Friday, June 28, 2019

Music Game Organization


This is the place that I put all my music games for the time being - I’m going to be moving into a second bin shortly, as this ones getting so full.   I love to have all of my games nice and organized or at least gathered in one place.  I’m not perfect yet, but I’m working on it!  Practice makes perfect, right?

I got this bin a few years ago as a Hostess reward and it has really been a work horse for me.  It’s sort of messing looking right now - but like I said, I’m ready to move into a second one!  The Convertable Organizer is now available again as a Hostess Reward and even comes with free personalization.  Don’t let that sound too intimidating - you can do this by placing just $200 in orders.  Organize a closet or doing your Christmas shopping early or get a new summer purse and coordinating bags and wallet and you’ll be there.  Message me if you need help doing this!

Moving on to what is in this bin.  I use the side bins for my big dice, card sets, and other smaller items.  That front pocket has ziplock bags full of my little dice (I bought a bunch of regular dice at the Dollar Tree in a Farkle game and use those for games with my music students) and also Ewako Erasers that I use for pawns.

Now for the games!
These are the plastic folders that I buy to organize.  I find them at Dollar Tree and at Walmart for $1 each.  The brand name is Jot.   I know these seem like a cheap version, but they have held up in my music studio for 3 years now.  There is a shorter version of the clear one that is nice for just card sets.

The left one is just a clear zipper pocket, but as you can see, it holds bigger things inside because it expands.  The right folder is like a two pocket folder and the front has a ziplock pocket too.

I’ve also used 2 pocket folders, but I don’t like them as much.  When I first started organizing my games, I put everything in a plain 2-pocket folder.  The game fits in the pocket and then I put the cards in a ziplock bag and put it with the game in the pocket.  This is a much cheaper version since you can get 2-pocket folders for $.10 around the back-to-school sales.
Overall, my goal is to get the name of the game, the level, and the goals of the game printed not eh front of it.  I would also like to somehow coordinate the games with actual piano lessons, so all I have to do is look at a chart and go grab the game to go with it! 

Ahh!!  It will come at some point!  How do you organize your music games?  I know that I’m always looking for new ways to be more efficient.


Monday, June 17, 2019

Painting Brick/Faux Brick


We have this very badly done brick backsplash in our kitchen!  My daughter kept calling it faux, but it’s actually real brick in the tile form.  That being said - it’s ugly!!!  Whoever installed it, didn’t use a tile cutter to put the tile into place, they broke the tiles by hand to get them to fit.  In addition to that, there’s about 2 fingers distance between the tiles on all sides and at some point, someone has gone in and painted white between the tiles to clean it up, but also painted all the edges of the tiles, making the spaces seem even bigger.
All the colors and patterns in this kitchen, added to all of the cooking we do for a family of 7, just makes my head hurt!  We plan to redo the entire kitchen at some point, but for now, I’m trying to resist painting everything that’s going to be torn out in the future.  The linoleum flooring is very busy and brown and tan, the counters are yellow, with cigarette burns in it and we have three different tones/kinds of cabinets in there.

I decided this week to break out my paint that’s on hand and whitewash the bricks to give them a more neutral look until we have the time and money to rip them out.  I should have done this the moment we moved in 2 years ago!! I love it so much, well at least as much as I can love a very bad brick/tile job!

The kitchen is so much brighter and clean looking to my eyes!  Now I’m trying to resist painting all the walls, trim and cabinets.  Not to mention, the counter tops that are driving me insane!
 Ok, I’ll try to take a breath and wait patiently while my piano studio gets finished first, but I may just paint the trim - it looks terribly dirty next to the nice clean bricks!  Please tell me what you think!