Valentine's Mantle

I love to decorate for Christmas, but I can't say that I do a lot of other seasonal decorating.

Between cooking, cleaning, teaching, and all those other mama things, I just don't have the time, energy, or money to make the house festive all year long.

Or, so I thought.

Then I stumbled upon some super cute seasonal subway art downloads.

If you're looking for something quick, easy, and inexpensive- here's a project for you!

I started with this really yucky $4 frame from Goodwill.

I took it apart, cleaned it, and spray painted it white.

Then added this sweet, free download from 1825.

(I printed it out as a 16X20 at Sam's for $6).So, for $10 and about an hour of my time, our house has some Valentine's decor- for the first time in a long, long time!

Now, I'm off to shop the house for some other red items and decorate a little more!

(I also had this free download printed for later in the year. It's stored behind the Valentine's print, so I can just swap them out and use the same frame.)

Caboodles~ New Use for an Old Friend

In my brief, little sewing career, I've managed to amass lots of sewing gadgets like this: And I needed somewhere to store them all!

As luck would have it, I brought home boxes of my high school goodies last time I went back home. In my stash of yearbooks and love notes, I happened to still have my old Caboodles.

Tell me you had a Caboodles! They were wonderful! My Dad called them his daughters' tackle boxes, bless his heart! (Ashleigh, do you still have yours?)

Anyway, I decided that pink, plastic bit of nostalgia would be perfect as my 'new' sewing box. And she is!
Ahhhh, I LOVE the 80's!

It makes me want to track down my cassingle of Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and turn it up really loud. That is, if I could find a tape deck in which to play said cassingle!

T-shirt Fun

I celebrated another birthday this week!
I packed us up and headed to my parents for the weekend.
And came home with this...THANKS MOM!!!
And since taking her out of the box last night, I've been in sewing heaven!

Last night I made a pocketbook.

Today I made a shirt for Wyatt:

It was simple!
I started with a pair of his swim trunks that were headed to Goodwill. Then I found the font and size of "W" that I thought would look nice on one of his old t-shirts. I literally held a piece of paper up to the screen and traced the letter. What a great make-shift light box!I cut out the traced pattern from paper.
Then, used the pattern to cut out a camouflage "W" from the swim trunks.
Finally, I pinned the camouflage "W" to the front of his t-shirt and used my favorite stitch of all- ZIGZAG- to put it on!

His response was, "It ACTUALLY looks pretty good Mom!"

To which I said, "You're welcome, son!"

Stacks and Stacks Winning Entry

Yipee! I won a contest at Stacks and Stacks Clutter Control Freak Blog. They were looking for creative, unlikely uses for everyday common items. (I'm getting lots of traffic looking for my post on the item I entered. For a short cut, just click on the title of this post.)

THANK YOU - THANK YOU - THANK YOU to Stacks and Stacks! I can't wait to use my gift certificate!

If you'd like to check out their oh-so-helpful site, a link is posted on my left side column!

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

In our schedule this school year, we have at least one appointment or class each weekday that requires a ride in the car. Unfortunately, I must have failed to train my children to take their belongings, trash, etc. out of the car when we return home and unload! My car had turned into a veritable dump on wheels. When I could take it no longer, I implemented a few new organizational strategies that have thus far been quite successful. (Except for the fact that they have also inspired a few OCD fits with me applying similar ideas in other areas around the house. And driving poor Superman crazy. I'll have to post some of them later...)
Here's a picture of one project:

It holds all of the things that need to stay in the car (wipes, tissues, v-tech charger, headphones, CD case, TV bags, and I could go on and on). Because I used an old file crate from my teaching days, it didn't cost me a thing. I secured it in the third row by looping the middle seat belt through the holes in the crate. Now I don't have to worry about it flying through the air if I have to slam on brakes.

Note the orange striped fabric covering the crate. I made it myself!!! That was a stroke of sheer genius on my part, and I'm not ashamed to say so. (I promise I'm not vain y'all, keep reading...) You see, I don't sew, unless you count replacing buttons or cross-stitch as sewing! Seriously! I had hoped a pillow case could be used as a liner, but the openings weren't large enough to work. I knew I needed some sort of a liner, because the holes in the sides and bottom of the crate would let little things fall through-- defeating the whole purpose. Here's where the stroke of genius came in... I've put on a few pounds this summer (a few too many vacations, dinners out, and desserts.) What does this have to do with my handy-dandy car organizer idea, you ask? Well, I've noticed some of my tops are getting a bit clingy. I really don't like clingy! Seriously!

And again, I know you're still wondering what on earth this has to do with my car organizer. I'm getting there, I promise! I was rushing to get ready and put on a soft and comfy shirt that I've had forever. (I actually bought two of them that are identical, because they are so comfy!)

Really, I'm getting there... unfortunately, my summer sweet tooth caused my shirt to feel a bit too clingy for this particular day, and I did what any other diet-crazed woman would do. I pulled it off and slung it across the room. But while the shirt was hurling mid-air the creative light bulb in my brain flickered on with this thought,"I didn't like the look of the shirt stretching over my body, but wouldn't it be cute stretched over my crate!!!" With that thought in mind I dashed to the corner, grabbed the shirt off the floor, ran half-dressed through the house to get the crate, and tried it out. (My apologies if you're a visual learner.) And guess what? It worked perfectly! I simply used a few safety pins to close up the neck and arm holes, and voila! See, a stroke of non-sewing genius! I told y'all I wasn't being vain!

And just to prove it really was a shirt...here I am wearing it! This photo was taken just a couple weeks after I had C. I guess that dates it a bit, but oh well! Superman and I got out for a little child-free time to tailgate with two of my dearest friends from back home, and C got to stay with Grammy and Paw Paw! Good times! GO TIGERS!!!

One last project that made a huge difference: I got rid of all my CD storage containers that held different CDs (and their cases) for the car, and transferred the CDs only into a new CD storage case. The new case stays in the crate. It freed up a lot of space, and got rid of so much clutter!

Hope I've inspired you to do a little bit of organizing!