OFFENDING HOME OFFICE: PART 15

Note these posts originally written early in February 2014 and is being posted in sequence every 3-4 days.

I slept until almost 8:30 am today, unusual around here, then it took me twice as long to get showered and dressed than usual, not sure why, just dragging a bit.

Outside 45 mph winds are wailing and I hate wind.  So much so it took me until nearly 11 to go out and release the geese, water them.  The cats had already been out by that time and had voiced their discontent at the wind, quite loudly.

Geese are funny creatures, ours have wintered over in the safety of our large garden area.  It’s a great situation for all concerned, they weed out all the leftovers from last season while fertilizing as they go.  They are also able to get in the middle of the roofed pen with no chance of a predator being able to reach them all winter.  They like that.

They are let out on a daily basis to graze for whatever natural foods they can find, and then tucked back into the pen for safety at night. 

 

Jolie our main herd dog will even herd them into the pen at night if we aren’t home by o’dark and stand guard at the gate until we come to water and close it.  Jo-Jo is always so proud of herself when she does that.  She would be the first to tell you the birds are her responsibility and she takes it serious.  Which is pretty remarkable considering she is a collie/Aussie shepherd mix that is a self taught rescue animal.

Her “sister” Georgia will guard all night, but tends to love her pillow in the sun room next to her heater in the daytime of the winter months.  They are a pretty good team.

When I released the birds they did their usual run with their wings spread wide “flying” as we call it, although they are generally too fat to get their little feathered backsides off the ground.  Not so today, the wind gusts caught those large wings and even the fattest, Whitaker (a Toulouse/Embden Cross—read big bird of about 18 pounds) found himself airborne for several feet.  

The look on their faces was priceless.  Then of course they had to do their goosey boasting of how high they flew and how far.  Crazy birds, strutting around with their chest thrust forward and wings spread to the back to look big and important.

Little Snowball, a white Chinese/Tufted Roman mix of maybe 10 pounds, soon found she needed to keep her wings folded to avoid flying a lot more than she wanted.  Last I saw her she was picking up small rocks, hmmm wonder if she has feathered goose pockets to put them in.

Once the dogs, cats and birds were all fed, watered and accounted for I crept upstairs with great intentions for the day, but soon found myself journaling instead of working.  Every so often I’d get writer’s cramp and get up to do a bit more on the room, but not near the volumes I’ve been doing.   I emptied 3 small boxes, and the four shelves of the wire bookcase.  

With the emptying of them I decided my scrapbook albums would look better and be easier to access on that set of shelves than the shelf I currently had them on. So I undid a sort, so to speak, I had done nearly a year ago to make it more attractive and useful.

Ds has been asking for more space on the wall unit bookshelf for his art books, and moving those albums to the other bookshelf would free up 1 ½ shelves for him. 

It would also allow me to use my Mickey Mouse bookends to where they could be seen with great advantage.  I liked that too. 

I guess I should admit right here that I am a huge Disney fan, as is all my family.  We have something Disney in every room of the house. For guests here it’s kind of like looking for “hidden Mickey’s” at Walt Disney World, the Disney items are here, but some times not super obvious. I generally try to have items that are both useful and decorative.

On our next trip I will be looking for a tabletop paper towel dispenser for my work station here in the craftroom.  I also have plans for some interesting “create” type Disney signs for the room.  Stay tuned for that project.

Back to today’s decluttering. 

That’s something you need to consider when you are decluttering an area, be flexible.  What might have seen like the best possible location for an item, may actually work better somewhere else. 

If for some reason an items doesn’t seem to be comfortable to work with in one location, decide where it would be best for you and then move it, even if the new location doesn’t make absolute sense to others, it is YOUR work area, be comfortable and you will create more.

I went from having the scrapbooks from standing on edge with uneven depths on a high shelf to laying them flat with all the edges even on two smaller shelves.  The over all look and feel was much better. Both my son and I are a little obsessive about continuity, so the uneven edges and his art books being split to three different areas made both of us uncomfortable.  This one small change fixed that for both of us.

The shelf the scrapbooks previously went from over stuffed looking to a neat organization of books.  Since my son's books would be used only occasionally, far less than the scrapbooks, it simply made sense to put them on the higher shelf unit. Especially considering how much taller Sean is than I am.

The rest of the day I did “tidy-up” work.  You know how when you are cleaning you always make an even bigger mess?  Well today I worked on one bookcase/shelves and tidy up.  Tomorrow is another day to do more major cleaning.  

Actually we will probably make a run to recycle and donate tomorrow afternoon. In the morning I’ll probably work on small stuff until Gary gets home from work and we make the run to get rid of stuff.

Jan who feels like she did very little today, but did accomplish one thing as per her goal and it vastly improved the look of the room in OK

OFFENDING HOME OFFICE: PART 14

INTO THE "SNAKE CHARMERS BASKET"  At least that is what db and I called it when we were kids. LOL!

So next I dove into my mother’s sewing basket and what a true treasure trove.  In the very top was a little hand held battery operated sewing machine.  

I’ve not test ran it yet to see if it works. It should work because when I took it out to look at it I discovered it looks like it has never been used.  It has a $3 clearance price sticker on it, so I am guessing Mom picked it up on sale for in the camper and just never used it. 

I’ll test it later when I have batteries available.  I’m thinking if it does it will be a great little tool for doing stitched scrapbook and card layouts.  I do know it does a chain type stitch so I’ll need to make certain I either knot off or put a dab of glue or tape on the ends of any stitching to prevent unraveling.

Just below it in the basket was an old tin like sewing machine tools use to come in.  I almost just set it aside thinking it was the tools for her old Kenmore machine, but then remembered that machine has been long gone and thought I should check to see if there was a tool I could use with my current machine.  

Nope, no tools, but lots of snaps of two types, buttons, hooks and eyes, can you see where this is going? Wow! Anyone who crafts or sews knows those things have gotten rather pricey in the last few years.

Enthused even more about looking in this tall basket I dug deeper.  There I unearthed a small tin that use to hold typewriter ribbon.  Anyone here remember typewriter ribbons?  Watch out you’ll be showing your age.  

It was taped shut and rattled so I gently opened it.  It was full of eyelets in all colors! I am thinking I’ll leave them in the nostalgic tin to put them on my embellishments shelf.

Near it in the basket were two tools, one for setting the eyelets and the gripper snaps and another one for making holes in belts.  I believe it is now sold under the name Gator or something similar.  Both will definitely be handy in crafting.

As I went deeper into the basket the basket got wider.  From the middle section I pulled out a plastic bag full of more buttons!

Numerous packages of rick rack, bias tape, lacy seam tape, and trims.  Xyron 1.5” here we come! These will definitely be turned into trim for projects.

In the very bottom was a large TG&Y sack, shows you how old some of this stuff is. It was full of zippers.  I’ve seen some really cute crafting work done with zippers in the past but considered them too expensive to buy to do it.  Now…

Just as I thought I had found everything of crafting value in this basket I uncovered the curtain rings below.  These I can tell you will eventually end up being used to combine cards like swatch cards or something similar. 

There of course were the usual pin cushions, needles, straight pins, an old pattern for a 1960’s pant dress, a long nosed pair of surgical scissors (my mom was a nurse assistant for years in the burn unit) and spools of thread. 

For the most part I saw nothing to cull out from this treasure trove for the local charity, except maybe the pattern because it definitely wasn’t my size.  I did find plenty to make crafting so much more fun.  

So now I needed to decide what I wanted to leave in the basket, which of course I was going to keep and what I wanted out for easier use.  Then how I was going to store it?

So I started with the easiest. Buttons.  I’ve already established I keep jars of all types, so obviously the buttons were going to go into a jar.  I'll decorate the jar up some to make it more attractive in the future.  Right now I'm all about organization!

Since I had a custom historical clothing sewing business for 15 years I have all sorts of odds and ends of buttons, trims, and such, but they are stored in the basement and elsewhere.  Eventually they will work their way upstairs as I declutter those areas, but for now I will work strictly with what was in my mother’s sewing basket.  I wanted them to be easy to access rather than having to dig through the deep sewing basket each time, because I know me, if I have to dig much I won’t use it.  

Back off to where I have odds and ends baskets I have bought on deep discount sales over the years and simply have sitting around collecting dust.  I found one that was the perfect size immediately.  I already have a matching one for it on my shelf with a few other items that need sorted—later, so I got the empty one.  Remember I am a basically lazy person.

The bindings fit perfectly.

I left all the fasteners in the green attachments box, the eyelets in their little typewriter ribbon tin and added the scissors to my tools caddy, along with the two hole punches and my grandmother’s manicure set and pliers.

I had a basket full of zippers from another source in the room so I added those to the TG&Y sack and replaced it in the bottom of the sewing basket.  On top of that I added all the embroidery transfers from both my grandmother’s embroidery floss box and the Ramen box. 

Put the spools of thread in the top and added the lid.  It all fit perfectly.  Once the room is completed the basket will be set out as a decorative item, while being a useful storage piece as well. 

So in the last two days by re-arranging and culling a wee bit I got rid of three unorganized ugly containers and repurposed several nice looking ones to where they are easily useable.  

I now have so much more to add to my small collection of crafting embellishments from just those two unopened for years sewing kits.  So that leads me to ask, what great things could you find in your sewing items to use in your crafting?

 

Jan who says “onward and upward to more culling in the morrow” in OK

OFFENDING HOME OFFICE: PART 13

This part should be titled “Hidden Treasurers”.  As I spent so many days culling more and more I finally got around to looking through some boxes, baskets and tins that had been stored unopened for years.  I don’t mean 1, 2 or even five years.  I mean years and years.  

I knew what was in them but since I had closed my sewing business I had not really had a need to get into sewing and embroidery storage containers that had belonged to my mother and grandmother, both long deceased.  

However, since I was trying to gain as much space as possible in this room for the three of us to work comfortably I finally opened them and started digging through.  I found so many treasures that I could immediately see uses for not only for actual storage, but for the building of projects once the room was done.  

I also found I could easily create more of some of these items to increase their value potential for storage options.  

We’ll start with the shipping box I knew held my grandmother’s embroidery tools.  My Granny loved to embroider. I wrote about the lovely tea towels she made over the years in my TeaTowel Memories post.  She also did quilts, baby blankets,  bedspreads, tablecloths, satin pillow cases, you name it.  If it could be embroidered she did it.  So I was certain all the box contained was her hoops, a few needles and skeins of floss.  I was wrong. 

Not only were there other sewing tools like thimbles and needle threaders, but there was a little ingenious notebook holding some of her floss.  

It held numerous small plastic zippered bags that could easily be labeled with colors or what have you, they looked like tiny Ziploc freezer bags.  She used it to sort out her threads for different projects.  Most of the bags were empty.

I immediately looked past the floss and at the possibility of a paper crafting uses for it.

The bags were too small for embossing folders or dies, and it would need to be something thin and not sharp.  Unmounted stamps popped to mind!  

But my mind wouldn’t stop there, what if it was slightly larger? Of course there are all sorts of sticker notebooks out there that are on the same line using a 3 ring binder and ready made pouches.  OR you could make your own using pieces of repurposed cardboard, book rings, and freezer zipper bags  with holes punch in them in various sizes to make the exact size you needed.

So I put that project in the “to do” section on my brain, for when I needed a rest break.  

As I worked my mind drifted to what it would take to create such a notebook.  I quickly realized all I needed to purchase would be the rings because I purchase the freezer bags in bulk at Sam’s Club and because we seldom use freezer bags I had an over abundance of them on hand.  

By inserting a piece of scrap cardstock in the freezer bags they would be rigid enough to use my 3 hole punch on them to put them in a binder or to allow the library rings to go through. 

The day before we had hauled a over-sized printer box full of corrugated cardboard downstairs to go to the recyclers on Friday.  There was my cardboard source. 

The cardboard could be decorated with scrapbook paper I had ran through my Xyron or I knew I still had some end rolls of contact paper on hand.  I’d need to see what colors I still had.  I love using up what is on hand to make room for new stuff. 

I then thought long and hard about what I would really want to put in them, yes them, because I was thinking numerous versions of this project in various sizes.  Also would I want to give up the shelf space for such notebooks.

Then there were the three ring binders we had in the closet to consider.  Yes, I have numerous three ring binders on hand that could be re-purposed easily to hold various items.  Should I want to donate the shelf space to them and use my Sterilite drawers for other uses.  I decided that the “build a notebook” project would go on hold for a few days at least while I made up my mind exactly what I wanted to put in them. 

If I needed 1”-3” notebooks I could use the three ring binders that we have so many of.  Bigger projects I’d need to build.  So more decisions would need to be made. 

On one group I am on one woman used just the ring strip from several binders to make one very large sectioned notebook for all her stickers similar to the sticker systems that are for sale on the net.  That would require a permanent location for me to do though and I simply do not have such a location, or that many stickers—yet. 

The reason we have so many three ring binders is years ago a company dh worked for moved their offices and discovered that since they were paying the movers by the pound that it would be cheaper to replace a lot of their equipment and office supplies than to pay to have them move them.  So for one weekend the employees were offered the opportunity to take whatever was left in the multi-floor office building.  We worked so hard that weekend and came home with everything from thumb tacks to microwaves, including over 100 three ring binders in various sizes.  Over the years we have slowly been using the binders up, but I still had several of the thinner ones we had yet to touch and as I had culled the office I found many of the 3” ones contained pages of no importance so they too could be emptied and reused.  So that was a consideration if I wanted to do full size notebooks too.  Decisions, decisions.

If I do create some I’ll definitely do a separate post on it.  

Digging further through the embroidery box I found a pair of snub nose pliers.  Yes, I could see me possibly using those in my creating in the future, they went into the carousel on the work table.

There was also a small manicure set with a pair of very sharp little detail scissors and orange sticks that I could use to curl papers with.

4” plastic canvas circles emerged as I dug through , rulers—what crafter doesn’t always need a ruler? And embroidery transfer patterns..ideas for uses for those formed quickly. Because I have the capabilities to do svgs I decided the transfers could be VERY useful in creating some of my own designs. All these treasurers were in a shirt box. 

When I saw the embroidery transfers I remembered somewhere in this room I had a Ramen box full of this type of transfers.  I would need to find it and put them all together. Especially since I had figured out an additional use for them.

Because I am trying to not only organize things, but make them attractive I started thinking about what I could put my granny’s embroidery floss in.  I know that I’ll be using it for various projects, especially stitching on cards and scrapbook pages, so I didn’t want to get rid of it.  Then I remembered I had a lidded Americanna basket not being used for anything in another room.  It turned out to be just the perfect size to put the floss in.  

I decided to donate the plastic canvas to our local charity resale shop, because I haven’t worked with plastic canvas in years and probably won’t any time in the near future.  

I of course kept the little notebook.  There it took me just a few seconds to put the few unmounted stamps I have in it.  They fit perfectly.

As you can see I added a self adhesive index tab at the top of the page to indicate these were Celebration stamps.  I'll add more tabs as I add more stamps.  The tabs were, of course, leftovers from a much bigger project of years gone by.

So I had decisions to make as to what to do with it all.  I grabbed up my mother’s large sewing basket thinking maybe some of it could go in there and well, that is another post.

Jan who loves it when she finds treasurers like she found today in OK