Actually, my inability to do it effectively is what’s the matter here!  I guess that’s the conundrum of the unorganized person, right?  I type this while simultaneously holding up piles of junk on my desk with my elbows.  Hey, I have to make room for my arms and hands to type somehow, ya’ know?

Via

Via

I challenged myself a while back (will I ever learn?) over at Chic Tweaks Alterations to organize my craft and sewing supply closet.  It’s a mini-walk-in with hanging bars and shelves on each side; the contents of which had begun to spill out into the floor area making it almost impossible to get to the large shelf of vintage fabrics I store along the back wall in between said hanging areas .  After trying to get to some pieces and fearing an avalanche that would have me buried for days with my family wondering where I had disappeared to, I decided it was time.  Time to pull it all out and start over.  Of course, with it being the holidays when this epiphany hit me I knew that task would have to wait until now.  Well, now is here and I have since added two more closets, my desk and the garage to that organizing list.  I know I will get there…eventually.  ;o)

Via

In the meantime I am curious about how other people organize their spaces and keep them that way.  I have found myself gravitating toward pictures of these masterpieces on Pinterest and dewy-eyed dreaming of the day that I get to live in such uniformly stacked and labeled bliss.

Via

Via

Via

Cough it up now folks!  How do you stay in the know with your piles of junk?  Do you somehow avoid the mountains and keep a nice cleaning rhythm throughout the year?  Not me!  I’m a pile until I can’t find it any more kind of person. 

I’m sure there is a therapist out there just dying to talk to me.

Kitsch Krafts

PS- To find out more about my sewing and craft life please click over to Chic Tweaks!

Last year I wrote about adding a little holiday décor to our front door in the form of a heart shaped, yarn wrapped wreath. 

And, although I liked how it turned out I was disappointed at how much it faded into the dark color of our front door.  While our house does sit back from the road, with trees across the front, I did hope to be able to glimpse the wreath on the door when pulling in or even driving by.  Unfortunately, it was very difficult to see until you got right up to the front porch.  Dark red on dark black door = disappearing décor.

So, I got the idea to add a sort of lace doily effect to the back of the wreath giving it a white outline.  The hope was to make it pop against the dark door.  After considering many options (foam core board, stiffened fabric, actual paper doilies, etc.) I discovered stiffened felt at Joann’s craft store last week.  I had completely forgotten about this stuff and was super excited to see that I might have an easy option to work with for my idea. 

The only downside was that the largest piece I saw was only 12” X 18” , which meant I would need to put two pieces together in order to cover the back of the wreath with overhang.  At that point I was not really sure this was going to come together the way I envisioned, but the low cost and ready-to-go materials made for a project just my speed these days. 

Easy, I’m all about it. 

Oh, that might not have come across the way it was meant….but trust me, this prude meant it in the lazy way!

The next step was to tape the stiffened felt together using clear packing tape so it would not show through to the front.

I knew this was not going to be a permanent solution to keeping the pieces together, but it did work to hold them in place while making the design and attaching it to the wreath.

My first attempt to freehand the scallop around the heart wreath was with a disappearing fabric marker (greatest invention around!), but the bumpy nature of the felt and the felt tip of the marker were not a match.  So, I resorted to using blue tailor’s chalk instead.  Because I did all of this freehand, things were not perfect and I made most of my cuts inside the lines to eliminated some wonkiness and the blue chalk.  After cutting out the basic heart shape with the scalloped edge I used an oval hole punch to add the cut-outs within each bump of the scallop.  Using fabric fusion, I glued the heart wreath directly to the white felt backing.  Since the wreath is a little uneven due to the wrapped yarn, I also used some fabric piles to help weigh it down a little for a better hold.  After a night of drying I used a couple of T-pins shoved through the felt and into the back of the heart for an added safety measure in keeping the felt “doily” in place.

Wholla!  Revamped Valentine’s Day wreath that can be seen from farther away than the bottom step!

Kitschy, but fun for another year.  What type of holiday décor are you guys using to spruce your pads this year?

Kitsch Krafts

Don’t laugh too hard.  I am still working on this project.  Really, I am!  It’s all just in stages.  Yep, that’s the story I’m going with.

(from Milly Bee)

(Heart Shaped Photo Collage, I believe from the blog, Click It Up a Notch.)

I finally pulled together enough frames to get the size and basic shape I was looking for.  Since I did not go with all the same sized frames, as in the inspiration photo, this presented a whole new challenge I had not even considered.  Big DUH, over here.

And then I changed it all…

…several times.

I’m still not settled on the middle frame, but the size of this one seems about right.  What I am not settled on is whether I will go through the pain of painting this one or just shell out the cash for a new frame.  I will definitely need to purchase a custom mat for the handprint picture, so I am leaning toward being cheap and just painting what I have.  The time needed to paint everything for this project is what really slowed me down with this whole challenge.  I started this project just as the weather began to get cold, so I felt I did not have a choice in painting by hand versus spray painting (I have to do all spray painting outside in the elements).  If I had known then how many warmer days we would still have left in the year, I never would have pulled the can and brushes out in the first place.  Lesson learned.  Now back to whether I can stomach painting that middle frame, or just throwing in the towel to buy a new one???  I’m thinkin’, I’m thinkin’.

In the end I nixed the idea of all black and white shots and here is why.  First, there are a LOT of frames to fill here!  Second, I have a ton of cute shots and artwork to put some where!  Since this arrangement is going in our master bedroom, and is all about family, I figured it’s the best place for all those sentimental things.

With an impending visit from the grandparents this coming weekend I had to make a decision on the layout which was on the guest room floor.  Or, risk another several weeks of frames stacked in the closet.  I think I am good with this and there is still a little space for adding smaller frames to round out the heart shape even more.  Although, I do kind of like that it’s not going to be a perfect heart.  So, they got post-its with numbers to aid in getting them back into this arrangement and I will pray I can get them on the wall in a somewhat smooth process.

Now, I will spend another whole bunch of time hemming and hawing over what to put where, just as I did about which frame looks best in which spot?  Once more of those decisions are made I will bore you guys with one final post so you can ooh and aaahhh!

Oye, remind me to pick a much easier challenge next time, okay?

Kitsch Krafts

Yep, we finally have cover for our formal living room windows.  Although, we will most likely keep them open all the time since that room only gets a small amount of light during the day due to its more northern exposure.  Here are a couple of shots of the nekkid’ windows:

Now here they are sporting their new 2 inch faux wooden blinds from Home Depot:

Pretty subtle and nothing major at this point, but I’m sure my mom and the hubs will be happy to see we are no longer total exhibitionists around here!  Now I just need to find a fabric I like to make some stationary panels a la’ the dining room.  I think that will finally bring this room to a more finished look and then down the line I can work on some new side tables with less leg.

Any home projects going on around your places lately?

Kitsch Krafts

I wanted to share another perfect gift I received this past Christmas.  It was from my mom and basically she solved our side table tray problems with one simple gift.

I’m sure you remember this triumphant rearrange.  Unfortunately for all the table space we gained we were left with tops that could not take much of a licking.  The natural woven grass will stain or disintegrate if spilled on or if a sweating glass full of ice is left overnight.  Again, I won’t name names, but someone living here likes to leave his half empty drinks about.  I had a great idea for creating a custom tray, but had to shelve it when the holiday season became to busy for any extra projects.  So, that’s when my mom made it her Christmas quest to get us the perfect accessory. 

She scored these at Target for around $20 bucks (I think).  They are a simple rectangular wooden tray with a deep dark stain and slightly curved sides.  The curve is just enough detail to give it some design appeal, but without going over the top.

So far we have been loving them.  I think I may be inspired to create some cool coasters for these so stay tuned.

Kitsch Krafts

It was decided pretty early on that the Little Guy’s Christmas tree would have a train theme.  There is not a day that goes by that when asked what he did all day, he does not answer, “played trains!”  I was sure we would find some kind of cute garland with trains to wrap around a tabletop tree, place it in his room and call it a day.  I love decorating for the holidays, but when it gets even just a little too involved I am “over it” pretty quickly.  But after searching through several local craft and home dec shops we were surprised to come up empty-handed. 

Then one fateful afternoon we found these at Hobby Lobby:

8 piece bags of little wooden train silhouette cut-outs for about $2.00 each.  Each bag contained two sets of an engine, passenger car, tanker car and caboose.  Coupled with two different sizes of wooden beads I figured we were in the garland business.

The process to a kiddie style winter wonderland started with drilling tiny holes in the ends of each train and adding two coats of primer.  Next, I let the Little Guy have at it with the acrylic paints.  He picked the colors, started the job and then I finished them up to make them even.  I also spray painted the small wooden beads white and the larger beads deep red.  BTW- That’s right, he does have green paint smeared across his face and into his nearly white hair.  It took two days of washing and combing before he no longer looked like a little punk rocker.

After several base coats and some details added with a black paint pen we started the layout for stringing our garland.  Again, the little engineer picked which colors went on each train and then we divided the small and large beads between each line of trains.  Then using skinny creamy white ribbon we started stringing the lines together beginning with the train sections.

I did have to go back and recut the holes I had drilled using a small hole punch because the paint had closed them up.  Then I simply tied knots in the end of the ribbons until they were too large to pass through the holes and I strung the trains car to car with a few beads in between.  My son loved adding the beads with a little help from mom. 

Total concentration.  Tongue pushed into bottom lip, drool about to form.  Nothing could stop his nimble fingers from pressing those beads into place, nothing…well maybe playing with some toy trains…but!  that was the only thing!

After linking up the trains we hooked them to each other in one long garland with the rest of the beads strung in between.

I thought they looped around his tiny tree pretty well.

He loves pointing out the one odd ball engine, which he insisted we paint dark purple.

And, of course the number 1 engine, “Thomas”, has a special spot at the top.

Have you guys put together any special trees for your little ones?  Do you put up any other decorations with your kids or with your kids in mind?

Kitsch Krafts

I cannot believe how quickly this month went by.  Not only because I am not as far along in getting my Christmas shopping accomplished as I had hoped, but because I had so many project plans for this past month that I never had a chance to start.  I was hoping to put together a post about the trays I decided to make for the family room.  And, then there was the self-imposed Pinterest Challenge- what was I thinking?  I actually have most of the materials I need for that one- I just need the time to do it.  It seems like this month has been spent doing a lot of sewing and then, of course, lot’s of cooking!  I guess I can show you what I ended up with after completing a couple of those sewing projects.

As you all have seen before in my family room side table switcheroo, we had some very sad looking pillows.  I won’t even call them accent pillows because they were used without abandon for naps, fort building, smack down fights, as well as, cushioning during long movies. 

The bolsters, especially, had seen better days.  So, I created some new pillows to grace our soft, old, perfectly worn-in sofa. 

Nothing miraculous, but it sure is nice to have more of a good thing!  Especially pillows in extra cuddly chenille.  For all the details please head over to Chic Tweaks.  Envelop pillow info, here and bolster pillow info, here.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend!

Kitsch Krafts