Craft Room Organizer

The last frontier in my craft room ~ the back of the door.  I thought I had used every inch of space I possibly could in this small storage room that I took over for my craft room when we moved from Long Island to Ohio 3 1/2 years ago.  Well, now I have! 

I purchased a canvas shoe organizer with 24 pockets (Amazon.com). 

I have loved seeing these pocket organizers, that look like shoe organizers, from fellow bloggers.  You can see these, and a few others, on my Pinterest board, Craft Sewing Rooms.

The Feathered Nest

No link to source

My Desert Cottage

Sweet Remembrance on Flickr

Cottage Dreams

Andrea Tarling on Flickr

I decided to go the lazy way by using the shoe organizer for my base and embellishing it to get the same look as my inspiration pictures above.  I pulled together different trims, laces, napkins, handkerchiefs, fabric scraps, etc., and laid them out on the pockets to see how I wanted them.

Then I just used hot glue to adhere the different embellishments to the pockets or along the sections of the organizer.

I will continue to embellish this as time goes on and I find pieces of trim, fabric and lace that I like and think will look pretty on this organizer.

Meanwhile, for ease of labeling to know what is in each pocket, I used some plain tags I had and an alphabet stamp set for labeling each pocket.  I’ll continue to do that as I decide what I want to put in each pocket.

I also used some decorative clothes pins I had in my supplies to clip the tags (tied with string) to the pocket. 

I hope to use this organizer for all those little things I pick up at the craft store that I just don’t have a spot for in the drawers.  Plus, I don’t want them to get lost by me just sticking them in a random drawer. 

This will help me to keep things organized.  And in a pretty way!

Now to get the second half done!  I’ll share this again once I have the whole thing done.

Adding To The Bunny Collection

Like I need more bunnies! I just couldn’t resist my two newest additions.  I was in our local Home Goods/TJ Maxx the other night and saw this bunny spoon rest.

You would think I do a lot of home cooking that requires lots of stirring, as I now have four spoon rests.

The leaves pictured on the handle also come over each side, too.

My second find were these cute little salt and pepper shakers from Cracker Barrel.

These little guys were $.99 each so I had to get them.  They will take up residence in my whites cabinet when not in use.

Finally, I thought I’d share some of the other bunnies and Easter décor I got out.  This is in the living room. 

I also found (online) a few weeks ago these faux chocolate bunnies.  I added them to my dining room buffet.  The yellow eyes are a bit creepy, but they do have the real chocolate bunnies with yellow eyes.

I fell in love with these faux chocolate bunnies when I found this one at an antique store a couple of years ago.

I like this ones eyes a lot better.

More bunnies added to the collection!  Some will stay out all year long, while others I put away; and then I enjoy them more when they come out for a visit. 

Saving A Towel Fail

I had an order for a couple of tea towels using a bunny image last week.  This one:

Sometimes, even when you use “the best” transfer paper, the image doesn’t always transfer well.  That was the case with this particular towel.  I got my towel order done properly and sent off, but I hate having to throw away the fails.  This one wasn’t too bad and I thought I might try to dress it up a bit and keep it for myself.

I decided to use a sample fabric I have had for some time in my fabric stash as the ruffle, rather than doing the usual Osnaberg ruffle I add to my tea towels.  As a point of interest – I sew a line near the bottom of the ruffle, so that any fraying will stop at that point.  I do this on the Osnaberg ruffles especially, because Osnaberg is prone to fraying. 

This fabric has a pretty faded look to it. 

Here it is hanging on my stove (just for decoration).  Although the image didn’t totally transfer the way it should have, it still makes for a pretty tea towel to use for my Spring and Easter decorating. 

Since I love bunnies, and have so many out all through the year, I will probably pull this towel out to display all year long, too.

So glad I was able to (somewhat) save this towel fail!

Along the same ruffle lines, I had made up this towel with what looks to be an old ad for toile fabric.  

I just had to add some toile in, so this towel has a double ruffle of a black and white toile, as well as a little bit longer Osnaberg ruffle.  This is currently in my Etsy.

Master Bedroom Reveal

I am so pleased to show you the reveal of our master bedroom with its new paint job.  Let me just say, I love, love, love the color we chose for the walls!  It is SW Relaxed Khaki (color matched : Lowe’s Valspar Reserve paint).  It is still neutral but a little darker than the beige that was originally on the walls.  Here is a “before” picture.

I think the coloring of the bed frame and the Duck Egg color of the furniture really “pops” off this color, as well as the gold in the frames. 

Everything was hung back up on the walls pretty much where it was prior to painting except for my Hotel de Paris sign.  I decided not to put the Ballard Design copycat shadowboxes I made back up over the bed and moved the Hotel de Paris sign down more.  I like it much better this way!  I will use the shadow box pictures elsewhere.

All the trim and the doors got a fresh coat of white paint as well, and I really love the “classic” look of the wall color with the white trim.

I’m glad we got to give this room a much needed fresh coat of paint.  It doesn’t look like much of a difference in the pictures, but in person it is a “just right” difference. 

Pillow Cover For A Friend & Daffodils

The two items in my title have nothing whatsoever to do with each other.  I just wanted to throw my daffodil picture in, because I did buy a couple of pots at the grocery store and they really were a nice little mood lifter.

I made up a pillow cover for a friend at work.  I have this image on my computer at work as the background wallpaper.

It is from Lang and I bought one of their calendars for 2015 so you get access to some computer wallpapers for each month.  My friend at work loved this image and mentioned how nice a pillow would look with it.  Several times.  So, I did what any pressured person would do ~ I caved and made her a pillow cover. 

I printed it onto iron on transfer paper and used Osnaberg fabric for the image.  I used a brown burlap Damask for the back and did an envelope closure.  You can see a really nice tutorial for that type of pillow back here at Kate’s Place.

My friend also loves burlap so this tied the two in nicely.

I had just enough of this trim in my stash to go around the image.  The room she wants to use the pillow in has blue and brown.

I enjoyed sewing this up for my friend and she was thrilled to get it.  She was showing it off to everyone at work and wouldn’t let it leave her sight (in case someone decided to make off with it!).