Stylish DIY Dog Toy Storage

I have a dog. He has toys. He likes to help me decorate The Condo by artfully placing his toys all over the living room and our bedroom. Blitzkrieg clearly needed a toy box.

Most dog toy boxes have lids. I didn’t want that because I wanted something that would corral Blitzkrieg’s dog toys in one spot (in theory) but that he would be able to access at any time he wanted to play with them. At the time we were still trying to teach Blitzkrieg what toys where, how to play with them, and that in this house; you won’t get smacked around for pulling your dog toys out of your toy box and playing with them. In fact, I was trying to encourage Blitzkrieg to find a toy and chew on that instead of stress chewing on himself.

Oh, and if the toy box could be somewhat stylish that would be nice too.

I mentioned this to another dog owning friend and thought that a wicker basket might do the trick. She said that’s what she used until her dog ate the basket. Apparently there are a lot of dogs that find wicker tasty.

I crossed that option off of my list.

I found a large brass bowl at Target. It was on clearance and it was a little beat up but it would hold a few toys in our bedroom. Hoping for a better solution, I decided not to buy it. You know, bass = 80’s = ugh.

5 Ways to Whiten Clothes Without Chlorine Bleach

I like bright white laundry but I don’t like to use chlorine bleach. Chlorine bleach has some nasty chemicals in it and if you’re not careful you could ruin your clothes (looks pointedly at Husband who bought a cleaner that contained bleach unbeknownced to me until it ruined the pants I was wearing at the time I was using it.)

Fortunately there are several ways to keep your white’s white without using toxic bleach.

How to Save Money and Make Things Last – Date It!

The Condo Blues Law of Oops dictates that I will run out of something only when I’m in the middle of using it to do something like cleaning, baking, or in a project.

Just so I won’t run out of something at a bad time I used to think that if it’s something we use daily like shampoo or toothpaste or cleaner then I should just buy it every time it goes on sale to save money. Then I’d have a backup on hand when we run out. In theory that should work just fine.

Problem was that I still seemed to run out of stuff like brown sugar in mid-cupcake baking frenzy while on the other hand I constantly had at least four extra tubes of toothpaste in the linen closet on any given day of the year. There were times when I had so many extra tubes of toothpaste laying around that I considered giving them out as party favors to guests, “Hi how ya doin'? Want something to drink? Snacks are on the dining room table, and oh hey - here you go - have a tube of toothpaste as a parting gift!”

Husband wisely vetoed my bizarre attempts at generosity.

To get a handle on how long stuff lasted, or not, I decided to write the date I opened it on the label of consumable items like toothpaste, cleaners, olive oil, etc. You may think that’s incredibly anal retentive of me, because, I admit it, it is.

But you know what? Well my little born on date experiment also made me realize a few things. Our happy little family of 2 didn’t go through nearly as many bottles, tubes and cans of cleaners, condiments, and health and beauty aids as I thought. For example, we only use about 2 tubes of toothpaste a year even though we brush our teeth a lot.

I found that I really didn’t need to buy that extra bottle of whatever every time it went on sale if I already had a backup item in the pantry or utility room. That saves me money, cuts down on waste, and gives me a little extra storage room around The Condo!

Husband no longer has to worry about me foisting pantry extras at guests in the guise of parting gifts either.

How long do things last at your house? What are your money saving shopping tips?

This post is part of Works for Me Wednesday.

Make a Garden Border Out of Old Bricks!

The arrangement goes that the Homeowner’s Association is responsible for mowing our lawns and common areas but we Condo owners are responsible for the maintaining the flowerbeds in front of our homes, including the edging. Well, I don’t think someone gave the new lawn service guys that memo because shortly after they started taking care of our neighborhood, they put in trench edging in everyone’s flowerbeds, much to our dismay.

Trench edging is cheap, but it doesn’t keep mulch from sliding out of a flower bed. Even worse, since we have clay soil that doesn’t drain, every time it rains the trench turns into the perfect mosquito nursery.

This is my neighbor’s yard after a rainstorm. They are very nice people and don't deserve such crappy edging.

Needless to say, most of my neighbors dealt with the trench edging by replacing it with their own garden edging.