Sometimes You Have to Think Outside the Box

Or perhaps inside the box, with a new vision?

I having been worried about how we were going to wrap the Art Deco sewing machine cabinet that my Singer 15-91 lives in to get it ready for our move.  Dave put so much work into refinishing that cabinet that I just dreaded the thought that it might get scratched or damaged in the move.

We picked up several large triple layer heavy duty paper moving sheets from a generous person on craigslist but even those are no guarantee that something won’t get scratched.

Then Dave remembered the box that our elliptical came in.  We move so often that we save all the boxes when we buy something but we sold the elliptical in our moving sale.  After measuring the box and doing a trial fit… we determined that the Art Deco cabinet would fit.   My quilts that are hand-basted and awaiting quilting were used to fill in spaces and add extra cushioning around the cabinet.

She’ll be safe now during the move into storage and then to a new place once that place is determined.

Teapot Planters Revisited

I’d like to welcome readers who are visiting from Emily Isaac’s fun article Top 10 tea inspired homeware on the website Brew Drinking Thinkings.

Back at the end of July, Emily contacted me to say that she was writing a Top Ten list of teapot-inspired interior ideas for the home and asked permission to link back to my blog as well as for permission to use one of my photographs from my post How to Make a Teapot Planter.

I was more than happy to grant her my permission to do both and have been excitedly waiting for the article to go live.  I received an e-mail from Emily just this morning letting me know that it had.

For my regular readers, I encourage you to click on the above link to Ms Isaac’s article to read her other great Top 10 tea inspired homeware ideas.

Christmas on a Budget Series – Two No-Sew Christmas Ideas

I love to sew, but I know there are those who either can’t or simply don’t want to, so for this month’s Christmas on a Budget post I thought I’d share two inexpensive no-sew ideas for things you can start collecting now to have ready come December.

First up…

Our family is making the switch from using paper gift wrapping that gets used once and then is thrown away to wrapping that can be reused year after year.  These Christmas themed tins come in a variety of shapes and sizes and can be picked up for pennies at your local thrift store.

In fact, the ones pictured above ranged in price from 29 cents to 39 cents.  For less than $1.50, I now have 5 tins ready to pop gifts into in the weeks before Christmas.  All it takes is a bit of tape to hold the lids on and keep the overly inquisitive from peeking at their gifts and they’ll be ready to place under the tree.

When I brought them home and showed them to Dave, I said, “Wouldn’t some little one just love to see a tag with their name on it on this bear tin.”  Dave replied, “Not just a little one, I’d love seeing a tag with my name on that tin too.”   Ahhh… that man is a keeper.

Next up… is an idea that I’ve been seeing on quite a few of the home schooling blogs and which I think would make a great gift to give to a family with young children; either as a family gift or given as a set to the individual children.

They are called Busy Bags and are plastic zip bags with a simple project or game to keep young children busy.   Many of them can be put together with things you might already have around the house or after a quick trip to the dollar or craft store.

These Colouring Busy Bags took me all of 15 minutes to put together, no trip to the store necessary. I simply printed several colouring book pages off the net, trimmed the paper to fit and popped them into the bags with boxes of crayons I picked up at last year’s Back to School sales.    A  search on colouring book pages brought up dozens of links.   For the bag on the right I printed off some Christmas pages from the Crayola site.  The bag on the left I printed images that I thought would appeal to either a boy or a girl. This link alone has over 5000 pages.

Following are a few links to some more homemade Busy Bag ideas:

Clothesline Busy Bag

I-Spy Bottle

Homemade Children’s Lacing Cards

This morning, I stopped off at the Dollar Tree and came home with all this for $9+ tax.

For older children, I found these Colouring and Activity Pads.  Tomorrow I’m going to hit the Back to School sales and pick up a couple of packs of pencil crayons to add to these.

Dollar Tree had a great selection of puzzles.  The one on the left would be suitable for 1st or 2nd graders.   I’m going to print out the nursery rhyme Hey, Diddle, Diddle to add to that busy bag.

The one on the left would keep 3rd and 4th graders busy while at the same time teaching them the States and their capitals.

Or you could make up a themed busy bag as I did with this Winnie the Pooh one.  This would be great to send along with a child that is spending the night with grandparents or on a sleepover.

Learning Cards could be put in individual quart sized zip bags or in a bag all together as I’ve done here.

And how about a craft kit or two.   This one called for a bottle of white glue but I thought a glue stick would make for less mess.  Craft kits would be a great way to use the 40% off coupons that Michaels and Hobby Lobby offer on a regular basis.

Wouldn’t a few of these Busy Bags packaged up in pretty basket make a great Christmas gift to give to a family with a newborn to help keep an older child (or children) occupied while Mom is nursing or Dad is bathing the baby, etc.

Or if you wanted to get a little more creative, you could put them in a box that you’ve decorated and label it “The Rainy Day Box.”

I plan on putting together a box or two with a variety of different busy bags not just as Christmas gifts but to have on hand for times when we have young children visiting.

I hope you’ll join me again in August for my next Christmas on a Budget series post when I’ll not only be sharing a tutorial or two for using that Christmas fabric you bought at the Christmas in July sales (remember last month’s post) but I’ll also be hosting a giveaway, as well.  And this time the giveaway will be open to all my readers wherever in the world they may live.

Homemade Gift Tags

For our first Christmas on a Budget Series project, we start with a simple little no cost craft idea.

Each year, I buy small Christmas themed boxes of tissue to put out for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  They are a little more expensive than regular tissue so I only buy three, one for the living room and one for each of the bathrooms.

This past Christmas the boxes were so pretty that I hated to just put them in the recycle bin.

Tissue boxes too pretty to recycle

Instead we cut the top and bottom off each box and then put the strips of cardboard under some heavy books for several days to flatten them.

Cutting the boxes apart

Once they were flattened out, I traced shapes onto the cardboard and cut them out.  I used plastic templates that came with some photo albums that I purchased years ago but you could use all sorts of things to make your shapes:  a glass, the plastic lid from a small yogurt container, cookie cutters, etc.

Cut out various shapes

Punch a hole in each one and voila… you have lots of free homemade gift tags.

Pretty no cost homemade gift tags

When gift wrapping time comes thread a bit of ribbon, yarn or crochet cotton through the hole you punched and attach to your gift.  If you want to be able to reuse them from year to year, use pencil to write who the gift is to and from.

These could be made from all sorts of things that you’d normally put in the recycle bin; an empty chocolate box or a everyday tissue box with a pretty design.  You could even use empty cereal boxes and then paste colourful paper onto them.  Wouldn’t that be a great craft project to do with your kids or grandkids some rainy afternoon.

DIY Puzzle Mat

My husband has recently rediscovered his love of building jigsaw puzzles.  We don’t have an extra table where he could build his puzzles and just leave them out until they were done, so we bought one of these puzzle mats.  It works great, except for puzzles that are too big to fit on the piece of felt provided.

Our solution was to make a larger mat that would fit almost any puzzle Dave chose to work on.  Here’s how we did it:

First, I took some green felt that I had purchased for another project.  This felt comes in 72” widths and since I am in the habit of buying more fabric than I think I’ll need (just in case) there was more than enough to make a puzzle mat and still have enough left for that other project.

I squared up one end of the felt.  Then I measured and marked 36 inches from the squared off end at several places along the felt.

Measure 36 inches from the squared off edge.

Mark at 36 inches all along the width of the fabric.

The final step was to line up the ruler along those marks and cut.

Cut along the marked lines.

It’s that simple, the puzzle mat was done.

It took us a while to find a cardboard tube to roll the mat around but the other day Dave noticed a cardboard tube about 8 ft long laying out along the side of the neighbour’s house.  Dave went over and asked, if he didn’t want it, could we have it.  Our neighbour said to go ahead.

The tube was the perfect diameter at 4″ but 8′ was way too long.

Way too long

So Dave cut it down to 38 inches.  He used a hacksaw to make the cut.

Cardboard tube cut to size

Here he’s got a puzzle spread all spread out on the mat…

Puzzle mat in use.

And now the puzzle is rolled up and ready to put away until next time he wants to work on it.

All rolled up and ready to put away.

This project was zero out of pocket for us as we already had the felt and the cardboard tube was free.

But even if the felt had to be purchased, it runs around $4.99/yd.   Places like Hancock Fabrics, JoAnn Fabric and Hobby Lobby regularly offer 40% coupons that you could use to buy the yard of fabric needed for this project.  We think the cardboard tube was one that is used for rolls of carpet or vinyl flooring.  You could ask at your local carpet store to see if they have an extra cardboard roll they’d like to get rid of.

One of these puzzle mats would make a great inexpensive gift  for the puzzle lover in your circle of family and friends.

Not Only is He Brilliant, He’s Handy Too

One day last week, I was tracing some embroidery patterns onto muslin with the pattern and fabric taped to the window of the back door.  I commented how much easier it would be to trace them if I had a light box and wished there was a way to make one that wouldn’t cost too much.

A few minutes later, I noticed that Dave had disappeared into the garage and then was off for a quick trip to the hardware store.  Some more time in the garage and he came in with a new light box for me.

This is what he started out with:

The wood frame is from an extra drawer organizer that was stored in the garage.  He removed the dividers and the bottom to give him the frame.  The sheet of plexiglass, rope light and tiny finishing nails he picked up at the hardware store.

He installed the rope light using the clips that came with it.

A notch was cut in one corner for the cord to come through.

A bit of his time, under $20 in materials and here’s the finished light box. (There’s enough plexiglass left for another project and of course lots of tiny nails for many future projects)

Light Box Plugged In and Lit Up

And this is my new light box in action:

One of my next sewing projects will be to make a bag to store it in.

This post has been added to Made By You Monday over at Skip to my Lou

Make it Monday – Zippered Binder Sewing Kit

When our daughters went off to college, I made sure that they each had a sewing basket stocked with the basics to take with them.  But this past fall, when we were getting things ready for our son to go off to college, we searched but we couldn’t find any sewing baskets that didn’t have flowery prints or some other girly design and then in the rush to get everything else done and him settled into dorms, the sewing basket got forgotten.

After I got back home though I started to brainstorm a way to make him a sewing kit that wouldn’t take up much space (storage is limited in dorm rooms) and wouldn’t be too girly.  One day while going through and sorting the school supplies, I got looking at all the binders from past school years and wondering what to do with them all.  Some were barely used and could be donated to the local high school, but then there were the ones that our artists and their friends had embellished with markers.  What to do with those?  They were still good binders.

And then the idea formed.  At least one binder could be turned into a sewing kit for our son.

Using scraps of fabric leftover from making my husband an Aloha shirt, I designed and constructed a zippered binder cover with pockets on the inside panels to hold a set of good quality sewing scissors and various other sewing accessories.

As I was making this on the fly… not really sure how it would turn out,  I didn’t bother to take pictures as I went along.   I don’t have a tutorial to give you but I do have several pictures of the completed sewing kit to share.  The rest of the post will be picture intensive.

The most difficult part of this whole project proved to be installing the zipper.  I had thought that I could sew the ends of the zipper to the binder cover but when I did that, the binder wouldn’t open completely.  So that got unpicked and I sewed small squares of fabric to the zipper ends.  This actually turned out to be an ideal solution as this provides a “handle” to grab onto when taking the binder off of a shelf.  It also indicates which is the bottom of the binder so that the sewing kit doesn’t get put away upside down.

Closeup of zipper ends on bottom of the kit

Inside of the zippered sewing kit

Inside left panel of sewing kit

Inside right panel of sewing kit

A box of pins and a box of miscellaneous buttons are held in place with velcro strips.  The three spools of thread in the basic colours of white, black and tan are held with loops of elastic.  Then to give him more colour choices for mending and sewing on buttons, I wound bobbins in several different colours and slipped them on the binder rings to keep them organized.

Hiding inside that bottom pocket… to the left is a magnetic needle keeper kit with various sized needles and a needle puller.  Just barely peeking out of the right side of that pocket is a seam ripper.

Needle keeper pocket

Once I figured out how to make the zipper closure work, the rest of the construction went smoothly and I’m really pleased with the way it turned out.

A zippered binder sewing kit is a great gift and not only for young people going off to college for the first time.   They would also make a unique and useful wedding gift.  Even non-sewers should have a basic sewing kit to be able to perform simple mending tasks such a sewing on buttons, restitching hems and other small clothing repairs.

Although I wasn’t able to do a tutorial… if you want to make one these zippered binder sewing kits either for yourself or as a gift and have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer.

This post has been added to Made by You Monday over at Skip to my Lou

Creating Space for a Clothesline

Last fall, I had Dave ask our landlord if we could put up a clothesline in the backyard.  The answer was… yes, as long as it can’t be seen from the street.  As you can imagine, that limited our options considerably.

I had hoped to put up two posts, one at the back the house and one at the back of the yard and then run a pulley line between the two.  But that would have been able to be seen from the street.

Instead, we ended up going much smaller in scale.

The spring before last, we had purchased one of those gazebos with the canvas tops.   No matter how we tried to anchor it down, every time there was a storm with a big wind, the gazebo would end up flipped over on its side until one day the canvas top was torn beyond repair.  We finally did anchor the corners by screwing the frame to cement paving blocks but by then we found we weren’t able to get a replacement canvas as that particular model had gone out of production and newer canvases won’t fit our gazebo’s configuration.

And there the gazebo sat, uncovered and unused until one day, earlier this spring, I was out in the back yard once again trying to figure out how we could put up a clothesline that couldn’t be seen from the street, when I looked at the gazebo and realized that we had the perfect frame for a clothesline or rather several small clotheslines.

We already had the clothesline wire in the garage, so it didn’t take long at all for Dave to string it and we were in business.

And isn’t it wonderful to sleep between line dried sheets.

Have a look around your home or yard and see if you can’t find a creative spot to run a clothesline.

This post has been added as part of Frugal Friday over at Life as Mom.

And also over at BeingFrugal.net as part of Tightwad Tuesday.

Independence Days Update – Jul 20th to Aug 2nd

It seems like the only thing I have the time or inclination to post lately are these Independence Days updates.   And even then, this update is for the past two weeks, since I didn’t get around to posting last week.

For Sharon Astyk’s latest post… Independence Days Update: A Day On, A Day Off.  Make sure to check the comments section for even more updates.

1.  Plant something: Potted up seven more strawberry shoots.

Purchased some small herb plants at the farmers’ market and will get those into larger pots this week.

2.  Harvest something: Nothing from the garden.

Picked up the fruit and veggies from our CSA.  Bought Georgia peaches from farmers’ market

3.  Preserve something: Corn relish, canned chicken breasts, canned peaches

4.  Reduce waste: Dave made our regular trip to drop off the recycling.

I’ve forgotten to mention this in previous posts, but we continue to use reusable bags for any shopping we do whether its at the grocery store or the farmers’ market.

Used water from canning to water plants.   We also save the water when we’re waiting for the hot water to come when we shower or fill the sink for dishes and use that to water plants as well.

All veggie matter got composted.

We purchased a new set of sheets for our bed, since the fitted sheet had worn so thin it kept tearing and repairing the tears was no longer lasting more than a day.  So I’m cutting the good parts of the old fitted sheet into several 17″ squares and after hemming, they’ll make really nice, soft hankies.   The top sheet and pillowcases are now stored with the rest of the extra linens.

5.  Preparation and Storage: Purchased good quality spade.

Found two old matching oil lamps at a farmers’ market/flea market… for lighting should power go out.  They need a good cleaning, but they are good sturdy glass.

Bought more canning jars and extra lids.

Stopped off a Costco on way back from a farmers’ market on Saturday and picked up sugar, olive oil, coffee and dried cranberries.

6.  Build Community Food Systems: Supported local farmers’ markets.

I put up an ad on Freecycle asking for canning jars and the lady who responded offered to drop off some jars she’d been given.  We got to talking and she mentioned that she’d like to learn to can, so I offered to teach her.  We’re going to be getting together the next time I get enough from the farmers’ market to can something.  And then again in the fall, once it cools off, we’ll get together again so I can show her how to use the pressure canner for canning soups and stews, etc.

7.  Eat the Food: I cook most of our meals from scratch, so the food definitely gets eaten.  This is some of what I made over the last two weeks:

Potato puffs from lefover mashed potatoes and fried chicken tenders (I cut these off of the chicken breasts before I canned them.)

Pasta with Pesto.  I’d never made pesto before, but we’ve got a basil plant that was getting tall and starting to flower and needed to be cut back more than just the little handfuls that I have been taking, so I decided to give it a try.  And the pesto tasted great, what I didn’t like was the after taste that last all evening long.  Oh well, not all culinary experiments work out.

I had a bit of corn relish left after filling jars.  That got put in a bowl in the fridge and I’ve been using it in toasted cheddar cheese sandwiches.

Yellow beans from our CSA as a side dish one night.

For snacks, we ate the melons from our CSA.  They were so sweet and clean tasting.  Melons bought at the grocery store simply can’t compare.

Used the sauerkraut that didn’t get canned to top off hot dogs and hamburgers.

Fried up zucchini with onions (both from CSA) as a side dish.

Made Peach Kuchen with the peaches that were too bruised to can and the cream I skimmed from our raw milk.

There was more, of course, that I’m not remembering right now.  I guess that’s what happens when you wait two weeks to do an update.

9 Patch Quilt Along Blocks Completed

Back in April, Amandajean from Crazy Mom Quilts started a one-a-day quilt along, in which participants would complete one 9 patch quilt block per day resulting, at the end of 10 weeks, with 70 finished scrappy 9 patch blocks.

I soon discovered that I didn’t have nearly enough fabric scraps to make a truly scrappy quilt as I had purged my fabric stash when we moved from Hawaii to Florida and then again when we moved from Florida to Georgia.  To complicate matters even further, as I began cutting 2 1/2″ squares and picturing in my mind how they would go together, I decided I wanted an anchor fabric in the center of each square to tie all the finished blocks together.  That meant that even some of the fabric scraps I did have couldn’t be used because they didn’t match well with that fabric.

However, at the end of the ten weeks, with the leftover fabric scraps I had on hand and some purchased (after rummaging through every remnant bin at every fabric store around) I managed to complete 70 blocks.

As you can see, I chose 10 different fabrics for the contrasting squares and then made up 7 blocks in each.  While I was cutting squares, I also cut out 20 extra of each to be used for the border.

On one of my trips to search for matching fabrics, I was lucky enough to find more of the center fabric and purchased enough of that to use for the sashing.  But that will have to wait for another day.  For now, I’m just pleased to have completed the 70 blocks needed for the quilt.