A Quick Donation Quilt

There’s a huge Christmas charity event that happens each year where I work. They poll area schools for 100 children to come out, ‘meet Santa’, attend a party, and…the best part…get presents.  This event is huge. I mean HUGE. They plan for it all year, host several fundraisers, and it always makes the local newspapers.  They allow the teachers to select the students and then they take it from there to make sure each child is taken care of.  I’ve seen it two years now and each time it makes me cry.

As the Christmas party gets closer, they have a silent auction to have one last fundraiser before the party. Each year I’ve wanted to donate something, but having time to prepare was always my problem (time is almost ALWAYS my problem). This year, though…this year I planned ahead and made a lap quilt to go in the auction.

I know it’s a simple design, but I’m a sucker for a good ol’ square patterned quilt.  I love the simplicity of them, the allowed randomness, and, I don’t know, I just like ‘em.  I made this one in red, white, and blue fabrics (that I bought in a yard sale!). While I did follow a diagonal blue and red pattern, I didn’t follow a pattern in how to arrange the various patterns of fabric. I used 9 different patterns and didn’t worry if one of the squares was touching the same pattern…I just went with it.

I did run into a little issue about which I’d like to give a ‘quilting tip’. I wasn’t paying close attention to how wide my quilt top was in relation to my back fabric. The top was about 2-3 inches wider than the back.  I really didn’t want to remove a row of squares and make it narrower  (the quilt measures 43″ wide and 56″ long).  So I started thinking…I made my bias tape for the edges and instead of making the top side equal to the bottom side, I simply made the bottom about twice the width as the top. You can see in the pictures what I mean.

Because I was using fabric from a ‘grab bag’ found in a yard sale, I was on a bit of a ‘budget’ for the backing fabric.  I didn’t have a large enough fabric piece to use for the entire back, so I ended up using four different fabrics (all were also used in the quilt top) to complete the back.  I was a bit afraid of how it would turn out, but now I love it. It’s truly a scrap quilt!

 (Pardon the junk on the shelves. The craft room is a work in progress.

Do you have any crafts or ideas that you frequently use for donation items?

Tags: Kelley, Sewing

Clutter-oholics-Anonymous Week 3-Kelley

Last week my husband suggested that we tackle the office/craft room/let’s-just-put-it-in-there room.  We actually made a good bit of progress, but I was sick with strep throat and the baby was sick with a string of the Measles AND an ear infection…so it didn’t get finished. But, because I promised myself that I was going to do this thing (and do it right) I made it a point to complete something on my list.

It’s that thing that everyone has, everyone hates, everyone cringes at when they realize it’s time to do something about it.

The kitchen ‘junk drawer’. (Doom doom DOOM!!!)

Granted, it’s probably one of the smallest projects on my list, but it still took me over an hour to really clean it out, organize its contents, and put away the junk that didn’t belong in the drawer.  Here’s my ‘before’:

Pretty junky, yes?

Sadly, there were no craft projects associated with this clean-up. There were, however, various piles of items that were to go to various rooms of the house: the office, the craft room, my bathroom, the garage, and even my MOM’S house.

What is it about organizing your junk drawer that makes you feel refreshed?

Hopefully next week won’t bring more sickies our way and I’ll be able to tackle a real project.  For now, I think I’ll go hunt for a rubber band…because I finally know where they are!

Tags: Kelley, Organization

Clutter-oholics Anonymous – Week 1 (Kelley)

My Clutter-oholics Anonymous ‘Challenge’ is off to a great start. Since posting my list I have been so excited about organizing and cleaning out that I actually had a bit of a hard time deciding what to start on first.  Until…

That’s the big boy (he’s ONE!) telling me in his own special way that the bottom of the pantry needs to be cleaned out. One of his favorite toys right now is the yard stick. He’s in love with swinging it around, dragging it around the kitchen, and ‘fencing’ with the dog (poor Sebastian).  We stayed home from work to celebrate his birthday and after seeing him drag stuff out of the pantry, I decided that this would be my first Clutter-oholics-Anonymous task.  (If you notice, this was also the first item on the list. The kid’s a genius!)

So…first I pulled everything out, vacuumed, and took some wet rags and wiped down the whole floor.  Once everything was pulled out, I realized what a hazard that pantry had become.  I found old plastic bottles (the two-ounce size that formula comes in…meant to recycle them, but we don’t have a No. 5 recycling center anywhere), wood chips for the smoker (mmmm….yummm…..), a bag of failed Christmas ornaments, and various bowls and food items.  The plastic bottles went in the garbage along with the Christmas ornaments. I’d been trying to come up with a craft idea for the bottles, but after months of brainstorming (and my son throwing them all over the kitchen) I gave up and tossed them.  The Christmas ornaments?  These were a failed attempt to make handmade ornaments for a craft group I used to attend. This was also the same time I gave up on Martha Stewart craft projects.  Martha, honey, your projects are beautiful.  But…we need to work on your instructions. After trying to make these stupid things THREE TIMES in a row, I cried like a baby and gave up.  When I found them in the pantry (a whole year later), I had a body shiver and threw them in the garbage.

We buy a lot of our ‘staples’ in bulk.  What doesn’t fit on the shelves, I keep on the floor.  Extra batteries are now in an old formula cannister (it’ll get cute paper covering later), and wood chips are in their own cannister, too.  I hung the grilling utensils on the walls inside the pantry as well as three of the five yard sticks. I didn’t want to cut out too much of the baby’s fun found in the pantry.

I also made  a new grocery bag holder. It’s not as big as the previous one, but it’s new and fresh.  So…the bottom of the pantry is done. Whew…

Next is the utility room/wash room.  This one’s going to be a lot more involved…and will probably involve me using a cordless drill. I can’t wait.

Stop by Organizing Junkie for the roundup!

Tags: Kelley, Organization

Clutter-oholics New Member

After seeing Jen’s post a few weeks ago, I became inspired.

And then I got scared.

And then I backed off.

And then I consulted with my husband.

And he was pretty darn excited about it.  Yay!

We started making our list of the 52 things and areas we wanted either organized or de-cluttered (or just cleaned up).  We have a baby (he’s almost one!) and we both work full time so it’s often very difficult to balance work, house chores, play time, relax time, sleep (what’s that?) and still have time to work on things around the house.  But…if we attack one item a week, I think we should be able to do it.  Granted, some of our items are bigger projects than others, but we’ll have to ‘borrow time’ from the easy weeks.  We’re still pretty excited…me more than him, but that’s okay.

So here’s my list:

1. Bottom of the pantry Week 1
2. Laundry Room shelf Week 2
3. Kitchen Junk Drawer Week 3
4. My dresser drawers What Week Is This?
5. Bathroom cabinets Week 4
6. Office Closet
7. Kitchen Cabinets
8. Master Bedroom Closet Week 8
9. Safe (Hub’s area)
10. Scrap-booking Supply Container
11. Sewing Project Container
12. Files (inside and outside) Week 9
13. Tool Box
14. Tool Shelves
15. Dining Room Week 6
16. Bathroom Drawer & Medicine Cabinet
17. Books
18. Dog’s Kennel & Basket What Week Is This?
19. Lane’s Closet (the ALMOST one-year old)
20. End Tables
21. Nightstands
22. Back Porch Week 7
23. Shelves in Garage
24. Tool Bench in Garage
25. Recycling Bins/Cans Week 5
26. Front Linen Closet What Week Is This?
27. Gift Wrapping Containers What Week Is This?
28. Front Hall Closet What Week Is This?
29. Ryan’s Mustang
30. Backyard
31. Jewelry Boxes
32. Middle of Garage (Yes, we give it its own name)
33. Sermon Notes
34. Recipes
35. China Cabinet
36. Halloween, Easter, and Thanksgiving Decorations
37. My Car
38. Craft Idea Book What Week Is This?
39. ‘Junk’ Tub in Garage
40. Christmas Decorations
41. Textbooks
42. Ribbon Supply
43. Ledge in Foyer
44. Cross Stitch Supply Container
45. Out of Season Clothes
46. Blankets
47. Fabric Stash (This will be a doozy)
48. Beading Supply Container
49. Photos and Framed Pictures
50. Medicine Cabinet in Kitchen Week 10
51. Office Supplies
52. CD & Movie Collection

Technically you could argue that I’ve already started…we’ll just call it a jump start.  Two weeks ago the hubs went to visit his grandpa out of town. With him gone, I decided to reorganize my craft room a bit. It wasn’t a huge overhaul, but it’s a huge improvement as far as I’m concerned. I’m definitely not done with it, but I think it’s a great start.

Before

And after

I bought a simple set of metal shelves from Target. My biggest fear was that they wouldn’t be sturdy enough to withstand the baby pulling up on them.  If you have similar worries, don’t.  While searching for something, I turned around and he was pulling and yanking on them and they weren’t even moving. I got them loaded up and they’re still just as sturdy. Score.

I then ventured to the garage for empty formula canisters. I’ve been saving these like crazy because I just knew there had to be something I could use them for.  I printed out ‘labels’ in various cute fonts onto scrapbook paper and used double sided tape to cover the cans.

Personally, I’m of the ‘do what works for you’ mentality.  This system may not work for everyone, but it’s going quite well for me.  I have a serger, an embroidery machine, and two sewing machines (one small, one industrial).  The machine I use most is the industrial machine, but it only sews forward and backward. For this reason, I typically only use my smaller machine for decorative stitches. These shelves hold all three machines beautifully. Like I said, I’m really lovin’ it so far.

Not sure yet what I’m going to officially tackle first, but here’s a sneak peak at some of the ‘larger’ projects on the list…don’t judge.

Tags: Kelley, Organizing