Organization Projects – Page 4

DIY Art Supplies Caddy

This is a post that I have been meaning to write since February, the last time we went to IKEA. I kid you not. This post is eight months late! (I am so behind with, oh, everything.)

Here’s an easy way to make a transportable art caddy. Gather empty and clean tin cans and/or jam jars and place them in a handled wooden cutlery tray.

This particular wooden silverware tray came from IKEA, cost less less than $7, and holds six cans.

In our art caddy we have a spot for markers, colored pencils, writing pencils, erasers, scissors, glitter glue pens and popsicle sticks.

Instead of adhering the cans to the tray, we left them free floating so we can remove individual cans from the caddy to bring just one artistic medium to the table.

I have plans to paint the caddy blue… but considering that I’ve been meaning to paint it since February, it may be a long time coming.

New Living Room Configuration and Wall Art

Here’s a post I’ve been meaning to write for a while now. Earlier in the summer we rearranged the furniture in our living room.

This is what it looked like previously (it’s actually decorated for our daughter’s third birthday party last January):

Here’s an alternative, more ~~messy~~ realistic view:

And, no, it doesn’t always look like this.

Nevertheless, the wide open space in front of the couch frequently became a bottomless pit of toys, hard to keep tidy and forever a place of stubbed toes.

We decided to move the couch from resting against the wall to bisect the room and take advantage of the phenomenal view from our front window!

This weekend we finally hung artwork on the wall and the room feels more cohesive:

The upper right and center pieces are prints of paper-cuts by artist and author Nikki McClure, with a photo taken by me in the lower right of our daughter at the Cornerstone art installations in Sonoma, and an Art Doll Print called The Wind’s Bride by artist and doll maker Christine Alvarado.

The room is starting to feel more cozy and, well, us.

That being said, I have plans. Stay tuned!

Simple Bedding Transformation

Our adventure began innocently enough, “Mama, I want pink sheets.” That sounds easy, right?!

Evidently not so much. We found finding affordable, plain pink, organic sheets to be a challenge. So we reused some older white organic sheets that we already owned, and threw them in the washing machine with pink fabric dye and a cup of salt, and ta-da!

We have beautiful, bright pink sheets, perfect for a three-year old.

An easy, quick project with satisfying results.

And now I keep thinking, what else can we dye?!

There’s nothing like making a simple request come true to illicit an “I love my room!” romp-around. Sweet, sweet girl.

Hey, her room’s coming together!

Pinterest Love

When I first heard about Pinterest, a virtual display space that lets you organize and share images, I thought, “Just what I need: another site to check; another internet addiction.”

I’ve had a Pinterest account for less than a week yet I’m already hooked and can’t imagine my life without this nifty organizational tool.

I use Pinterest to save my favorite posts, inspirational photos, new recipes and projects to try. When I find a project or post that I love, I “pin” my favorite photo from the post, write a brief description and file it away into one of several themed boards that I’ve created. Later I can go to that particular board and see all of the posts I’ve linked to.

I’ve created pin boards for photos of future house inspiration, projects to try, organization love, everyday learning, garden inspiration, recipes to cook, special occasion party fun, and winter, spring, summer and fall holiday inspiration.

In the past when I found pictures I liked or projects to try, I shared them via my Google Feed Reader, where they’d then be lost amongst the thousands of other posts I had already shared. I could slowly go through post by post to see what I had marked (or do a search), but it was time consuming and not the best way to look for a quick craft project or a recipe for tonight’s dinner.

Pinterest has made my life so much easier.

Slowly I am going through several years and thousands of saved posts in my Google Feed Reader and pinning to the best articles that I shared previously. So, please follow my boards on Pinterest to see my favorite posts.

If you’d like an invitation to Pinterest, please shoot me an email with PINTEREST in the subject line and I’ll send you an invitation!

Still confused about how Pinterest works or want to learn more? Read this fantastic primer on Pinterest from Callaloo Soup. Francine clearly explains how to set up and use Pinterest, outlining several methods for pinning content to Pinterest.

After you set up a Pinterest account, be sure to click back here and then follow me on Pinterest! See you over there!

Swapping the Sand Out of the Sand and Water Table

Our daughter loves playing in the sand and water table that we set up on our back porch.

She plays on the porch for hours, excavating shells, driving matchbox cars on ramps and over bridges, playing in the water, building castles with sticks.

Unfortunately the play area has gotten to be a bit of a mess.

Actually that’s a bit of an understatement.

With sand in both sections of the table (the side that drains should contain just water) and sand all over the floor, our back porch had morphed into a big wet sandy mess.

We decided to swap out the sand for inexpensive colored aquarium gravel.

So far, so good.

Hey, it looks pretty too.