DIY Ribbon Holder Tutorial

I have a lot of trims and I mean a lot! As a designer I like to see everything I have to work with when I am creating new garments and projects.  I usually start out with fabric selection, but it's the trims and ribbons that really bring a garment together.  I wanted to create some easy, inexpensive ribbon holders so that I can have all my trims displayed out in my studio when I'm working.  Also, I love looking at all these pretties, they make me so excited to get creative!

You can create these holders for your sewing trim or even use them for your gift wrapping ribbons.  All of these supplies (aside from the craft paint) were found at our local hardware store.  They only cost a few dollars each, so you can make as many as your heart desires!  My hubby helped me by drilling the holes, so you may need to enlist the help of a drilling aficionado.

Want to make your own?  Ok, let's get started.......

Supplies:

1 piece square corner trim

1 dowel rod cut 13" long

1 wooden knob

Craft paint

Paint Brush

Drill

Wood glue (optional)

Directions:

Drill a hole in the center of your square trim that is the same size as your dowel rod.  If you can make it the slightest bit smaller then you can avoid having to glue it in place.  But if it seems loose at all add some wood glue and allow it to dry.  What size dowel rod should you use?  Well, that's kind of up to you depending on what trims you are trying to store.

I found these wooden knobs and had my husband drill a hole in the bottom of them.  Make sure you don't go through the entire knob, just about 3/4 of the way through.

Make sure your knob fits well on top and that your dowel rod is secured in place.

Grab your craft paint and paint each of the holders.  I'm really into this Martha Stewart Craft Paint lately, so I choice a pretty blue in a high gloss finish, but any craft paint will work just fine.

Allow all of your pieces to dry.  I like to tear open these paper bags from Trader Joe's and place them under my craft projects since they are nice and thick and will protect my cutting mat from the paint. 

Slide your ribbons onto the dowel rod, place your knob on top and now you've got beautiful ribbon storage!

This project is so quick, easy and inexpensive and I'm in love with my three ribbon holders!  It feels so great to be organized.  I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and I'd love to know if you make any of these easy organizers.  

Have a great day!

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Fabric Organization: Comic Book Boards and File Folders

A frequent question that comes to me via email is regarding my Fabric Organizers.  I have written about them several times on the blog and I absolutely love them.  They are not cheap and it's hard to stomach the investment sometimes when really all it is, is a piece of plastic board that you are wrapping your fabric around.  I totally get that.  So how about a few other options?

I wanted to share an idea with you that someone shared with me about two years ago in a fabric group that I belonged to (yes, there are groups for fabric obsessed people like myself).  If you are looking for a more inexpensive, economical way to organize your fabric, try ordering a set of Archival Comic Book Boards.  Now I don't organize my fabric this way because I'm hooked on my other organizers, but here's what they look like:

They come in many different sizes and generally come in packs of 100 for less than $20.  Now they aren't going to be as sturdy as some of the fabric organizers that are made of plastic, but they will do the trick getting your fabric looking neat and tidy.  And if you have a lot of smaller cuts of lots of different prints, these comic book boards will save you a lot of money.  Personally, I wouldn't recommend them for keeping large cuts (5 yards +) organized as they can look a little sloppy with huge amounts of fabric.  But for 4 yards or less, these will be great! 

You may have already heard about this before as I know a lot of people store their fabric this way, but just in case you hadn't, I thought I would pass along the information to you.  I found a whole bunch over on Amazon if you want to check them out.

Here are some other folks that have used these comic book boards to organize their gorgeous fabric:

 Jibberish Designs

 by J. Irelle Beatie

That Girl.......That Quilt

by Jennifer Jenkinson

(she has a tutorial on using the boards as well....found here)

Another great idea I found while browsing around the blogging world, was using file folders to file away your fabric.  Pretty neat, right?

Karen from Sew Many Ways

(here is her tutorial for using this technique)

Here is another fun 'filing' technique which is kind of a combination of comic book boards and a file box.  I think this looks great and would be perfect if you don't have shelves or are storing fabric under a bed.  I couldn't seem to locate the source for this picture, but it is a beautiful box of fabric.

If you are looking for a plastic organizer, I have recently been informed that there is another option on the market in addition to the ones that I use from Polar Notions:

 Polar Notions Organizers

(Check out more information HERE)

There is nothing better than having a nice, beautiful organized stash of fabric.  I hope these pictures give you some ideas for alternative ways to organize all your pretties.  Just looking at a pretty fabric stash makes me happy (this coming from an admitted serious fabric addict).

Happy Fabric Organizing!

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DIY Craft: No-Sew Fabric Covered Box Tutorial

This past weekend I was out and about running errands on my own.  And I'm sure most of you mom's know.......I sort of felt like I was on a mini-vacation. Anyway, I stopped off at one of my favorite local thrift stores and, come to find out, the entire store was 50% off.  50% off at a thrift store?  Yes, I couldn't believe it either.  I picked up a bunch of things that I just couldn't go home without and this little metal box for 50 cents was one of them.

Here is what the box looked like when I brought it home:

Not very exciting, but it was just begging to be given new life.  So I decided to get out my craft supplies and turn it into something a little more eye-catching.  This is an easy, inexpensive craft project that can be done with mostly items you have around the house.  Granted, if you don't craft a lot you may have to buy some essentials (like spray adhesive), but you'll be able to use this things for projects in the future.

Fabric Covered Box Tutorial

by Lindsay Wilkes from The Cottage Mama

Supplies:

Box ~ any size (mine was able to fit large notecards inside)

Spray Paint

Spray Adhesive

Glue Gun

Fabric (a fat quarter should be more than enough)

Trim

Scissors

Instructions:

I grabbed a can of spray paint that I happened to have around for this project.  You want to make sure you spray the inside of the box really well since that will not be covered.  Let the inside dry and then flip the box over and spray the bottom.  The rest of the box will be covered by fabric and trim so no need to worry about it's appearance.

Cut the piece of fabric for the top of the box about 1/2" larger than the box top.  Then cut small slits on the diagonal in each of the corners which will enable you to wrap the fabric around the box (like you are wrapping a gift) after you use your spray adhesive.  You are just wrapping the fabric down over about a 1/2" over the edge so that you don't see any raw edges.  The raw edge will eventually be concealed by your ribbon trim.

Measure and cut out the strip of fabric to go around the box.  You want the fabric to go all the way around the box and overlap by about an inch.  Cut the fabric wider than necessary so you can press under the top and bottom with your iron.  Press the fabric so that it is just the right size to fit your box.  Also press under the one side that will overlap in the back of the box so it looks neat and tidy.

The next part is easy.  Take your box and fabric outside and spray liberally with spray adhesive.  Place fabric on the box and smooth out any bumps.  For the top, press the over-hang pieces down a tiny bit over the sides, but remember this will be covered by trim so it doesn't have to be perfect. Spray adhesive around the main part of the box and wrap your fabric strip around the box, overlapping the strip in the back.  

Next, get out your glue gun and glue any trims that you have onto your box.  You can use anything you would like to embellish this box.  I simply used trims that were already in my stash to make this an even more budget friendly project.  I used one piece of ribbon around the top and then I layered some rickrack and ribbon around the bottom.  This is your chance to get creative!

You can use this box for just about anything.  I think it would be fun to make some of these for different holidays too.  How about one for Christmas?  It could also be an adorable recipe card box, a place to store crafting or sewing supplies, or even a pretty container for flowers........

I simply placed two of my really small ball jars (minus the lids) inside the box and filled them with water to hold the flowers.  These flowers were already growing in our yard and I love being able to use things that we already have.  

So that's it!  A super-simple craft project taking an ordinary thrift-store metal box and making it into something beautiful, special and one-of-a-kind!

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Operation Organization: Velcro Toy Storage Labels

This year is going to be about some serious organization here at The Cottage Home.  With having three children under the age of 4, I sometimes feel like certain spaces in my home are spiraling out of control.  Well, no more!  I'm taking action and going to try my best to gain some control over the clutter that seems to come with having small children.

Now, I know there will be messes and chaos from time to time, but I'm going to try to implement some systems for our family to make life a little more orderly.  And hopefully help me keep my sanity.  I don't know about you, but when things in my home and life are in order I can accomplish SO much more.

"A Place for Everything and Everything in it's Place"

One of my friends over on The Cottage Mama Facebook page chimed in with this quote recently when I was asking about tips for kids toy organization and I just love it.  To some this might sound somewhat sickening, but I like it and plan to keep in in the forefront of my mind this year.

My girls toys have been out of control lately.  There are so many pieces to so many different toys and they just kept getting all jumbled up.  I spent four hours one day just reorganizing the kids toys, only to have them turned into a jumbled mess two days later.  I thought, "oh my gosh, what a waste of time!"  But then I realized that I can't expect my kids to know where things go without me showing them.  This was definitely a 'duh' moment.  I am a big fan of my label maker, but it doesn't do much good for those that can't read my labels.

This lead me to try a new tactic for our toy organization ~ Velcro Toy Picture Storage Labels.  Why didn't I think of this sooner?  IKEA was having a great sale on these bookcases, only $9.99 each!  So I bought several.  One for the play room and three others for the 'Cottage Mama' storage loft conversion that is taking place in our house as well (more on that at a later time).  Then my in-laws gave me a gift certificate to The Container Store for Christmas, so I bought a bunch of clear storage containers to get this project underway.

Want to make your own Toy Storage Labels?  Here's the 'how to'........

Operation Organization: Velcro Toy Storage Labels

Supplies:

A computer and printer

Cardstock or thick scrapbook paper

Laminating Sheets

Sticky Velcro

Scissors

Paper cutter (optional)

Instructions:

Take inventory of the toys you would like to contain.  I pretty much used containers for the toys with lots of pieces.  The larger items are still being stored in our woven cube storage system.  Once you know what toys you need to store, google the name of the exact toy and save a picture of it on your computer.  Print out the pictures at a reasonable size to fit on your containers.

Cut out the pictures of all the different toys.  There were only one or two toys where I couldn't find the exact picture, but try to make sure you come as close as possible to the correct toy ~ this will make it much easier for your little one to clean up.  I also added a black border around each picture, just because I liked the way it looked.

I matted each picture onto a thick scrapbook paper or cardstock to add some durability and body to the labels.  I put a little piece of scotch tape on the back of the picture (just to hold it in place) and then cut a mat out with my paper cutter.  You could also use a ruler and scissors as well.

Once your pictures are matted, you will want to laminate them to keep them looking nice.  You can buy self-laminating sheets at your local office supply store.  I don't think a lot of people know you can laminate things at home without a fancy machine, but you can!  It's really easy and they look really nice.

The laminating sheets are generally the size of a regular sheet of paper, so you will need to cut out each label after laminating.

Next we are going to add velcro to the back of each label.  Why, you might ask?  Because this way if we ever want to store something different in the box, we can simply replace the label without damaging the box.  Also, if you decided to re-organize or add to that certain, specific toy, you can change it to another box and still use the label.

Cut a piece of sticky back velcro and stick to the back of each label.  The card stock I used happened to be double-sided, so that's why there is a different print on the back.

After you've secured your velcro to the label, you will peel off the other side and stick it to your container.  There are some boxes where I secured it to the lid (as the box was too small to place it on the container portion), but for the larger boxes I place it on the actual container.

Once you've got the velcro applied to all your containers, begin to organize and sort all the toys.  You can have your little ones help you with this.  My girls love to help organize (now if I can just teach them to stay organized) and they get a little more excited about the new organization in the playroom if they feel they were part of the project.

Once you've got all your toys contained, place them on the shelves.  I decided to place the toys that the girls have free range to access without me on the lower shelves and the ones where I want them to ask me before using up higher.  I think this is also a great method for when you have a little baby around.  You might not want your older children to have certain toys out when baby is around because of choking hazards, so this will give you some control over that.  That way the older children can play with the 'big kid' toys when baby is not around or napping.

We are also really, really going to try to make sure the girls clean up one toy before getting out another.  I don't mind all the dress up and pretend play things being out because I want to foster and encourage that kind of play at all times, but for the toys with lots of pieces, I think a good clean up is definitely necessary before moving onto to the next toy.

Also, I think if you are a really visual person (as I am), making some picture labels would be good in an adult space too.  I can see these being really helpful in my studio, so that I don't have to read a bunch of labels that all look the same, I can simply have the picture jump right out at me.

I originally wanted to paint my super great deal IKEA bookcase black, but my husband said he liked the raw wood.  So we're going to live with it for awhile and see, but I still may paint it.......

I know I can't have everything in my life be organized, but I think we all strive to have some type of order in the everyday.  I feel much better knowing that we are off to a great start on the road to organization for 2012!

Be on the look-out for more 'Operation Organization' posts to come this year.  

What aspect of your life are you trying to organize this year?

Anyone else's kids toys taking over their space?

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