Organizing and Sewing Fun

We've had a busy, yet relaxing, weekend here. Yesterday I got a lot of cleaning and organizing done! I just love that :) I heard a couple of quotes recently that I've been mulling over: "Flat surfaces should be clear" by Peter Walsh and the old favorite "A place for everything and everything in it's place!" First of all, flat surfaces in this house are commonly piled up with stuff! I keep telling myself that flat surfaces (like desks, countertops, and FLOORS) should not be covered with stuff. That stuff should have a home. Finding the right home for it is the problem.

So yesterday I started out with Daniel's toy area. Since Christmas it has been overrun. He can't get to most of his toys or find the ones he likes. I was more than tired of the mess! So I got a couple of rubbermaid containers and filled them with little used or too young for him toys. I took these upstairs. In a few months, I can switch them out and they will be like new toys to him. :) I also took the toy kitchen upstairs for awhile. I was able to reorganize his toy bins and we moved his toy box out filled with his big trucks. Now most of his big trucks have a home and he can easily see his legos, puzzles, and smaller trucks and trains that he likes to play with. I didn't take a picture of the area, but I'll tell you, I just smile when I look at it now! It's no longer a cluttered mess. It makes my heart happy. (I hope my MIL is reading this - that's something she says a lot :) )

My cedar closet has also been an absolute mess! And since Christmas, with all the new games and puzzles, it has gotten even worse. My shelves were overflowing and the floor was getting completely covered. I wanted to clean it up, but I was frustrated. I just couldn't find a home for everything! I wanted it all to belong in the closet, but it just didn't. Finally, I had a "lightbulb moment" :) Ya gotta love those! I looked on top of our homeschool bookshelves (just around the corner from my cedar closet) and saw that they had random stuff on top - nothing really necessary. Those things were not where they belonged. So I took the majority of the games out of the cedar closet and moved them to the tops of the bookshelves. It will make it a little trickier when the kids want to play a game, but it will be worth it!

We have a room that all our bedrooms enter off from. This room has been another spot that drives me nuts. I keep a dresser there with our sheets in it. On top is the gerbil cage. We have another smaller dresser in that space too - one that Daniel grew out of and has also been filled with sheets recently. I had another "lightbulb moment." I decided to go through the drawers and move a stack of sheets and baby blankets that we don't use regularly upstairs. Too often I think I keep things just in case - but they just get in the way and make life more difficult to navigate. I moved the larger dresser into the cedar closet. I moved the gerbils onto the smaller dresser (for lack of another place to put them.) This worked out so well! Now it feels so open leading into our rooms (and hopefully will help the heat from the woodstove make its way into our rooms better too!) Now whenever I walk by the cedar closet, my heart smiles :)

the cedar closet after

(I don't have before pics,

but use your imagination -

I'm sure you can figure it out lol)

I've also been doing some sewing. I found this awesome tutorial for pillowcases and so I made pillowcases for Eme, Abby, Daniel, Justin, and Cole (my nephews.) I ended up making another for Daniel today. Unfortunately we lost our Christmas pics, so I don't have pictures of them all. But here is the one I made for Daniel today and one for Abby.

And here is a blanket I made for Livy for Christmas

This morning I found this tutorial and decided to see if the girls wanted to make some headbands. They were excited and picked out their fabric and braided it. Here they are modeling them :)

Last night I had some friends over. One of which is a Stampin' Up Consultant. Wow have they come a long ways! We had a lot of fun making cards and plan to get together to craft more often!

love, love, love the sewing themed stamps, paper, AND fabric!

Abby made a card too. Next time we promised we'd do cards with all the kids first.

We've been keeping busy! Hopefully I can find time to update more often :)