  

  • With a cobweb broom
  • A stocking over the end of a normal broom, will make it easier to clean the broom
  • Use the brush attachment on your vacuum cleaner
  • if you don’t have a brush attachment secure a sock or rag to the end of your vacuum nozzle with a rubber band.  

I prefer to use the vacuum with brush attachment.   

Kids artwork – This would have to be one of the hardest decluttering tasks, purging kids artwork.  I get little scraps of paper with notes, beautiful drawings, huge pieces of butchers paper with scribbles all over, and cardboard creations.  Unfortunately we can’t keep them all.  

I keep a box for each of my kids to store all their artwork, a few times throughout the year I will go through the box and keep anything that is truly special and purge the rest.  

Kids Artwork - Now that you have gone through the kids artwork consider some of the ideas below to display their creations.  

1. Create a wall gallery, find more details here. 

 2. Scan into a digital photo frame, see more details here

3. Create a special place to hang their creations, see more details here

More ideas:

  • Use as wrapping paper
  • Post to grandparents, aunts or uncles
  • Laminate and use as a placemat
  • Scan and make as wallpaper on your computer
  • Use to create personalised gifts for Christmas such as phone covers or bags

Kids Drawings  - When kids come home with their creations display as you need and then place straight into the box allocated for their drawings. 

While you  have the vacuum out de-cobwebbing the house, use the brush attachment to remove dust from your bathroom exhaust fan

Day 13 checklist (place in tasks divider)

  

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  • Maggie

    I have created a photo album of my childs artwork, as yes sadly you can’t keep them all.
    So i keep the special ones and take photos of the others. I then place the photos in the album, less clutter but i still can keep the artwork!!

  • Trace

    I still have a huge collection of my son’s art work from pre-school and school and he will be 20 on Sunday. I still use it to wrap gifts with.

  • Jell

    Afraid I have too much of my kids artwork just dumped in boxes/piles in our “store room”. My husband will be really pleased if I manage to declutter it all tomorrow. Should be fun! Hope I can do it in less than a day (ie while kids are at school). First though I need a space near the store room to bring it out and sort through it…

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1567821466 Renee Mills

    where do you get those boxes?

  • Kelly

    Yea I’m a day ahead!!! I cleaned all the cornices recently and as a rule as soon as a piece of artwork is completed or brought home from school I scan or take a photo then I make a photo book with all the artwork from each year, even all the little ones which you might not normally keep! I keep a few really great ones to frame and hang in the toy room. And the great thing is each photo book I can order multiplies for the kids keepsake boxes, one for us and for grandparents! I personally love this format but it may not be for everyone :)

  • Sarah

    I am thinking of scanning them all and making a digital book of them so that they can keep it and show their kids when they eventually have them.

    • MummyBrown

      Sarah, This is what I do. Its a great memory keeper for their “year in review”

  • Kath

    If you have an iPhone, there’s an app called “artkive” that keeps photos of your kids artwork, categorises them and creates a photo book for you at the end of the year.
    Unfortunately not on Android yet, but I’m on the email list to tell me know when it is available.

  • Nic

    I got my kids to go through boxes of artwork etc at the start of the year I got a heap of display folders and got them to pick their favorite ones and labelled them Grade Prep, Grade 1 etc

  • Angela Grimsdale

    I have been meaning to clean the cobwebs around the house for a while now!

    I have kept my son’s best artworks or given them to the grandparents. I have used a lot as wrapping paper. I like the idea of making a book of the best ones.

  • Anna

    I also like to take a photo of the child holding the piece of artwork up – in years to come we will be able to remember what age he/she was when they created the masterpiece (and just how CUTE they were!)

  • ileana marquez

    Hi Katrina, you are right… this is going to be a hard one… my daughter is 13 now and I love to keep her drawings, but scanning them is a wonderful idea! thank you for sharing it.

  • lj6

    Another great way to make use of kids drawings is to use them as backgrounds and accents in scrapbook pages

  • http://twitter.com/BecBennett Rebecca Maher

    Yay, easy day tomorrow! I don’t have kids, and I’ve done the cobwebs as each room came up in the challenges :)

  • Cara Tatnell

    what a coincedence I just did this kids art / kids school keepsake clean out over the past two days :) cant wait to manage it better now as it comes in the door instead of tossing it on top of the filing cabinet. Trouble is we get soooo much of this stuff I find we have to be ruthless and throw a fair bit away :(

  • Alisha

    @kath thanks for the heads up on “artkive” I just installed it and it’s set up and ready to go now before miss 2 gets all her artwork home. @katrina loving the challenges :)

  • Jackie

    On another blog was a framed grid of miniature images of scanned artwork and it looked fabulous. There were at least 120 images on the one frame

  • Bronwyn

    When i cant hold on to it anymore, I scan or photograph my children’s artwork / school work and save onto a disk. That way I will always have it and don’t feel so sad when it has to be cleaned out.

  • http://www.facebook.com/frankgianina.takacs Frank Gianina Takacs

    Hi Kat, sorry…just off the topic… what is the purpose of the other tabs in our folders? Will you be giving us some print-outs to put in them? Or are we to add to them any info which we may find to be useful?. Gianina.

  • kerri.geoghegan

    Oh, I love the digital photo frame idea for all the beautiful art work!

  • Aimee

    These are very lovely things. I hope to do this at home.

  • Danni

    Put an old stocking over the broom head and put a few drops of lavender oil on the stocking before using to brush away cobwebs. The lavender oil helps deter spiders from moving back in. Lavender oil around doorways also acts as a repellant for flies too.

  • Leanne

    I clean all my exhaust fan covers in the dishwasher a couple times a year!! They come out a treat…

  • Sanstar

    *gasp* I can’t believe what you’re asking me to doo! I still can’t do it… I can’t purge the artwork… :S

  • lee-ann

    what do you do with the bulky art work i have hats bonnets art that is just bulky

  • Katie

    Ohh I’m really after those boxes they are fantastic. Is anybody able to tell me where to get them please??