Organization Projects – Page 2

Ribbon Organization with Vintage Wooden Spools

We’re still unpacking and organizing in the new house, most especially in our homeschooling and craft room. Here’s a simple organization project to organize ribbon remnants inspired by this picture from Country Living Magazine.

We wrapped remnants of ribbon on vintage wooden spools that we spotted at a local craft resale shop for twelve cents a piece:

To keep the ribbon from unwinding, we temporarily taped it while securing the spools with elastic:

We fed the elastic through the center of the spool then pulled tight, making a circle of elastic around the spool, knotting both ends together. We then stuffed the knot into the center of the spool, hiding it:

Then we placed the ribbon spools on a wooden spool rack:

Now our ribbons are accessible (instead of tangled in a box!) and easy on the eyes.

Picking Out Paint Colors

Next month we’re moving down the street to a nearly-identical house (in layout) that’s bigger with more bedrooms. We’re thrilled to stay on the street we love, near our beloved neighbors, yet gain more space to accommodate our growing family. We’ll even have a homeschool-craft-library room. Can you say EXCITED?!

Since we’re packing and moving, I can’t do typical pregnancy nesting activities. Instead I’m fixating on paint colors and obsessed with selecting the perfect white paint color for the downstairs, debating between warm whites and cool whites, grey whites and blue whites.

MAJOR TIME SUCKAGE, let me tell you.

I’ve even been known to carry paint chips with me should inspiration hit. Sure enough, David and I walked into an ice cream shop in Santa Cruz and both LOVED the white walls:

I whipped out our paint samples to match the white:

Turns out the walls weren’t White Dove or Super White or Ice Mist or Decorators White or Alpine White or any of the colors I was debating between.

The color we both really love is called…

WHITE.

Just white, nothing else. Facepalm.

Mission white paint color selection accomplished.

Dress-Up Clothes Storage Conundrum

We are up to our elbows in dress-up clothes. We’ve accumulated quite a bit of thrifted Halloween costumes, fancy dance outfits from the consignment store, handmade goodies, and awesome hand-me-downs.

Currently the play silks, crowns, dresses, wings, feather boas, and tutus are stuffed into this handmade basket that is entirely too small for our costume collection. I believe it’s time for something larger!

Here are some storage possibilities:

Featured above:
1. West Elm’s Curved Storage Baskets
2. Land of Nod’s Charming Baskets
3. Lands’ End’s Canvas Hamper
4. Pottery Barn Kids’ Large Canvas Floor Tote Storage (currently on sale)
5. IHeart Organizing’s DIY Rope Basket looks as fine as the other baskets, but costs a small fraction of the price. That’s mighty tempting to this frugal mama.

What do you think?

Colorful Little Girl Room Updates

Last year we transformed our spare room (i.e. junk closet!) into a colorful and personalized room for our daughter:

I want to share with you two small, colorful additions to our daughter’s room, both projects from her birthday extravaganza in January that have been rather shamefully hanging in our living room for the past three months until now:
– festive and colorful ribbon chandeliers and
– collages featuring photos of our daughter and her friends over the past four years.

We took our ribbon chandelier (i.e. ribbons hung on an embroidery hoop) and placed it around her light fixture, dressing up an otherwise very hum-drum light (ah, the downside to renting!).

After two months hanging in the living room over the couch, we’re so glad to no longer be bumping into the ribbons every time we sit down.

We hung the photo collages of our daughter and her friends above her bed:

Such a sweet space for our daughter:

Click here to see all of our posts about our daughter’s room transformation, including our handmade felt banners, embroidered portrait, nerdy posters, and repurposed photo wreath frame.

More Easy Bathroom Upgrades

I feel like I’m finally a grown-up.

We now own a waste-bin (lined with a compostable bag):

instead of re-using a paper bag for the trash:

We also pitched our plastic soap dispensers:

in favor of rather fancy soap dispensers from Anthropologie:

While the rosemary mint soap is rather lovely, I’m less than thrilled about the rust stains from the “Pure and Good” vintage-inspired wire basket:

Yes, the rust wipes away, but, Anthropologie, I know you can do better.

Nevertheless, I’m still happy with those scalloped glass hand pumps. When the Anthropologie soap runs out we’re going to refill the pumps with our favorite peppermint soap by Dr. Bronner’s (much less drying for our hands, not to mention incredibly less expensive than the Anthropologie one since we water down the Bronner’s).

Like the rollerball shower curtain rings we added in January, a few simple upgrades make our bathroom look so much better.

Too bad we’re renters or I’d redo the whole room. That being said, I have more plans up my sleeve. Now to find the time to implement them. Stay tuned…