It´s time to clean out the fridge!

Ever wondered where to place food in your fridge after heading to the supermarket? How to store leftovers? Or how to seal opened food? A lot of people who know me, will know that one of my long time obsessions is the organization, storing and cleanness of the fridge. By doing so, it extends the freshness of food as well as maximizing the space, without overcrowding, the fridge. If food isn't stored correctly, bacteria can start to grow and infect other food.

Even though the fridge is set at an overall temperature, it has different sections at different temperatures. The top section tends to be the coolest and the door being the warmest. The logical way to organize the fridge is to follow the table below.  

 Here is a checklist which I like to follow:

1. CLEANING:

Start from zero and clean it all out. Remove it all, throw away expired food and clean the fridge from top to bottom. The fridge must be cleaned at least once a month.

2. TEMPERATURE CHECK:

The perfect temperature for a fridge is between 1º-5º C (35º- 38º F). The whole idea about refrigerating food is that it slows down the growth of bacteria. The freezers´ role is to stop the growth of bacteria completely.

3. ALLOCATE:

Once the above has been complete, you should designate food to sections and place other foods such as cured meat or cheeses into fridge trays. All of this is done to ensure that the food is kept as fresh as possible. Drawers should be kept for fruit and vegetables. Adding other food such as meat or fish can spoil the rest.

4. LET THE AIR FLOW:

It is important that you do not over pack your fridge as it will spoil your food at a faster pace. Give the fridge a little breathing space.

5. STORING:

If food is going back into the fridge after you use it, ensure it is sealed correctly using cling film, aluminum and tupperware´s. I recently started wrapping vegetables in cling film and this too has improved it´s shelf life.  

My top 10 IKEA products

After some time away from my computer, I am finally back to writing on the blog. I have decided to dedicate this next post to the world´s largest furniture retailer (which also happens to be my favourite), IKEA, which happens to be my favourite. It was founded by 17 year old Ingvar Kamprad in 1943. Later on, the company´s name was changed to use the first letters of his name and surname, the farm he grew up on (Eltaryd) and his hometown in South Sweden (Agunnaryd) making it IKEA. Undoubtably, IKEA stands out for self-assembled furniture rather than pre assembled like other stores.

Whether we want it or not the Swedish brand has become part of all of our lives. For me, it is one of the best home stores as it has simple, yet modern architectural designs with clever organization systems and solutions for any type of space. This is especially necessary when you have children in the house and a routine of order needs to be put in place.

My Top 10 IKEA products:

	Any variation of the PAX wardrobe is good for me. The best aspect is that it can be built to suit your needs. You can choose from a wide range of interior shelving units so they tailor your needs.
	This bookcase comes back every year, varying in colour and print. For me, it sits at number 2 because it can be adapted for different things. In my post about turning an extra room into a walk-in-closet, I used it to display and organize the customers´ shoes.
	You will remember this shelf from the post regarding how to maximizing kitchen space. This product is perfect to tackle those large kitchen closets with tons of space in between. This extra shelf can be used pretty much anywhere.
	These clips have saved my food. If you live in a very humid country like myself then you will know that you can´t live without them. Dry food goes stale if it isn't sealed correctly. No doubt about it, these clips are excellent!
	If you buy these dividers like this (not one piece), you will find them very useful as you can adapt them for most drawers. They are extremely useful to organize underwear and other clothes.
	This polystyrene-acrilic plastic box can help you organize both, your make-up and jewellery. It can sit perfectly well in a bathroom drawer and help you on a daily basis when getting ready.
	Most of you will remember my post about upcycling in which I changed this cutlery dividers´ purpose and used it to organize my jewellery. This again can be used to organize nearly anything in your home.
	This is the perfect alternative for making holes on doors in rental flats. You can also see how I used these hooks for my necklaces here.
	Ikea has really mastered maximizing the awkward corner spaces that can be found in a kitchen. Keep this carousel in mind if you are buying a new kitchen.
	Buying this set of tupperware's will save you lots of food. It comes in lots of different sizes so can be handy at any time while your cooking or storing food away.

I hope you've liked my selection of IKEA products.

Feel free to tell us which ones and why you like best!

TIP OF THE DAY: Create a quick drop off for your jewelry

A month ago, I posted an article on upcycling which included new and creative ways on how to organize your jewelry at home. However, I'm sure most of you have found that with time it gets messy again. This mainly happens because things get misplaced and are not put back where they belong. To prevent this from happening, it's important to put a clear routine in place.

Let's be honest though, I know myself that it's so much easier to take off your jewelry at night and leave it laying around wherever you happen to be standing at that moment in time. However, our aim today is to stop you from doing this by following 3 simple rules which you can see below.

1. Create and establish a quick drop off for your jewelry using a decorative object like a small tray, ashtray or pretty bowls. Place the chosen item in a strategic place such as your bedside table, on top of your chest of drawers or in the bathroom.
2. Make it a routine that you take off your jewelry and leave it on the created drop off station.
3. On a daily or weekly basis empty out the drop-off station by putting your jewelry back where it belongs.

Small trays are perfect for your drop off station

A large ashtray can be used as well as for decoration purposes

This small tray can be found at Zara Home

This cake stand from Tiger Stores is a unique way to create a drop off station

This cute change holder from El Corte Inglés is my final option

What do we achieve by doing this? The main idea is that your jewelry is localized, you know where every thing is at each moment and also for you not to think you've lost something when really it's just not in it's place.  

TIP OF THE DAY: Put your clothes away

The weekend is about to start and I´m sure all of you are making plans as we speak. Weekends, in my eyes, are made for relaxing and taking a break from it all. This obviously means for many, getting all dressed up and hitting the town to meet friends, lovers or whoever.

However, the process of getting ready might be a bit of a nightmare for some -I include myself in this statement. When we don´t know what to wear we get a little frustrated, so what we do is we try on many outfits, because the odds tell us that the more outfits we create, the more chances there are that we will be happy with at least one of them. The thing is, is that once we've found the perfect outfit, we realize that a bomb has exploded on our bed. That´s right, I know you've been there too, our entire wardrobe is sitting on our bed.

The tip here is simple, make enough time to put your clothes away before heading out the door so that when you come home you don´t find yourself throwing the pile of clean clothes onto the floor in order to get into bed. What will this prevent? Well, if you put your clothes away before going out they will stay clean, wrinkle free and tidy.

I think something else worth mentioning in regards to this, is that it´s a good idea to put a routine in place when it comes to putting your clothes away at any time of the week. We normally find a spot in our bedrooms, like a chair, to start piling worn clothes. We say to ourselves that when it gets too big, we will organize them back in our closets. However, If only you timed yourself putting your clothes away on a daily basis, you would realize it didn't even take 5 minutes and it takes a lot of stress out of the weekend...Make it a challenge! 

To keep or not to keep, that is the question

I´m sure most of you, if not all, have thought at some point in your life what you are doing with that item hanging in your closet which you have never even worn. Well, I have that´s for sure and I consider myself quite cold when it comes to giving things away. However, I must admit that there is an important factor called sentimental value. I get it, and I feel it too (for a few things), but what I don´t want to get myself into is having my entire house crammed with things in wardrobes and other valuable storage space because its being taken up by things I don´t even use. I understand that some things like clothes, and souvenirs can be passed on to generations, but I do like to think there is a limit in terms of what is kept and what not. 



I am fortunate enough to be able to store some things in my parents´attic back home. In those boxes (labeled with my name on them), I have packed some things like childhood toys, clothes and books that I too would like to pass onto my children.

My background plays a major part in this attitude I suppose, as I´ve had to learn that not everything can come along with me to new destinations. Don´t get me wrong, this doesn´t mean that wherever I move to equals to an empty flat. It is quite the contrary actually, I have learned to make each new rentalsmy home by adding a few special things to it and making sure it is clutter-free. However, I think that people who have never moved home, feel a stronger connection to material items and can not let go of them, which leads me onto the topic of hoarders. For me it's as simple as this:

Hoarding is a general term for a behavior that leads people or animals to accumulate food or other items during periods of scarcity. Some hoarding in humans may be a form of mental illness, specifically obsessive-compulsive disorder, where the perceived importance of the hoarded items far exceeds their true value.

Often times hoarding affects the sort of clothes, decorative pieces, books and other objects we may keep. I have managed to keep that area under wraps. Paperwork, on the other hand, is something I have only mastered in the last year or so. I just never really knew how long I should keep the bills for or how I should take note that it has been paid for. As a result, all this varied paperwork would pile up in my workspace, taking up valuable space and blocking my creative process. As part of my new year's resolution, I decided I needed to get better at organizing the paperwork at home. My aim was simple: to reduce the amount of paper. I created a spreadsheet with my monthly payments, once the bill was paid and received the bill in paper, I would type in the amount and throw the bill away. Making a note of all your bills this way, will not only save you money but it will visually show you how much you are spending on a monthly basis. Below is a simple table which indicates how long you should keep your paper work for. In other words, a part from maximizing your space, you might even end up maximizing your earnings!

Retention Schedule for paper work:

Keeping valuable souvenirs from childhood, presents from loved ones or outfits you think your children might is of course not “hoarding behavior” because the quantities are smaller and also because the process is more selective. When we find that what we keep, or rather what we do not organize adequately, begins to take up not only our physical space but also our visual space, that is when this sort of intervention is needed. My years in the far East, and the influence of Feng Shui theories has taught me that Clutter-clearing is modern-day alchemy. It is one of the fastest ways to completely transform your life. 

Hope it helps all you space optimizers out there!

Let´s upcycle!

When I started organizing my kitchen, I realized that two cutlery dividers I had previously bought at Ikea did not fit the designated drawer. This obviously irritated me, but I decided to let it go and make use of it somewhere else in my new flat. Since I would probably not use it for cutlery, I remembered the current frenzy of upcycling.

Upcycling, according to Wikipedia is “the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value”. It clearly comes from the word recycle, but since you are upgrading its use. It then becomes upcycling.

A lot of people already do this and Pinterest is the best place to see this. It really fascinates me to see what the results are especially when it´s something I had never even thought of it.

I started to walk around my flat frenetically with the two cutlery dividers thinking of a new use and home for them and it suddenly sprung to me -my jewelry needed to be organized and I knew this was going to be perfect!

Thankfully, I had a free drawer in my bedroom where hopefully they would fit -and they did! I took all my jewelry out of the boxes they came in for the move and started to categorize them. I have a love for bangles and necklaces, so this was definitely going to be my number one priority.

I started off with the bangles and made sure that my most precious ones fit, then went onto chains, pendants and other items.

Something else I´ve seen plenty of times on Pinterest is adapting the use a kitchen roll holder. In this case, if I needed it, I would probably put some of my bangles on it like you can see from the picture below.

Now came another problem. I needed to hang my necklaces or else they would tangle up. I actually remembered I had added a hanger for a door in the guest bedroom and was not using it. I thought it would be a good idea to hang it on my bedroom door and put all my necklaces on it. I decided to color coordinate my necklaces so that it at the time of choosing one to wear it would be easier. This is how it looks...

All of you looking for better ways to maximize space look around your homes and I´m sure you´ll find things that are not being used and that could be upcycled. 

5 Tips on maximizing your kitchen space

As most of you already know, I have recently moved abroad, to Malta. After a month of waiting, all of our stuff arrived. The movers arrived at 08:00am on a sunny morning, blocked the road off and started shipping up our boxes on the lifter. Meanwhile, I was in the flat ticking the box numbers off as they came in and directing them to their new locations. It is true that we were coming from a bigger flat which meant most of things would probably end up slightly more compact. However, there was one area in the new flat that was better designed here in Malta, and which made me realize that my previous flat really didn't maximise the use of it, that area was the kitchen.

When I normally organize a move, I unpack (in order to get rid of all the cardboard) and place the items where they belong to later come back and organize them properly; maximizing its use and space. I placed the kitchen utensils, pots and pans in the drawers and cupboards. I was 100% sure that all I would need to do was come back to them and place them correctly. To my surprise, I had to rearrange it all. My new kitchen comprises of the following drawers and cupboard space:

2x Cutlery drawers

4x Large drawers

4x Top cupboards

2x Lower cupboards (large)

The easy part was organizing the cutlery drawers, as one of them already had an integrated cutlery divider. For the other one, I used two dividers which I had brought with me from my old flat. Then came the hard part- trying to decide where everything should live. Below you will find a few helpful tips which I decided to go with.

5 tips to follow for a well organized kitchen:

1. Remove any unwanted items which are taking a lot of space. Throw away old pots and pans which are not being used.
   
   
2. Categorize the pots and pans and place them in the lower cabinets or drawers closer to the hobs, as they tend to be heavier and need to be close.
   

   

   
   
3. Identify where you will be preparing food and place the cutting boards, knives and kitchen utensils close by for easy reach. Baking trays and plates can easily be stored inside the oven.
   
   
4. Place everyday glassware and crockery in the upper cabinets, but make sure they can easily be reached and are maximizing the space with extra shelving in the interior.
   
   
   

   

   
   
   

   

   
   
5. Store food in a cool place such as a large drawer as it will be easier to look for specific items and extra shelving will not be needed

More on maximizing your spaces at home soon....