Big room sized boxes

I was talking to my daughter a couple of days ago.  Rather, I was complaining about how difficult it is for me to get myself together.  I was telling her how my life seems to be so out of sinc with what I know and what I used to do.  I was telling her how the shows "Hoarding" and "Hoarding, Buried Alive" haunt me.  Most times I watch the shows and think to myself, how can they live like that?  I count my blessing that I don't have to live in a house with garbage everywhere.  Then I look around my house and I feel like I'm slowly becoming a hoarder and feel powerless to stop it. 

I feel like such a hypocrite for type-talking about all the things I do when I no longer seem to do them or get around to doing anything.  Kind of like when someone once told me.... "don't do as I do, do as I tell you to do".   Well, I don't want to be like that anymore.   If I tell someone the right thing to do, it should be because I've done it, am still doing it, and know it works. 

Reading through all my past blog posts, to create the links pages, I saw many of the organizing stuff I used to do then realized just how out of control my life has become.  Some things I've done in the past, very good things, are not being done because I can't seem to get around to doing them anymore.  Let me explain.

I've always been a very organized person.  Yet, right now my house is not organized and it got that way over and over again no matter how many times I organized it.  I've always lived frugally and know tons of ways to be thrifty.  I find myself spending money on things because I can't find the ones I already own.  I've always been a clean person.  These days I find myself throwing up my hands in frustration because I can't clean without doing something else first, then something else before that, then even something else before that.  So much so that I end up wasting time with crafty things instead.  I've always done DIY crafts of all kinds.  The crafts seem to be only an avoidance of what I really need to get done. 

Those who have been reading my blogs for awhile know how difficult it's been for me to keep my house from being overwhelmed with STUFF.  Time and time again I've cleared out things only to find my house piled up again with bags and boxes of STUFF.  There are times when I get so frustrated trying to have a neat and clean house I want to toss absolutely everything away and start all over with a completely empty house.  But.... you know what?  It would probably just get filled up with STUFF all over again.

While talking with my daughter she asked me to describe what the problem was so she could understand what my frustration was all about.  I started to explain it to her.  Light bulb moment!  DUH!  It finally dawned on me what is really causing the problem.  What I told her was.... "It's hard to organize things into pretty boxes under the bed if there's no bed.  It's really hard to group fabrics into organized dresser drawers when there isn't any dresser.  It's difficult to put craft items into nice containers on a closet shelf when there's no closet shelves.  It's hard to organize a pantry stash of groceries when there's no pantry."  You see my problem?  I do finally.  Duh!  Why did it take me so long to realize this?

It's said that all organizing starts with flat surfaces.  A shelf is a flat surface.  A drawer has a flat bottom surface.  A table is a flat surface.  A box, even one under a bed, has a flat bottom surface.  Well, gee whiz, no wonder I can't seem to get organized.  I only have one flat surface in two of my rooms and that's the floor.  Well no wonder I have bags and boxes piled up all over those rooms.  The rooms are like one big room sized box with one flat bottom.  I guess if you look at it like that, it makes sense that everything is organized in there.  Everything is organized into a bag or a box within the big room sized box.  What I really need is more flat surface dividers within the big room size boxes.  Yup, I need furniture and shelves. 

To be continued.....

Store at the point of use

This might seem like a small obvious thing; but, you would be surprised how many won't have thought of it. Items should be stored as close as possible to the place where it will be used. For example: these slow cooker liners.





What better place to store them than inside the slow cooker? You can't get any closer to the point of use than that.

Now these will always be where I need them. I won't have to go on a seek and find mission in order use them. When I use all of the discontinued liners I bought; hopefully, there will be another brand I can buy. If not I will have to clean the slow cooker the old fashioned way. Baking soda and elbow grease.

Storing favorite recipes

Are yours in books? In a binder?







Or in a file box like mine?

Over the weekend I needed to go to the grocery to pick up a few things to make a meal and get a few groceries for my friend who lost her husband. While there, I happened to walk past a discount table. Wow.... I've wanted these for quite awhile now. I can't resist a 75 percent off price so I bought eight packs.

At home, while cooking the meal, I updated my favorite recipes box. I file everything by main ingredient.

These are recipes I've tried or would like to try. I file by main ingredient so that I can use recipes for items that are on sale. For example: cake. The angel food cakes were on sale last week. By the time I got to the store some were marked down and on the day old table. I bought two. One for the freezer and one to make Angel Lush cake. It's not pretty (kind of sloppy) but oh so heavenly tasting.... fat free, cholesterol free, and mostly sugar free. It's a jello recipe I got from the jello website. Check it out, they have lots of good recipes. I printed the recipe then glued it to a file card.

Every once in awhile I go through my cookbooks looking for new things to try. If I see something that sounds interesting, I make a copy with my computer printer and glue it to a file card. This is much easier than asking myself.... now which book was that recipe in? Sometimes I go to manufacturer websites looking for new recipes. They are always putting new ones on their sites. Sometimes they even offer coupons to try the new recipes.

Using file cards also makes it easy to read the recipe while mixing and cooking. It's much easier than trying to find a place for a book on a tiny counter top along with the ingredients and the bowls etc. Here you can see how I've used the bottom portion of a freezer bag to make a file card holder. It's taped to my cabinet door at eye level.

There is another advantage to having my favorite recipes on file cards. Say for example I'm going on an unplanned trip to the grocery. I've not had the time to make out my grocery list. I can quickly pull out file cards for the recipes I planned for this week and take them to the store with me. I can use these to be sure I buy all the ingredients. This is much easier than carrying cookbooks with me.

Stabilizers by the bolt

I buy interfacing by the bolt. I buy it this way because it's a time saver for me. I make custom made t-shirt quilts a lot. It was a hassle for me to catch a bus to buy a few yards at a time each time I had a t-shirt quilt to start. Bus rides are very time consuming. It's also hard to carry heavy bags of fabrics a couple of blocks to the bus stop.


I always remove the interfacing from the store cardboard and refold it my way. The refolding takes a little time now but saves time later. It's folded ready to cut into strips whenever I need it. The new folded size will also saves space in my storage room.

I sometimes get sheets from customers to use as the back of their quilts. I save the plastic sleeve and the inner cardboard but I throw away the advertisement part.


I roll my refolded stabilizer onto the cardboard like this. Then I remove the information from the bolt end and tape it to a bit of string then to this cardboard. This helps me to know exactly what I need to know about this particular brand and weight. It also gives me the information about which one may be running out. If I am down to a yard or two, its time to buy more.


I then place the stabilizer into the plastic sleeve to keep it dust free until I'm ready to use it. Here are the ones I have right now.

Hastle free design wall

For a long time it has bothered me that I didn't have enough wall space for several design walls. I was constantly putting a quilt on the design wall to work for awhile, remove it to work on the table awhile, put it back onto the design wall to view at a distance, and repeat the process.

Then there would be the times when I would be working on a secret quilt gift. The person who shouldn't see it would call to say they were on the way over. I would have to scramble to remove the pieces from the wall and put it away in a drawer. Sometimes loosing small pieces in the process.

Or I would be working on one quilt design when for whatever reason my creative thoughts would hit a snag. I would take the quilt off the wall, put it away in a drawer, pull out another from a different drawer to put up and work on a while.

I've finally hit upon a much better solution. I'm so excited!! Here is what I did. I knew my brother owed me a small sum of money. So I asked him.... instead of paying me back would he give me some of the insulation boards he had? I asked for 3 boards cut in half to make them 4 x 4 foot pieces. So here they are.


I could have used them this way but I decided to do something a little nicer. I wanted them to have 'grip' to them when I put pieces on there and to look pretty. I could have spent money on flannel but that isn't in my budget. So...I pulled out some of my recycled batting to use. (Sorry about the dark picture, I don't know what happened.)


Since I was here by myself I had to rely on pins for extra hands. I pinned all around the outside of the board. Yes, I could have used some spray baste but I find it hard to breath around that stuff.

I really gave the batting a good tug to make it snug; just not so much that it made the insulation board buckle. Yup, Quilter's Dream is strong enough for tugging. I also removed the thin plastic sheeting that had the blue writing. I didn't want my design wall to be an advertisement for that company. I would if they paid me for advertising space.


When I had the front all snug and pinned, I could turn it over without loosing the tension on it. Then I cut out the corners and wrapped the edges around. Also pulling it snug and pinning.


Then I went looking for a way to hold it to the backside. I decided I would use what I had. This turned out to be clear sealing tape. I had a couple of rolls of it for sealing boxes ready for ups. I taped the batting along the edge on the back side.



OK, that done, I needed a way to hang them. I went looking for something I possibly already had around the house. I first came across some old grommets. These were from when I had planned to make my own shower curtains. I thought.....how neat, I can use them to make the boards really fancy. But then....I found some binder clips and a couple of long nails. Well, not quite as fancy but still workable.

I knew I needed the binder clips to be in the same position on all of the boards so I marked a guide line.


Then I put the binder clips on in the same position for all of the boards.


Now it was time to take down the old design wall. This is the before. As you can see, I'm using a lamp for light. My overhead lights are not working anymore and the electrician hasn't gotten to me yet.


Golly, I really had that design wall stuck up there to stay. It had nails all around the outside plus this tape underneath. I can't imagine why I thought a lightweight piece of foam needed so much strength to hold it up.



Oakie doakie, the old wall down, a new wall goes up.


YEA!! Now I can work on any quilt, at any time. There will be no need to worry about taking it off the wall when I want to work on the table. No worries about last minute phone calls from someone who is supposed to be surprised. In a matter of seconds; I can take one wall down and put another one up. Multiple design walls without having the actual wall space. Storing the walls in another room is do able too. Easy to take one out, easy to put one away.

The really neat thing is that I didn't have to pay for any of it. I traded or looked around the house for what I had that I could use. If I hadn't been able to get the foam board I probably could have used plain cardboard boxes cut open and taped together. I get plenty of cardboard boxes. At least two each time I place an order for batting.

Not only will this idea save space, it will also save time. What would have in the past taken several minutes to change can now be done in only seconds.