Modern Parents Messy Kids

We're all about finding ways to make family life better while keeping our sense of humor. Check out our famous MPMK Top Toy Awards, already viewed over 7,000,000 times!

Top 10 Cleaning Tricks for Families with New Babies

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Here's something fun - MPMK is moonlighting over on The Home Depot's site, The Apron Blog.   They recently asked us to guest post on some of our favorite tricks for keeping things fresh and clean with a new baby at home - a topic that's right up my alley these days! This DIY kids' cleaning station makes it fun for older siblings to help out and I'm totally in love with both the form and function of this clever space. In fact, all 10 of the ideas our home-life and playtime contributor, … [Read more...]

3 Awesome LEGO Storage and Organization DIYs

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I'm away prepping for, or possibly enjoying, my new baby boy today (I'm not sure yet as I'm writing this several weeks in advance of publishing it). Either way, I haven't forgotten you guys.   I've asked Holly of the kid play mega site, Kids Activities Blog, to stop by and share her best DIYs and tips for finally getting those LEGOs under control. This is a challenge we're starting to face in a very real way around our house and I absolutely love all of Holly's ideas - especially the DIY … [Read more...]

Creating a Dress-Up Play Closet {The Forever Home Project}

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A dress-up closet is such a great creativity tool for kids.  Unfortunately, not many of us have the space to create one in our homes.   Today Julee is sharing her tips for maximizing your kids' closet space to create a hybrid dress-up/regular clothes closet and I'm totally smitten with the results. We just removed the doors from S's closet and replaced them with curtains to free up some space in her room and give her better accessibility.  I think our next move will be to incorporate some … [Read more...]

How to Organize Photos Like a Professional Organizer: POYEL

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Our post on How to Store Your Digital Photos Like a Professional Photographer was so popular that we decided to follow it up with another Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life post on how to organize print photos from our resident professional organizer, Annie.   She's got a fool-proof 5 part process you're sure to love! While the majority of us have shifted into the digital realm most households still have a stockpile of family pictures. Printed at the local drugstore some several years ago, … [Read more...]

Genius Ideas for Going Green and Saving Money

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DIY cleaners and beauty products that will save me money, keep toxins out of the house, and help the environment?  Yes, please.  I'm loving this roundup Kristin put together for us.  Now I just have to decided what to make this weekend - foaming hand wash, a few two-ingredient spa treatments, toilet bombs, or all of the above. Going green doesn't have to mean a whole-life overhaul.  If we all make simple little changes, we can make a difference in the condition of the planet we leave for our … [Read more...]

Valentine Photo Bookmarks

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When the folks at eHow's mom channel asked me to come up with a Valentine photography project that kids could make for their parents, I knew I wanted to it to be something parents could actually use. Check out my super simple DIY bookmark tutorial here and have a great weekend watching the olympics with the kiddos this weekend!  The hubby and I are both sick with the flu so that's it from for today. P.S. Did you know that facebook has recently drastically changed the way pages like MPMK … [Read more...]

DIY Valentine’s Day Decor: Easy Instagram Art

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  Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and it's one of my favorite holidays for arts and crafts. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's the welcome diversion from everything Christmas. Maybe it's the idea that we're making gifts for the ones we love most. Regardless, I get giddy this time of year and love to come up with new things to make, especially decorations. Lately, I've been trying to make decorations that will last - things that I can keep and look back on, as the years fly by … [Read more...]

My Simple Plan for Saving Our Memories This Year

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We're talking memories today as part of our month long mission to find ways to eat better, parent better, organize better and just generally live better this year.  Before S arrived, I was actually pretty good about recording memories for our little family.  At the end of each month I would use the photos we'd taken to create 2 - 4 new pages in an iphoto book, along with a few paragraphs with family anecdotes, accomplishments, etc.  The idea being that at the end of the year I would have a … [Read more...]

Style & Simplify: Display Solutions for Tiny Treasures

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We're once again tackling organization today as part of our month long quest to eat better, parent better, organize better and just generally live better this year. I'm really quite smitten with this lovely little DIY project - the only problem is I couldn't decide where it fit better, in Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life or The Forever Home Project. In the end, I just decided to file it under both (I'm the boss around here - I can totally do that). Turns out I wasn't the only one with issues … [Read more...]