The Basement Hoard, 2 Years Later

It’s been 2 years since I shared photos of my messy basement and talked about all of my plans. The good news is that some of those plans have worked out. My husband does have his nerd cave set up and often has friends over to play Magic the Gathering and my craft room is set up and staying fairly organized!We have divided the basement space into three separate areas using giant shelves as walls. The far end is the nerd cave, the center area has been stacks of boxes and totes (all my stuff) and the other area is laundry land. This weekend I decided to start working on the center area. We want to set it up to be our paper craft/collage making area. We have an old school paper cutter (the kind you can chop fingers off with), some library card catalog files, file sorting shelves, and a drafting table waiting to be set up.
I made a ton of progress! However it doesn’t look like it (forgot to take a before photo). I labeled some of the piles to give you an idea of what all is down here. Once I get things more situated all of the holiday stuff will be put into a small storage room at the back of the basement. Right now that room is filled with chairs and bags (and bags) of fabric. Baby stuff will be eliminated. A lot of the totes will be emptied, they are full of clothing that needs to be sorted, sold, and donated. Personal memorabilia (photos, cards, and knick knacks) will be relocated to the up-upstairs. I have learned a lot:
1.  I seem to have some sort of obsession with glass jars/bottles and tins of all kinds.
2.  We are not minimalist, we like stuff and we like to display it all on shelves and tacked to the walls.
3.  I have a lot of fabric! (no really, A LOT)
4.  When the zombie apocalypse hits we will have enough supplies to survive (now we need to start stocking up on food).
Once we get this area cleaned up and set up I’ll share more photos.

Stuffed Animal Storage

Before I tell you about the fabulous “pet nets” that I made I have to announce that obviously I found the drill! I spent all day trying to remember where I had used it last and finally I remembered that I had put a can crusher in the laundry room. Once I knew the area to search I quickly found it, it was behind the washing machine. I guess a rigorous spin cycle had vibrated it off the back. Crazy, right?

Okay, back to the stuffed animals. If you have kids you have stuffed animals, it’s like these things multiply overnight. I swear I don’t even know where these stuffies came from. I also threw out a large bag full when our basement flooded and we still have a ton of them. I needed storage for the most beloved of the animals and so I was super excited to find this crocheted toy net pattern.This was a great project for using up some super scratchy vintage acrylic yarn. The pattern was easy and turned out perfectly, all those dc’s (double crochets) got a bit monotonous, but it was worth it. I think that I will have to make at least one more for Little Miss, there are stuffies everywhere in her room. I’m excited to have emptied a tote full of animals and used up four skeins of crap yarn, yay success! Now I just need to figure out what to do with the super nice, giant dragon stuffies that Grandguy (that’s what the kids call my FIL) got for both of them, I’m taking suggestions :).

I now have a date with the drill, you know, for those holes I was daydreaming about drilling.

Another Pattern Storage Idea

As you know I have some pattern storage boxes that are specially made for sewing patterns, I have three and my collection of patterns has grown beyond the amount of space they provide.  I have not been able to find more of these pattern boxes and if I remember correctly they were a bit pricey for what is basically a cardboard box with a lid.  Thankfully I have found the perfect solution! and it has been hiding with the office supplies.  I found hanging file portable storage boxes (1/2 size boxes) at OfficeMax.  They come in packs of 6 for around $12.00 and are just slightly larger that the patterns are.The lids just flip up and they are already nice and white just waiting to be embellished.Here you can see how well the patterns fit, they even work for some of my larger Vogue patterns.  I also have several pattern that have been altered and won’t fit back into their envelopes that are stored in plastic zipper bags and they fit nicely too.

Another great use for these boxes (if you have a few that aren’t holding patterns) is magazine storage.  I save all of my Threads magazines and they stand up nicely in the boxes and I can read the spines to easily find the issue I’m looking for.  They also keep everything dust and cat hair free, a big bonus at my house!

I’m waiting until I get some of the decorating done in my craft room before I decide how to embellish these boxes.  I’m really excited that all of my patterns now have a home and are organized by company and design number, now I just need to make an index.  It’s getting more organized here, one small project at a time.

The Simple Things: An Easy Storage Container

There is a mitten monster on the loose here and apparently he only eats little girl mittens, I think that this year we have lost at least three.  I imagine that the reason he is not around in the summer is because he’s wearing six pairs of sunglasses that have all magically disappeared.  I would like to note that I have been wearing the same sunglasses for the last five years and just recently bought myself a new pair, but I still have my old ones as a spare.

I have found that in order to keep my sanity everything needs to have a “place” to go.  In our new house a lot of things need designated spots to go and once everyone is aware of what spot everything goes we should be able to find what we’re looking for without organizing a search party.

In my desperation for quickly leaving the house I came up with these handy and simple containers to store mittens and sunglasses and other stuff, there will be no more hunting.  If mittens and sunglasses aren’t in the container we won’t be wearing them today!They are simply 2-liter soda bottles with the labels removed, tops cut off (I traced the basic shape using a marker and just cut following the lines), and holes cut for hanging over the doorknobs.  I used a large circle punch to start my holes, but I had to cut them larger with my scissors.I have left these plain for now, but they could be easily dressed up in any number of ways: stickers, paint, markers, ribbon, scrapbook paper.  I’m keeping these simple while we test them, no sense in making them fancy if they aren’t going to be an effective solution.  I am hoping that this new system will make leaving the house quicker and also make my life less stressful.  I have also made one for myself for my sunglasses and coupon organizer.  What are your handy tips for staying sane?, (I need all the help I can get).

Girly Storage

I know I haven’t posted on the great clean up recently, I have kind of slacked off, maintaining has been going well, but I need to start working on new projects again.  This week I have been working on several things to finish my daughters room.  Her room is the only room that has actually been painted, although I have to go back and touch up all the holes from when we had the house insulated last fall.

Today I made two crate covers, I have used this pattern before with cheap fabric, this fabric is much nicer and the results are wonderful!  I have started with two and once we start putting toys away I will decide if I need to make a few more.  Once again I have to say that this pattern is very easy and I used the directions to make these custom to the crates I had on hand.  If you need pretty storage this pattern is definitely the one, I imagine that I will have a house full of these by the time I am finished putting everything away.

This is the Undercover Crate Pattern from Laura Gunn at Paint in my Hair.

My goal is to get all the toys put away and then I should be able to touch up the paint.  Once the painting is done I can hang the new curtains (more on that later) and then I can start looking for some furniture, I need a big girl bed and an armoire since there is no closet in this room, but there is really no rush on the furniture for now. 

Once I’m finished with Little Miss’s room I can start working on Little Sir’s room, he’s been asking when I’ll paint his room, he’s hoping for orange, I’m thinking tan to coordinate with his bedding.

Large Crafty Storage Jars

I am always searching for free or no cost ways to store and organize my giant craft stash and my husband has found a great solution: extra large spice containers from his job (intuitional food service).  He brings home at least one of these a week, I remove the labels and wash them out and fill them up with all my crafty goodness.

They are perfect, rectangular with a built in handle, there is no wasted space!  I was using pickle jars, on the left, but they are round and hard to grab and they take up more space while holding the same amount.  Really the only draw back is that removing the smell from the container is impossible.  Most of them are garlic powder, but I do have a cinnamon and a pepper, I just need to make sure not to store anything in them that will absorb the smell.  I wonder if I made a little bag to hold baking soda or coffee beans if that would absorb the smell.  I’m still working on that idea, I would love to hear your suggestions for removing the smell.

When Will I have Enough Fabric?

That is the million dollar question.  What exactly do I do with all this fabric besides hoard it?  I pet it and love it and make it into to lovely things, that’s what! 

I have a lot of reasons that keep me buying fabric and I don’t think that any 12 step program is going to help that, so what it boils down to is storage.  I need to see what I have so I can sew with it, I also need to be able to find that one piece that I know I have but can’t seem to find.  I searched the internet for “fabric organization” and there are oodles of different techniques.  I opted to fold using a template so that all of my folded fabrics would be the same size and fit into the designated storage cubes.

The instructions I found all used a quilting ruler, but I don’t have one, so I improvised with a cutting mat/ruler that I had.

Step 1:  Lay fabric on flat surface with selvage edge on one side (pictured on the right)  and folded edge on the other (pictured on the left), place your ruler/template on top of fabric near the cut edge.

Step 2:  Fold cut edge over ruler.

Step 3:  Continue wrapping fabric neatly around ruler until you reach the end of the yardage.

  Step 4:  Remove ruler and fold in half. Step 5:  Stack in storage cubes and enjoy the neatness.

Imagine how great this will be when all my fabric is folded and sorted by fiber content and color.  It’s going to take me a long time, but I will be worth it when it’s all done.  I’ll keep you guys posted. 

I am also working to get my craft room fully unpacked and arranged, it’s a total mess now and there are crafting supplies everywhere, but I can’t wait to get it finished, I hope everything fits.

Oh, and the answer to When? is never, I will never have enough fabric, although I am trying to scale it back a bit.