Fabric Storage Bins Tutorial

Today, the temperature in Cleveland is somewhere in the -20's, and everything is covered in the grey slush of poorly plowed snow (which I'm sure is thoroughly frozen by now.)  So, I whipped up a little fabric bins tutorial for your sewing pleasure.  Please let me know if you have questions or run into any problems while making this project, and enjoy!

Click on the link below, and find the full tutorial after the jump.

Bins and Baking

Today was grey and snowy outside, so it was filled with baking and sewing inside.  Since it's only January and I'm still trying to stay true to my resolutions (just give it a few more weeks!) I finally finished a project that had been collecting dust on my ironing board (...and then on my bookshelf...and then on the floor of my closet...) since September.  I've been meaning to amp up my bathroom storage for a while (read: come up with some kind of storage system at all) and these little fabric bins were just the ticket.  They were pretty simple to put together, and certainly helped tidy up my bathroom shelves a bit.  I'm working on a start-to-finish tutorial, which will be posted soon, but here are my lovely new bins, in all of their organizational glory...

The rest of the day was spent baking bread and my favorite lavender cookies.  Not bad for a Monday, I say!

*The tutorial is now up!  Click here to see it and make a bin of your very own!

New Year, New Resolve

Hello, friends, and Happy New Year!  

Have you ever gotten so wrapped up in things that you just got so ridiculously behind with other things?  Please say yes.  Well, this little blog of mine has become one of those things I didn’t keep up with.  It just set up shop on my to-do list, and went on living there from early August until right about…now.  In true personal fashion, I’m starting out the new year with so many ideas for the future, and I thought I’d share some of them with you today (nothing like a little public accountably, eh?)

1.  Run a marathon

This one seems inevitably unavoidable, since I took the plunge and registered for the Cleveland Marathon in May.  Wish me luck!

2.  Work my way through my unfinished sewing projects before I start any new ones

This goal truly deserves a post of its own, seeing as my “unfinished projects” pile has slowly but certainly been taking over my bedroom annex for the past few months.  One bursting bookshelf turned into two, which promptly turned into many, many, many piles of overflow, which led to me vowing not to buy any more supplies, which turned into complete disorder and chaos.  It’s time for me to dig myself out of this hole!  

3.  Try at least one new recipe a week

Because I love food.  Also, I tend to get into “recipe ruts” where I end up eating the same, weird but convenient foods for all of my meals (read: when I get busy, I eat mostly cereal.)

4.  Go to bed early

This is a back-handed attempt at forcing myself into becoming a morning person; a goal that I set and break just about every year.  This is my year, guys!

5.  Take more pictures with people in them

So I have realized lately that the ratio of pictures in my phone is about 5:1; 5 being pictures of Oliver (of course) and 1 being…everything else.  Instead of trying to take less pictures of my beloved pooch (who are we kidding, anyway) I’m going to try to take more pictures of everything else in my life.  I swear, I do have human friends, too!

6.  No more hiatuses from blogging!

I’m sure you have been expecting this one since this post began, but I’m serious this time…I’m here to stay!

What are you resolving to accomplish this year?

DIY Washi Tape Planner

Call me old-fashioned, but I just can't seem to function without a real, I-can-write-things-down-with-a-pencil-and-flip-through-the-pages, paper planner.  I'm not sure if it's the technologies' fault or my own (I swear, sometimes my tech devices have minds of their own) but whenever I try to use electronic calendars I just end up missing Oliver's beauty appointments or showing up to my cello lessons on the wrong day or having some other catastrophic scheduling meltdown.  It's just such a comfort to be able to physically flip through my schedule and see everything laid out in front of me, and I can't seem to do it any other way.  

So this brings up the real dilemma: it's really, really hard to find a passably cute day planner that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.  Most of the time when I need one I scour store after store, searching for the perfect planner (it's a bit like looking for the Holy Grail, if you ask me) and I end up having to pick one up at the last minute for much more than I wanted to pay just because it's becoming unacceptable for me to be missing so many appointments.  In order to preemptively avoid this with the start of the coming scholastic year, I just DIY'ed a little solution for myself, with a plain black day planner (it cost less than $4!) and some Washi tape that I picked up for about a dollar a roll.  Simplest solution ever.  Makes you wonder what else could be vastly improved by slapping on a couple of strips of Washi tape…Hope you enjoy this little project!