Somehow we accumulate a lot of corks. I’m not sure how…
I hang on to them, knowing that someday I will use them in some sort of project. I used a bunch when I made our bulletin board for the command center. And I found another use for them this week!
I’ve had the same jewelry box for about nine years. It’s cluttered and no longer working well. Updating the master bedroom has motivated me to update this storage solution to something less cluttered and fresh.
I started with two 8x10 photo frames with a silver finish. I found these at the Dollar store for just $1 each. I also picked up a couple yards of unbleached muslin at JoAnn’s for $1.19 a yard.
I cut out two squares of the muslin and wrapped it around the backing of the frames, securing it with a hot glue gun.
I folded the corners kind of like a Christmas present to keep them flat.
Once the fabric was in place, I wanted to add some corks to actually hang my jewelry from. I decided to cut most of them in half so they wouldn’t stick out too far from the frame.
Cutting corks with a knife proved more difficult than I anticipated. It was difficult to get a straight edge on the cut side. And, if you know anything about my history with knives, this project quickly became more dangerous than I’d like. Scissors worked much better.
I cut 9 corks in half and then secured them to the top of each frame with the hot glue gun. A few wine-stained corks provided a nice purple hue and added some color to the project.
Finally I added two larger champagne corks in the bottom corners to hold bracelets and round necklaces.
I found 5/8 inch cup hooks at Lowes and they screwed into the corks very easily. I added the hooks as I added the necklaces because I wasn’t sure I wanted or needed a hook in every cork. I ended up with 7 hooks in each frame. The tiny hooks are strong enough to hold two light necklaces or one heavier one.
I hung the frames over the dresser and the jewelry became wall décor itself, but that wasn’t quite enough. The wall felt too empty. I wanted to add a mirror to the room to bounce some light around but I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of buying a new mirror especially since the cheapest one I could find was $40 and it was rather plain.
I had a large 22x28 frame sitting in the basement unused, so I went to Lowes and purchased a new sheet of mirror glass. They cut it down to the size I needed for free. Then I just removed the glass on the frame and replaced it with the mirror. The dark wood finish of the frame didn’t really blend well with the rest of the bedroom, so I wrapped the frame in the muslin fabric as well, securing it in the back with the glue gun.
I simplified the dresser décor quite a bit, leaving only a stack of books, our sand ceremony box from our wedding, and some dried flowers I’ve received from the mister over the years. A couple dishes from HomeGoods hold earrings, rings, and pins.
Here is the dresser before:
And here is the after:
These new organizers make choosing accessories in the morning much easier because I can see all of my options at once. And with a limited number of hooks, I’m forced to keep my jewelry collection to a moderate size!
How do you organize your shiny accessories?
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My Mister has one million t-shirts.
Not really. But it feels like one million.
He wears five of them.
What do we do with the other 999,995? Store them in his closet of course!
Over the past year, I’ve been cleaning out my closet bit by bit each quarter to drastically reduce the amount of clothing I own. You can read about that here, here, and here. Each time I clean out my closet, I take a few minutes to re-organize his closet. Re-organize means take out one million t-shirts. Fold one million t-shirts. Sort one million t-shirts by color. Return one million t-shirts to his closet.
The last couple times I’ve gone through this process, I’ve tried to pull out a handful that he doesn’t wear and that don’t have sentimental value and, with his consent, have donated them to someone else’s one million t-shirt collection. But a handful at a time still leaves us with a lot of t-shirts.
A good portion of his t-shirt collection is made up of what I would call sentimental shirts. Shirts he got for running a race. Shirts he got from his high school sports teams. Shirts he got for all the different places he’s worked. Shirts he’s got on vacation. Shirts he’s got from concerts. It’s hard to get rid of these because they have some sentimental value; some meaningful memory attached to them.
So what is one to do with all that sentiment? A t-shirt quilt!
This week we are celebrating our two year wedding anniversary (Yay!). Now, I’m not an extremely traditional girl, but I think it’s fun to follow the list of traditional wedding gifts because it offers a challenge to come up with something meaningful in a specific category. When I found out year two was cotton, I was stumped. Sure, I could get him some nice lounging pants or a new dress shirt, but that’s not very romantic.
Then the light bulb went off. T-shirts!
What better way to celebrate the love I have for my mister than celebrating who he is and all that he has accomplished? So I secretly dug out a pile of his t-shirts that fell into that sentimental category and planned to put them together into a t-shirt quilt for him as his anniversary gift.
I looked online for patterns, tutorials, ideas, etc and I actually found a lady who will make the quilt for you… but I couldn’t bring myself to spend that much money and I thought it would mean more if the quilt was hand made by yours truly. Now, I’m not a professional sewer by any means. My skill set falls in the very beginner level. But with the help of some great patterns and tutorials online I was able to follow the process and put a quilt together pretty easily!
A little cutting...
A little sewing...
And ta-da!
He was very excited (even though it wasn’t completely finished on our actual anniversary). He said I should have made it bigger! Now that I have one quilt under my belt, I just might venture into making a larger one. Maybe a concert t-shirt quilt or a vacation destination quilt.
If you’re interested in making your own (or having one made for you), here are the links I found most helpful:
Seams To Be You and Me - a great tutorial available online or in PDF
Instructables - a tutorial without the sashes in between blocks
Maiden Jane - a PDF pattern you can purchase or the option to send in your shirts and have a quilt made for you
Do you have any creative ideas to contain a growing pile of t-shirts?
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After my four-hour vacuum session to clean out our truck following our last camping trip, I desperately searched for an idea to guard the back seat from the piles of dog hair that had accumulated. I decided on a hammock style blanket. While there are some cute patterns on-line, I opted to wing it.
Before cruising over to JoAnn Fabrics for supplies, I swung into our local Salvation Army to see what was hanging out there. The local thrift stores are my bank account’s best friend…and worst enemy all at the same time.
I needed something that would get me a 60 x 90 inch rectangle in the end. Like a miracle, a 60 x 80 piece of fleece (with cute little paw prints all over it) appeared before my eyes. I also found a Twin size navy blue sheet that was large enough to make up the 10 inches the fleece was lacking and provide a back for my hammock.
I washed and dried both pieces before working with them. I started by lining up the fleece in the middle of the sheet length-wise with right sides together and then sewed along one side.
I pressed a five inch border into the top of the sheet and the bottom of the sheet to make up the 10 inch difference and then sewed along those sides. I had some extra sheet material along the remaining long edge, but I can’t cut a straight line to save my life so I folded the sheet over on itself to create a binding of sorts and sewed up the long side kind of haphazardly.
To attach the blanket in the back seat, I decided to use some nylon cording that I picked up at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon.
A lot of the patterns I found on-line used buckles with the cording, but to save myself some expense and possible frustration, I figured I could just tie the nylon straps around each of our four headrests.
I cut the nylon to length and carefully melted the edges with a lighter so they wouldn’t fray. There may be a more civilized way to do that, but I'm certain it's not as fun!
I took the blanket out to the truck and marked where each strap needed to go. Then I attached each strap by sewing them onto the hammock with an x pattern to reinforce them.
The blanket lies flat on the bottom of the floor in the back seat and ties easily onto the head rests.
Since piecing together this contraption, we have had a chance to test it out and it worked really well.
It’s machine washable, so I just tossed it in the wash when we got home and spent only about half an hour vacuuming up the random dog hair that blew around the vehicle while we were traveling.
Here is a picture of the truck floor without the blanket...
And here is the floor after using the blanket...
Here is the seat without the blanket...
Here is the seat after using the blanket...
Thanks to a tip from my brother, who was once a car detailer, I sprayed all of the fabric surfaces in the truck with static guard and let it sit for about 15 minutes before vacuuming. The dog hair released from the carpet and seats so much easier!
Let’s face it though, the real test of whether this hammock works is whether Mando liked it or not.
I’d say he found it rather comfy.
I actually considered sleeping back there on our way home and giving the dog the front seat…
All in all, I spent less than $10 and saved myself 3 hours of vacuuming after each trip with our furry kid. That makes me us smile.
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Craigslist makes me nervous, but good deals make me giddy so when I successfully acquire a good deal on Craigslist, it makes me ecstatic. Finding a great deal on two outdoor rocking chairs made my summer. I know, I know. It’s the little things.
It’s hard to sit in a chair that doesn’t have a seat, but for $10, I couldn’t pass up these beauties. (Thanks to my Mister for demonstrating.)
I figured I could just waltz into Lowe’s or Home Depot and find some precut vinyl straps that would magically clip in to my chairs and, just like that, I’d have two amazing rocking patio chairs.
I figured wrong.
It’s nearly impossible to find vinyl chair strapping in this neck of the woods. It’s also impossible to find someone who will re-strap chairs for a fee lower than the cost of a semester at our local community college. So I looked up my best friend Google to see what my options were.
I found a great website called ChairCarePatio.com. Not only do they sell supplies to repair vinyl strap patio chairs, but they also have a very detailed how-to section and an entire video section in which you can view someone doing the repairs.
With such a wealth of information, it was pretty easy for me to determine what tools I needed to fix my chairs. None of the straps on the chairs were actually missing, but there were about five that had pulled out on at least one side. Originally, I planned to replace these straps but after doing some digging around on the site, I decided to try to just reattach them.
When you buy new vinyl straps, you have to heat them in hot water to get them to stretch across the chair and then, as they cool, they shrink and tighten. By simply reattaching the existing straps, I took a risk that my straps would be too loose and not support whoever was sitting in the chairs. But I figured if this was the case, I could always order new straps later and just replace them. So I ordered a bunch of the plastic rivets and went to work.
Following the directions on the website, I was able to reattach all my straps in about an hour. Once they were all fastened, I gave the chairs a good washing. I contemplated painting them black or white to blend in with the trim on the house but I couldn’t make up my mind fast enough so I just moved them up to our front porch.
Can we talk about our front porch for a minute?
My dream home consists of a wrap-around porch with rocking chairs, a swing, a comfy reading nook, and container plants bursting with color. It also comes with a maid, a landscaper, a sauna, a wine cellar, and a dressing room/walk-in closet…but I find it best to focus on what I have instead of what I want so back to our current porch and those repaired rocking chairs.
Up until these chairs came into my life, our porch décor consisted of two stained camp chairs and a worn out welcome mat. The epitome of welcoming, I know.
I wanted to add some color and warmth and happiness and figured the best place to start would be cushions for the chairs. Now, hold on to your hats for this one folks. Never have I ever been to HomeGoods. (Gasp). I’ve read about this mystical fascinating place. Deals. Rows upon rows of frames, mirrors, lamps, curtains, and décor. Angels singing. Well, two out of three anyway. And a store finally opened up within driving distance from us about a year ago. Can you believe it’s taken me an entire year to find an excuse to get to this paradise?
After the shock and awe wore off, I managed to pick up two beautiful cushions. I love the pattern and the color and they are super comfy.
I found the pillows at Kohl’s on a 60%-off-outdoor-stuff day and I had a 30% off coupon. Both pillows for $10. I walked out of the store looking over my shoulder because I felt like I was stealing them…
Once the chairs were decked out in their new cozy duds, I added my DIY stenciled rugs and a cute and colorful table I picked up at a local thrift store.
I also replaced our worn out welcome mat with one I found at Hobby Lobby. The space was rounded out with a couple hanging baskets and some pretty mums.
As I come up the drive way, I’m greeted by cheery colors and blooming flowers. It’s like my porch is saying, “Hello, summer. Welcome home.”
I love it but it’s not quite “us” yet. Maybe I’ll add some cute house numbers or some painted planters or a wreath or a succulent garden. Or maybe I’ll just sit in the rocking chair and sip a glass of wine.
Either way, this updated porch area provides a nice spot for the Mister and I to have dinner or coffee (or wine). About two-thirds of our property lies in the front of the house, so now we have a cozy area to hang out and enjoy the beautiful view, including some amazing sunsets.
If you’re looking to bring some color to an outdoor space, I highly recommend starting with a blank slate and picking a general color scheme. This will make the process a bit less overwhelming. Then take it slow. Add piece by piece until you have the space you are dreaming of. Before you know it, your porch will be welcoming you home too.
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