Preserve Your Memories: Create a T-shirt Quilt

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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Make A List & Check It Twice

Don’t freak out on me. This is not a Christmas post. It’s too early for that. 

Isn’t it?

I got an e-mail from Wells Fargo the other day with the subject line, “Have you taken an inventory of your home lately?” I thought to myself, “Of course not…” and hovered over the delete key. But then curiosity took over, and I decided to read the e-mail.

In summary, Wells Fargo wants to make sure that I’m not underinsured because two out of every three American homes are. They also wanted to let me know that having a list of items located in my home would make it easier to file a claim if I ever needed to. 

It makes sense that having a list of your personal property would be helpful should something ever happen to your home. But who has time to do that?
I closed the e-mail and let it sit in my inbox for a few days. Every time I looked at it, I imagined something terrible happening. What if our house burns down? What if we get robbed? What if a tornado decides to whirl through our neighborhood? The idea that I’d have to recall the items in the home for an insurance claim while suffering through an insane amount of stress from the tragic event made me nervous; nervous enough to re-consider creating an inventory.

Attached to the e-mail was a tool called the Inventory Your Home tool. You can find it here. It’s quite handy. It divides your home up into main rooms and gives you room to list out each item, its manufacturer, and estimated value. Each room also has a list of example items so you know what stuff to write down. 

Looking around our house, I thought to myself, sure I can do this in a couple hours. No problem. 

After about one hour of inventory taking, it was a huge problem. I found my mind wandering, my pen taking shortcuts, and noticed I was skipping over items I probably shouldn’t skip over.

So, word of warning: This is a tedious process. It’s kind of like scrubbing your floors with a toothbrush. I recommend doing it in small increments over time. I’m aiming for 20 to 30 minutes a couple times each week until it’s complete.

Once you have the inventory written/typed out, you can take pictures of valuable items and store them with the inventory some place safe. For us, it will be kept in our fire proof safe. I may even create a digital version and save the inventory and the photos on a USB drive in the safe. One step at a time though.

As I moved through the inventory, I found it best to start at one corner of the room and work my way around clockwise. Don’t forget to open your cupboards and drawers! I almost passed over our DVD collection because it’s hidden in a drawer. That would be a costly mistake!

I filled in the information that I knew and left the rest blank. After finishing one room, I went back and researched the blank spots as best I could. For example, I pulled out the paperwork that came with our entertainment center to see who manufactured it and I dug up the receipt for our couch to see how much we paid for it. If you don’t have these things handy, you can probably find comparable items on Amazon or other websites.

I’m not quite finished with the inventory, but when I am, I plan to contact our insurance agent to make sure we are properly insured. I’d hate to have to replace our oven with just a toaster because we don’t have enough insurance coverage…

I have a little bit more peace of mind about our home and its contents being protected should something terrible happen. I suppose an hour or so a week for a few weeks is worth it. Oh, and as a disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. Wells Fargo has no idea that I’m sharing their tool with you today or who I am for that matter…

So are you prepared for a home emergency? How do you keep valuable information safe inside your home?

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Cleaning the Oven... And the Stove... And the Vent Fan...

Bacon. The Foundation of life.

At least that's what my Mister would argue.

That being said, I cook a lot of bacon which creates a lot of grease which clogs up our vent fan filter. That filter hasn't been cleaned since we moved into our house almost three years ago.

Go ahead. Say it with me. Ewwwww.....

In addition, my attempt to make what turned out to be ahhh-mazing cinnamon bread last week, left my oven an amazing disaster.

And to top it all off, our stove top gets abused on a weekly basis. Boil overs from the Mister's beer brewing, cat foot prints (grrr), food splatters, spills, bacon grease - it just destroys that poor cook top. 

I wanted to share with you my attempt at resolving all three of these dirty issues and the three magical formulas that allowed me to do just that without fumes, gagging, or an excessive amount of energy.

First, let's start with the oven. I shared a DIY oven cleaner here and that's exactly what I used this time around. I doubled the recipe to make enough paste to really cover the entire oven well. I removed the racks and slathered the paste on every square inch of that oven. I let it sit for about 20 minutes.

In the meantime, I put the racks in our bathtub and filled the tub with super hot water and about a half cup of powdered dishwasher detergent. 

I let these soak for about two hours and the gunk literally floated right off. I had to clean the tub afterwards...but hey, beggars can't be choosy right?

While the oven paste was working, I started boiling a large pot of water on the stove. Once the water was boiling, I added 1/4 cup of baking soda to the pot. Word of warning, add the baking soda s-l-o-w-l-y. I put the vent fan filter in the pot and let the water boil off all that grease and grime that had accumulated over the years. 

Since the filter wouldn't fit all the way into the pan, I flipped it over after about 15 minutes to get the other side.

Check out the icky gunk stuck in the pan afterwards!

Once the filter was clean, I rinsed it under cold water and let it dry before re-installing it.

By this time, the oven paste had sat for long enough, so I went back into the oven and wiped it all down. All that burnt cinnamon and sugar came right off. Truly a miracle. I sprayed down the walls of the oven with some vinegar to get the white film of baking soda off and it was nice and shiny again.

Lastly, I addressed the cook top. 

I sprinkled some baking soda all over the top of the stove. Then soaked a clean rag in some hot soapy water and laid it out on the stove where the worst stains were. I let it sit for about 15 minutes and then scrubbed the entire cook top with the rag and baking soda. Turned out beautiful!

Our stove/oven gets a lot of use so I know it's important to keep it clean so it will last us awhile. It's just not the most fun job in the world... But these three easy cleaning solutions made these chores much easier. I hope they help you too!

In summary:

Oven Cleaner: 5 Tbsp. Baking Soda, 4 Tbsp. Vinegar, 3 Drops Dish Soap. Spread paste. Let sit. Scrub. Rinse.

Oven Racks: Soak in hot, hot water in the bathtub with 1/2 cup powdered Dishwasher Detergent. Let sit for 2 hours (or overnight). Scrub. Rinse. Clean bathtub.

Stove Fan Filter: Slowly add 1/4 cup baking soda to a pot of boiling water. Insert filter. Let boil 15 minutes. Be grossed out. Flip filter around. Be grossed out some more. Rinse filter. Let dry.

Cook Top: Sprinkle baking soda all over cook top. Get clean rag wet with hot soapy water. Lay rag over baking soda. Let sit 15 minutes. Scrub cook top. Rinse. Let dry.

For daily cleaning, organizing, and DIY tips be sure to "like" Open Concept Organizing on Facebook!

What's your least favorite cleaning chore? Do you have any miracle cleaning solutions that save you time and money?



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How I Cleaned My Microfiber Couch (and lived to tell about it)

I had a variety of titles to choose from for this post:

• The Number One Reason To Keep Your Pets Off the Furniture
• My Most Embarrassing Post Yet
• Hey, Want To See Something Disgusting?
• My Pile of Microfiber...Ugh

This list goes on. 

My advice of the day: No matter how cute your 10 pound puppy might be, resist the urge to let him on the couch. One day he will be a 79 pound puppy who drools, chews on bones, and leaves hair everywhere.

Enter our couch. This couch is about 6 years old. It's been through a lot. Typically, I spot clean the pillows and cushions with rubbing alcohol or my homemade carpet cleaner and that works rather well when I keep on it. 

Lately, I've failed to keep on it.

The dirty, hot, panting dog has disrespected this piece of furniture a tad too much. Tons of water spots covered the cushions, either from dog drool, literal water spills, or my impatient spot cleaning. In addition to the stains, the material had gotten a little stretched out and saggy in places too.

Ugh. I knew the couch was beyond the point of spot cleaning. It needed something more intense. I researched all over the internet how to clean a microfiber couch. Some people successfully washed their cushions, others adamantly moved for professional cleaning only. Some people attempted to remove the covers and couldn't get them back on. I wasn't sure what to believe. 

I decided to try and wash the covers myself. There comes a point where something becomes dirty enough that I'm willing to risk ruining it to get it clean. 

And when I started pulling covers off the pillows and cushions, I was even more disgusted by the yellow and brown stains on the reverse sides. I was more than ready to risk putting them in the washing machine.

I started with just two pillow covers, figuring it'd be easier to replace those if they did fall apart in the wash or get ruined. To my joyful surprise, they turned out good as new!

I washed each pillow cover and cushion cover in cold water with one tablespoon of my homemade laundry detergent (half the amount I'd use for a regular load). I washed them on the delicate cycle. Then I put them in the dryer on air dry for one hour and finished them up on low heat for 15 minutes. The covers were just barely damp when I put them back on the cushions.

Returning the pillows and cushions to their respective covers proved much easier than I anticipated. 

While the covers were washing, I took the opportunity to clean up the rest of the couch. It needed it.

I didn't find any spare change, but I found more than enough spare crumbs. No more eating on the couch, my dear Mister....

I sprayed the piles of dog hair with static guard and, after letting it sit for about 15 minutes, I was able to vacuum up most of the hair and crumbs without a problem. I wiped down the leather with my DIY furniture polish and took the opportunity to vacuum really well underneath the couch too. 

I couldn't believe the difference when it was all put back together. 

No more water spots. No more smells. 

No more wrinkles. 

It smelled and looked like new....for about fifteen minutes.

Have you dared to wash your microfiber? Did it turn out great? Is there something else you risked ruining just to get it clean?

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