Discovering 2014: Embroidery Floss Wrapped Cord

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today's project was an Embroidery Floss Wrapped Cord. This is exactly how it sounds... you wrap embroidery floss around a cord! Silly me chose a cord that's 6.5' long, so I've gone through one skein of floss thus far, though that hasn't quite reached the halfway point. This can definitely be time consuming!

Keep a clip of some sort on hand in case you need to set it down, then you shouldn't lose your place. To start the wrap I held down the starter and began wrapping the cord around that.

Discovering 2014: Plastic Bag Dispenser

Today's project was a Plastic Bag Dispenser, though it would be more accurately titled "Self-Dispensing Plastic Bags." I used the bag rolling technique shown on the Tater Tots and Jello blog. Unlike their blog post, I didn't have a container available to put them in, but considering how well the rolling technique worked I'll be saving one to toss the bags into in the future!

It's pretty simple: lay the bags flat, fold in half length-wise, first one with the handle sticking out. You then roll the bags one-by-one in a line, with their overlapped handles on the end of the previous bag. The Tater Tots and Jello post shows each step in detail.

My bags weren't rolled as neatly, but that will take some practice and patience.

My husband was very dubious that it would work, so I pulled a bag out and...

There's bag number two, waiting to be dispensed!

Tomorrow's project is a Bottlecap Hair Bow!

Discovering 2014: Fabric Covered Tin Cans

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today's project was Fabric Covered Tin Cans. It was supposed to be a Confetti Bowl, but I didn't have all the supplies like I thought I did, so I swapped the two days. Hopefully I can obtain the appropriate supplies this evening!

The tin can project is quite simple. Wash out some tin cans (I only used cans without a sharp inside lip), size your fabric scraps to fit around them, then apply Mod Podge with a foam brush on the exterior of the can while slowly wrapping the fabric around. You can paint the can beforehand if you want to make it stand out more.

That's all there is to it! Use them to store whatever floats your fancy. :)

Embroidery Floss Organization

After I had decided on doing embroidery floss projects while I'm traveling, I checked out Pinterest for interesting patterns, but sadly didn't find many. What I did find was a cool idea for organizing embroidery floss that didn't use the typical tiny cardboard cards, but instead uses clothes pins.

While searching through Amazon I saw doll clothespins and decided to give the idea a whirl. It was simple enough to do:

Craft Room Organization, Part Two

Did you miss Part One of my craft room organization? Be sure to check it out here!

My crafting storage needs have expanded a lot over the course of the past year. Not only does my bead collection continue to grow, but with me adding in other projects such as hair clips and activity boxes, I seem to acquire more and more varying items every day.

More IKEA Organizers
While looking around for some storage ideas on Pinterest the night before my last IKEA trip (it's a 4-hour drive downstate to the closest one, so you make sure it is worth the time!), I saw a few rooms that used magnetic boards and pails hanging on rails. I cross-checked them on IKEA's site and figured out which would be best suited for my corner of a room.

In the end I settled on a Spontan magentic board paired with Grundtal containers. The board is just large enough to evenly fit 21 of those containers, which is seven packs of them (they come in packs of three). These containers hold a respectable amount in them! I fit every single one of my embellishments for hair clips and bottlecaps, and even extra buttons and some other assorted items inside of the containers.

Next I looked into the Bygel rails and containers, and even decided on a basket and a couple packs of S-hooks while I was at the store. The smaller rails (21 3/4") were all that would fit into my area, but I was able to get three of them squeezed in. Color selection for the containers was lacking at my state's IKEA: there was only red, pink, and purple, while I was hoping for black and/or white. I ended up settling on the purple, which did does look quite nice in the room. The containers are holding various longer items such as my bottlecap hole puncher, beading tools, Sharpies, Exacto knife, epoxy, and more.


I wasn't sure what I'd use the basket or S-hooks for when I bought them, but they ended up being a handy spot for some hole punches, countertop samples, and mandrel. These were items previously crammed into a box thrown on a shelf, so it's nice to finally have them out in the open!


Bead Tamers.. errr... Containers!
I mentioned in my first room organization post that I obtained my Crop in Style containers (rolling bead holder) from Jo-Ann Fabrics. Over the years I eventually ended up with two of them, after being patient and waiting for them to be at least 50% off with free shipping. They're still pricey even at that point, but are well worth it, especially if you work on your beading during craft shows.

I also picked up a few more smaller bead cases from Michaels last year. These include a seed bead holder (with twist-top tubes inside), a holder dedicated to my pony beads, and a holder with all my random beads from the three Mr. Kitty's Bead Bonaza mixes I've purchased. No joke on the Mr. Kitty's mixes--it's an actual item you can buy on Amazon (though I doubt a cat is involved, but you never know with our feline overlords), and it's a blast finding out what you get each time. Usually there's even one small length of ribbon or elastic (about a yard?) or some such in it. The first ribbon I ever used to make a hair clip came from one of these mixes.

Ah, I'm rambling. Here, enjoy a few more pictures of my beading collection before I move on!

Everything Else..?
This isn't *quite* everything else, but I doubt the world is interested in what I have in every nook and cranny. Heck, I forgot to take a picture of the basket holding my massive artificial flower collection that's awaiting being transformed into hair clips.

I've picked up random containers from all over, really. Three things appeal to me: price, look, and usefulness. If I think it meets all of those qualifications, then it's likely coming home with me. Thanks for reading through my crazy craft room organization project!

All things Michaels: Wicker basket: part of a 3-pack of baskets. The blue glass jars were part of Michaels 2013 summer collection and I nabbed them on clearance. The silver tin held flower petals (which are on the bottom row of my magnetic board now) that were on clearance as well.

Closetmaid Mini Fabric Drawers
(2 pack) from Target. 
They hold a LOT of tins!

$1 apothecary jars from Michaels.

Craft Room Organization, Part One

Check out part two of my craft room organization, featuring the rails, magnetic board, and beading storage!

In June of 2012 we moved into our current home. Before that, my "craft room" was my bedroom--I had everything stacked into a corner and just pulled things onto the bed or over to my computer desk whenever I wanted to work on something. Moving into a much larger home that actually has a spare bedroom is still an amazing concept to me.

This spare bedroom isn't just for my crafts; we also use it for a workout room, and my husband stores most of his supplies (molds, dyes, and scents mostly) for making soaps here. What takes up the most space is the large, empty space we need to leave for working out! That meant that while I was organizing I needed to condense as many of my craft supplies as possible into one corner of the room. Eventually this became a matter of building up, not out.

The desk I've owned since I was a teenager. It's survived several moves now, though the chair had to be reupholstered a couple of years back. The shelving runs from the window casing on the right side of the above photo, all the way across the wall until it meets the closet, which is a ways off from the left-hand side of the photo. Those shelves are lumber that my husband cut to size and stained ebony, with scrollwork brackets from the Home Depot--looks great, doesn't it?

The four white furniture organizer units (the corner ones on the desk are two stacked) are part of the Recollection collection from Michaels. I did recently see that a couple of those pieces are being clearanced in my local store, so it's possible that they're phasing these out. The Crop in Style container is a rolling bead holder that I got from Jo-Ann (x2... I waited until 50% off sales to get these, they're pricey but awesome). In-between my two rolling bead holders are a few smaller bead organizers from Michaels.

Everything else I think I have close-up pictures of! I have so many that I'm going to break this up into at least a couple of posts.

Ribbons, Ribbons, and More Ribbons

This ribbon holder is a DIY upcycle from my husband. It used be a cheap three-self bookcase from Target. We've had it for about 11+ years, since my oldest first owned it. Its most recent owner was my daughter, and the flimsy back on the shelf finally gave out. Never fear about her books losing a home--her bedroom in our new house has built-in wall shelving that I'm very jealous of!

Basically what my husband did was reinforce the case with L-brackets, used the two shelves to reinforce the backside of the case, then drilled three holes into either side for the dowels. He got three wooden dowels (I believe they're 1/2" and 3/4" thickness, we chose them based on what the ribbons would fit on without bowing it from weight) and glued a cap to the left side of the dowels. The dowels (that you see sticking out of the right side) can be slid to the left to allow me to add more ribbon on. Because I did decide to set my very heavy bead organizers on this case, the top started to bow, but the husband is taking care of that today by adding a cross-brace (and I moved the bead cases off for now).

Pictured to the right are a couple of my DIY custom storage containers. I went a bit crazy buying clearance and the new Halloween holiday ribbon at Michaels (bottom box), then took a trip downstate and visited a Hobby Lobby that had a 50% off ribbon sale (top box), so I needed some overflow storage. The upside is, I know I'll be using all of this soon enough!


Photo Boxes and Korkers

I've been making more korker ribbon as the temperature allows (I'm not going to use the oven in 90 degree heat!). On one of my recent trips to Michaels I found some large, nice looking Recollections photo boxes that were on sale for $2 each. I used a couple of them for photos (went from 7-8 photo albums down to using only half each of the two boxes, those things hold so much!) and the other three are for my craft room.

One box that is not pictured here I designated for overflow items such as manuals or excess stock (like extra popsicle sticks I got when they were on clearance). The second box holds my korkers, including a couple of metal tins that I'm holding scrap korker and finished korker earrings in. Finally, in my third box, are the stamps, ink, and embossing powder. Those are new additions for me that I haven't used too much yet.

For my korkers-in-the-making, I've been using a woven basket that my mother-in-law gave me. It's the smallest in a set of three nesting baskets.

Storage Containers
One of the other things I've added are more clear storage containers. These are mainly IKEA's Pruta food container set (you get 17 of these for $4.99) and the Glis boxes (three for $2.99--I bought three packs of these, gave my kids the tinted ones and kept the white ones). Being able to see at a glance where a lot of my things are is very helpful!

Check out part two of my craft room organization, featuring the rails, magnetic board, and beading storage!

Thrifty Thursday: Activity Boxes

One of my newer projects this year has been Activity Boxes. These boxes are actually repurposed tin containers; in my case, I use Altoid tins when my husband is done with them, but any tin container should work well, depending on what purpose you want it to serve. The containers can be used to make travel games (pick up a set of magnets and you can make tic-tac-toe!), a portable drawing station, or simply just a fun way to hold some crafts or other small belongings.

Supplies:

• Tin container (empty and rinsed out). Mints are usually a good source of these. Since this is being re-purposed, $0 cost.
• Acrylic paint. I picked up some $0.99-$1.19 bottles from Michaels, various brands.
• Foam brushes or paint brushes. One for each color you're using; an extra one for Mod Podge if you're using that as well. A value pack of the small foam brushes runs about $5 and should be 8-10 brushes.
• (optional) Mod Podge. I use this not only for the finished appearance it gives the boxes, but also as a bit of extra protection from the paint being scraped off too easily. A large bottle is $11-$12, but many craft stores frequently offer 50% off coupons and that's a great time to buy this item.
• (optional) Foamie stickers. These tins usually will have raised lettering on them, so this is a fun way to hide as much of that as you can. The large value packs have a variety of many stickers and are often on sale at Michaels ($5-$7 typically). One or two value packs would likely decorate hundreds of tins.
• Whatever items you want to use inside! Crayons, golf pencils, magnets, paper, scrap cardstock, etc. Cost varies.

Altogether you can anticipate spending under $25, as long as you already have empty tins on hand and depending how many paint colors you get and what extras you pick up to fill them with (if anything). The cost isn't solely for one tin... each paint will cover around 5-10 tins, the Mod Podge can easily do 100 tins (if it's not being used for any other projects), the stickers can be used on 100+ tins, and the brushes are re-useable (though foam ones will eventually break down from heavy use). If you or someone you know goes through a lot of candy tins (like my husband--he buys Altoids in bulk from Sams), you can be making these for months off of one shopping trip!

With these tins you can simply paint the lid, but if you want to completely transform it, you can also paint the bottom and even inside. If you are painting the bottom I highly recommend pulling the lid apart and painting them separately. Before putting them back together, allow the two pieces to dry an extra 12-24 hours. You may need a small flathead screwdriver to push the tin hinges back into place after fitting the top and bottom back together.

This project is pretty straight-forward. Choose your color(s) of acrylic paint, grab a foam brush (I prefer foam) or paint brush and smooth on your first coat. Make sure you get the edges, but be careful not to apply it to the hinges or slop over onto the bottom if you didn't pull the top and bottom apart. Allow it to fully dry.. depending on how much was used it can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes to get a good dry in, if not longer. If you want to ensure it's really dry all over, give several hours between coats. I've taken to getting many foam brushes and rinsing them out between applications, then using a different dry brush once the paint coat is dry. The wet brushes I dry in front of a fan or over a furnace grate, depending on the season.

Not all colors are created equal: as seen in my picture below, both of my paints are the same brand, but the orange is clearly thinner than the pink. By the end of this project I ended up having to use 2-3 extra coats of orange to get the coverage I wanted. Sometimes mixing in a dab of similar paint that you know applies thicker will help (which I eventually did on my orange tin).

Start adding in your second and third coats. Ensure nice, even coverage. If previous coats have tiny spots that seem to not get covered well, it means it needs to dry longer. Come back to it later in the day or let it set overnight.

By this point the pink tin had its third coat, and aside from a few minor touch-ups, it was ready to be finished. The orange was on its fourth coat, which was the first coat that I mixed in a drop of peach that I had to it.

One you feel the paint is at a nice thickness (all metal covered, no tin color bleeding through, non-raised lettering obscured) let it dry for 12-24 hours.

Once the tin has been allowed to dry its final coat (preferably overnight), you have the option of jazzing it up a bit.

Michaels had a sale on their "foamie" stickers a while back and I picked up a couple value packs, which were $5 each on sale. These had a nice variety to choose from and I have a gallon zip-lock bag full of the stickers even after splitting them with my kids. Before removing the adhesive back, lay out the stickers until you're happy with their placement. I try to obscure as much of the raised "Altoids" as possible on mine, and on later tins started adding stickers on the inside of the lid as well. Once you're happy with their placement, remove the backs and carefully stick them to the tin. If you place it should be okay to unstick and re-stick them, just do it slowly.


Once your stickers are in place you can kick it up another notch and give it a nice finish. This is where I use my Mod Podge (I use a matte finish, but whichever you like should work fine). The bottle I got with a 50% off coupon at Michaels, costing me only $6, and is large enough that I will be using it for many, many months. A foam brush works best with Mod Podge, so grab one and smooth it on the lid. If you separated the lid and bottom to paint both, keep them separated while using the Mod Podge on both. Try to keep it out of the hinge area, but if some gets in there carefully remove it with fingernails or toothpicks.

Here are both of my tins with wet Mod Podge on them still. It dries clear and gives an awesome finish. If you used the foamie stickers you'll notice that, like above, it collects around the stickers. You can fix it with the foam brush by simply pushing it out from the edges, or grab a smaller paint brush and brush it out that way. If you don't mind the excess there, just keep it and let it dry for a more natural and handcrafted look.

Once everything is fully dried and your tin reassembled, you have a cool activity box! They make great gifts for when your kids want to go to a last minute birthday party, can occupy time on a road trip, or help with organizing your smaller items. Whatever you use them for--enjoy the savings!

Some finalized tins. The dinosaur tin on the left I allowed the Mod Podge to dry more thickly, and also painted the bottom section a different color. On the right I incorporated some glossy magazine pages; the middle tin is a hybrid of the paint and page styles, while the tin on the right only had the page Mod Podged onto it.

Thrifty Thursday: DIY Custom Storage Containers

The first craft show of the year has been racing up on me, and the closer the date got, the more concerned I became about how I was going to display my wares. This year I've added several new things to my normal goods: hair clips, activity boxes, soaps, pendants, ear cuffs, and more. I considered heading out to Michaels and dropping the money on wicker baskets when I remembered a small project I had done a few months ago: covering an old shoe box with wrapping paper and using it for storing my korker ribbons.

My new goal was to now make many nice looking boxes for my wares. I didn't think to take pictures of making these until the other day when I made the final two (for now!). It's a really simple project that most likely just uses things you have around the house, and is a great way to upcycle empty cardboard boxes.

The last two boxes I made started like this:

And ended like this:

Yup, it was a two-for-one deal with this! I did have to do some clever taping to make the second box have four sides after cutting off the first tiny box, but in the end it worked.

Unrelated side note: Since it happens to be the box I used in the picture, Splat hair dye really doesn't work well. I followed the directions exactly and my hair came out pink and blonde (I'm normally a brunette; you have to bleach it first which was the only part that worked well). The front section was purple for a while, but after a week it is already fading to pink. If you want crazy colored hair I'd recommend going to a professional or simply looking into hair chalking.

Sorry for the derail! On to making the containers.

Supply List:

• Cardboard Box--whatever size or shape you want. Shoeboxes and lids can make two separate containers. The bottoms of cereal or pasta boxes would work great. If you can envision it having a use, it's perfect.
• Mod Podge, Scotch Tape, and/or Mailing Tape. Use one, two, or all three depending on how you want it to look (or what you have around at the time).
• Wrapping Paper or Scrapbook Paper. Newspaper or magazine pages would probably work as well! The wrapping paper I used here is reversible holiday wrapping paper I picked up last December at Sams Club.
• Scissors.
• (optional) Measuring Tape (preferably a cloth one to reliably measure around edges).

Now that you have everything, trim your box to whatever size you need. If you have a pasta box you want to use in a cubby, then make sure it isn't too tall, and so on. Some boxes may need flaps trimmed off. Others may not need any alterations and are perfect as-is!

After getting my box sized, I check to see if any parts need stability or are coming loose. These I like to use mailing tape on since it will make the box more rigid overall. Since this one happened to be so tiny I covered most of it in mailing tape. Bigger and thicker boxes likely won't need any stability unless something is loose.

Now you'll want to measure (or eyeball) how much of your paper you'll need. Ideally, you want two strips that will wrap around the box horizontally and vertically. Using cloth measuring tape makes this part a lot easier since you can wrap it all the way around to get the length and push it down inside to get an exact width.

Before I start wrapping my two strips around the box I like to put smaller scrap strips on the corners. This isn't necessary but I like for my boxes to have as much coverage as possible! These I always use Scotch Tape for since the taped parts are rarely visible.

It's time to get the strips on. Since I find it impossible to ever cut a straight line, I like to make sure my strips will fit, and size them (and trim if necessary) before adhering them.

The next part varies depending if you're using Mod Podge or tape to adhere the strips. If you're using tape, keep the first strip in the box and secure it on all the way around, then add your second strip going the other way and do the same. If you're gluing, pull the first strip out, add Mod Podge to the inside (not too much, you don't want bubbles), smooth your strip on.

Then add Mod Podge to the outside and smooth your strip around the sides and bottom. Rinse repeat for the second strip. To ensure that it will hold well you may want to lightly add some Mod Podge to the bottom and seams.

Let the Mod Podge dry and you have a new custom made storage container! I've done these using only tape, only Mod Podge, and combinations of the two. The ones using Mod Podge come out the nicest in appearance, but all of them are equally functional and stylish. Here's one I did using mailing tape, Scotch tape, and some oversized scrapbook paper from a value pack:

The split in the middle is to accommodate a divider I added in. It's not the prettiest box on the block but it holds quite a bit and displays my hair clips exactly how I wanted.

Be creative and have fun with this! You'll never have to spend $10+ on a in-store basket again.