Cheapo, Easy Peasy Luggage Tags!

Our Family is preparing to take several trips this summer. Unfortunately one of them is by air ( I HATE flying!!!). So in a better effort to be prepared, and not have to fill out those annoying little tags at the airport, I whipped up some Luggage Tags.

Here are the gathered supplies:

Some scraps of Scrapbook paper, Scotch Laminating Pouches, Card for smoothing, Printable Shipping Labels, Crop-A-Dile, and optional corner rounder punch.

Now I figure that most people are at Wal-mart enough that have seen these awesome little pouches. But encase you are like me and don't spend enough time perusing the office supply aisle there, here is a close up:

These are less than 2 bucks for a pack of 5, and are self laminating (NO machine required).

The tags were all made by simply printing off my info on the shipping labels (which had to be cut to size & corner rounded them), and then adhering them to the scraps of  paper. I sized my paper 3 1/2 by 2. but you could totally eyeball this part. Then I stuck the paper on the pouch and followed the 2 step directions for sealing it. And VOILA! and cute little tag. I then used my crop-a-dile to punch a hole through all the layers to thread a ribbon for tying. You could try a regular hole punch, but the pouches are pretty thick...

Aren't you jealous of my awesome tech skills that caused me to use a bright orange post-it to safe guard my personal info?!? Alas that is SO not my thing:/

Here is the trio of them, ready for me and the kiddos to attach to our duffels and go:) Not my best work, but definitely some of my easiest and quickest! These literally took me 10 minutes start to finish:)

My Van Basket- Or what you need when you constantly run Errands!

I am an "On-the-Go" kinda Gal. We are in our vehicle running around town, doing errands at least 5 times a week. So I have learned that a few necessities are in order, so that I am not constantly buying things that I already have at home.
I own a Nissan MiniVan. It has a handy little "table" that sits in between the 2 front coach seats. This is where I keep my little basket of goodies. However I am sure there are plenty of spots in other vehicles to tuck such a thing.

This is what my basket looks like:

It contains 5 Main Components:

1) The First Aid! The School Size box in the back contains first aid supplies:

Nothing fancy or expensive here. Everything came from Target or a Walmart, and most is "travel" size. I have Tums, Tylenol (Both Adult & Children's), Dramamine, Benadryl, Single Packets of Sinus Medicine & Advil, Children's Benadryl & Zyrtec Single Serves, Band-aids, Gauze, Alcohol Pads, Hand Sanitizer and Kleenex. Some Odd Ball items are Bug Spray (for impromptu outdoor outings, and Tweezers for Splinters & Ticks). I usually keep a Travel Size Sunscreen in there also, but I had run out and hadn't replaced it at time of photo.

2) The Fun! The slim green box contains a few items to keep the kiddos entertained for those times we are stuck waiting in the car.

Again nothing special. I got all items except the travel "Whoonu" game at Target. I snagged the Tic Tac Toe at the little dollar spot, The Wooly Willy boards and Stretchy Caterpillar are from Party Supplies, while the Squinkies were actually from my stock pile but of course you could get them in Toys. The Travel Whoonu Game came from a kids meal!

3) The Food! The tiny clear case contains non-melty snacks.

We honestly eat in our Van a ton! So I felt no need to stock pile a great deal of snacks. I simply threw in some hard candies & some teeny packs of fruit nuggets.

4) The Paper Products. What vehicle that regulars shuttles children would be complete without the Kleenex and Wipes!

My kids are older now, so I just keep a travel pack of wipes for sticky hands. However I have a some what "snot nosed" 9 year old, so I need a full size box of Kleenex!

5) The Oddities. These are items that we simply cant do without, however I doubt most people would need to add these items to their Vehicle Basket.

The yellow capped tube is an Epi-pen. I have a severe allergy to shellfish, and while this is never a worry at home, eating out can be more dangerous. So I keep this in my van at all times. The weird black thing is a convertor for our car charging ports. It makes any port in the van (we have 3) compatible with a regular ole cord. So my kids can use their DS chargers or watch our Portable DVD player.

 It all tucks nicely and neatly in my Little Longaberger Lunch Basket!

So that wraps up my Travel Around Town Basket. Hope you got a good idea or two!

Friday Fast Five- Closets

This Fast Five is because I am running out of "fun" things so you get practical stuff;P
I took pictures of 5 closets in my house, so you could get an idea how I organize stuff. If you have questions feel free to comment.

1) This our Main/kids bathroom. I couldn't get a good picture of the whole thing, due to the setup of that bathroom. SO you get a couple of different shot/angles. Do you like the dirty clothes in the basket:/

2) This is the Hall Closet. Suppose to be for coats but we don't need to many of those in NC. So I shoved it full of games, crafts, and educational toys. Oh and the Dyson, which looks naked cause I gave it a bath yesterday, and haven't put it back together yet!

3) This is my Bathroom. Nothing special, again I left the dirty clothes in the basket just for your viewing enjoyment;)

4) This is Gideyon's room. Probably my favorite closet. Simple & clean. Have had that shelf forever and used it in his closet all kinds of ways! He doesn't have any "nice" clothes to hang, and we hang all our jackets on peg racks in the family room. Hence the lack of clothing in his closet.

5) And now to finish off with our resident packrat:Gilly! I try my best but that gal has to many "special" things. Gideyon's fit all in the little basket on the top of his shelf. NOT Gilly, she pretty much takes up the entire top shelf of her closet:/

SO there ya have it,  a peek in my closets:) Promise to be more creative with my Fast Friday next week!