How to make your own fabric organizer

Looking through Pinterest and then looking at the continuous mess on my "learning table" -- the table where we do home school, was making me very frustrated. If you were to look through my boards (on Pinterest) you would see that I have about a million organizing ideas, then a big ol' mess on the table! So I finally decided enough was enough and got my creative juices flowing. I fell in love with this fabric ( and prints like this..) at Jo-Ann Fabric. Now, just have to find a project!! I made up  again- never perfect or exact, but does the job! a fabric pocket organizer to hang on the side of our pantry closet. 

 

 

 

 

     

I had this long piece of cardboard from a backing of a poster print. I thought it would be perfect to add a little sturdiness to the back- for free! So, I laid it out and cut out some muslin fabric to go around it.

Then I laid out my coordinating fabric for the pockets. The measurements were a little bigger than a piece of paper sideways... Don't forget to leave a little extra for seam allowances too...

All sewed on all around, on each rectangle...

Fold over and sew along the side. If you don't have or want the cardboard, you could sew the bottown too. Then flip right side out and sew the top.

Slip through the cardboard. Fold over the top, I actually taped it!

Here it is all done!! Hanging on the side of a cabinet in our kitchen.

 

I have to confess, I have that hanging with 3M Command hooks, and after putting a lot of papers/ laminated papers for school, it fell down! So now I need to think up a better way to hang it up. I'm think something with hanging it with ribbon. It's still a good, easy idea for organizing quickly and easily. This project is not hard to sew..Just need a good hour or two to complete it. This project would work out for small books in a child's room or make the dimensions a little smaller or just do 2 pockets for a car organizer, adding a elastic to go around the head rest.

Goin' a little crazy...

Oh boy! These past 2 days have really put me through the ringer ( and today is only half over!) Last week, I started a little chore chart with my 3 yr daughter. Being a first born myself, I knew my first born would like this. A nice little box to check off to know you are on the right track! First couple of days were great. She got really upset just not get a star for the day. I thought "this is great, I don't have to yell or spank..." Well now reality has set in and she has woken up too early both days, which gets me in a bad mood form the get go..Our rule is no earlier than 7:00, but somehow is bounding in our room at 6:30 begging for cereal. I have been doing a new online Bible study about the Prov. 31 woman. I have been trying really hard to see being at home with little ones to take care and love as the big blessing that it is. Most days I truly love it. But some days it's tough. I really hate yelling. The whole house feels different when we have "bad" days.. Having our new quiet time routine is nice. Bella seems to really enjoy that time too. It was hard for the first day or two. But once I brought up a little table and some quiet time activities like Bible stories and songs, puzzles, books and dress up dolls she loves it. She actually asks to do it on her own now in the morning. It's only 20 min or so, but it's a start for me. I don't really know what to do with myself. I read my few verses and think about it, but as far as "mediating on the scriptures" I don't know what to do after that minute is up... So it's a learning process for both of us. Summers are nice because we have more freedom with schedules but that is also the thing I really like in the "school year" I love my Tuesday morning Bible study at my church. I have my homework, and I know what I should be doing...

I have tried everything with Bella with regards to discipline. Time outs, talking to her calmly about how she is sinning against me, Daddy and Jesus, spanking ( along with why, not in a rage!), telling her she won't her star and therefore longer to achieve the prize she picked out... Got any other ideas?

By 6:00 when my husband comes home I am fried! Last night it was all I could do just to eat dinner and then veg on the couch for most of the night. He is so loving and gracious that he cleaned up the dishes and put the girls to bed. Gotta love that!! I don't like my attitude, but through lots of little prayers of "Lord, help me through this, give me patience!" I feel like I'm doing better today. Y'know with the occasional explosion of my screaming " Just stop talking!!" It's a process! You don't just become sanctified in a day! So this is my struggle for today. I have to tell myself if that's my only struggle- I'm incredibly blessed!

More than just pretty

Here's some better pictures of our "new and improved" living room that we finished about 2 weeks ago. Boy one project sure leads to another! We were pretty happy that we could get all this done in a week. So then we tackled the yard and the bathrooms. I went to Habitat for Humanity Re-Store and found all the cabinet doors for $5 each! Super excited! Since they were all varying shades of wood, I decided to paint them all white. It is definitely NOT perfect by any stretch of the imagination. ( But they look pretty good in these far away pics!) They are all different cabinets in each bathroom. (Hey where else am I going to find only cabinet doors and for five bucks?!) But it is done and I am happy that I finally have doors to cover my junk in the bathrooms after 2 years of having a little fabric curtain over it. It feels so much more finished now.

Downstairs- Before

After

Here's the kid's/ hall bathroom. I'm toying with the idea of redecorating. I think the 'Very Hungry Caterpillar' theme is so cute. I saw that Pottery Barn has a shower curtain with it on it- for $50! No, thank you! I am thinking up some creative and way cheaper idea! For now, I'm just happy to have these darn doors on!

 

Our master bath

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Not trying to brag, just so excited to get all these things crossed off our 'to-do' list. We planted our garden. I have never done this before. I'm a little nervous, and excited to see what happens. It's one of the things I was excited about trying when I had land/ a house of our own. Last weekend, we had a friend come and till a plot for us. We planted corn ( not really having high hopes for that, my husband really wanted that!), green beans, tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and squash. We have a apple tree in our backyard. If all goes well, we'll have quite the harvest! Pretty good for a little suburban girl with a brown thumb! We also extended our flower bed in the front and put mulch around it. I'm waiting on some flowers I ordered.. 

All in- and exhausted!

Ok, So enough about our house! Today is Mother's Day. Isabella woke me up this morning to "Happy Mommy day! We have a surprise for you downstairs..." I could smell potatoes and eggs and see that Jacob let me sleep in an extra hour and I was pretty happy. We had a nice breakfast and I got 2 cards- My hubby wrote me a poem! The types of poetry I can write usually starts out with "roses are red..." So needless to say I was pretty impressed! Yesterday we went to the cutest thing at our church- Mommy and Me Princess Tea. Bella was so excited to dress up like a pretty princess. I even let her wear sparkly lip gloss and eye shadow. We bought a crown ( at the dollar store) and every thing. They had pink everywhere. We heard about how we are all princesses for real- God's princesses ( daughters of a King) and how we need to act in a way that is pleasing to him. So we don't want to just be pretty on the outside, we need to be "pretty" on the inside even more.

 To top off our wonderful homemade dinner ( Jacob made Salmon cakes, loaded baked potatoes and green beans- yum!) we had PB chocolate ice cream. One of my favs:) Here I am turning into my mother more and more everyday! I can't remember very many rules we had growing up; but one of them was always put the ice cream in the Tupperware container! I can't say that turning into my mom is a bad thing though. I really look up to her. I am so glad that I am a mom now so I understand her so much more. I am so much more thankful for everything my Mom and Dad did for all of us kids. So, Marmie- if you're reading this- I love you! Happy Mother's Day! If not, Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful Mommies out there that I am privileged to call my friends. I learn so much from each of you:)

More of our pre-school ideas

I have been meaning to update and show a couple more of our ideas that we like to use around here for school. I took  (Warning- a lot!) pictures and everything, then just got lazy I guess... so here's my girl doing her best over the last few months:

I found this great product- Contact paper that is a chalk board! How cool is that? So I covered my dated mirrored closets with this. The kids can draw for fun and we can use it at school time. Here's Bell doing a sight word game I made up on the fly. I wrote her words and call out a word. She crosses it out when she finds it. Not rocket science, but she had fun and that's when learning is the best!

 I made little books or just a paper that I would make into 6 squares and have Bella (try) to think up things that started with that letter. She would always get to color it. I've seen some little books online that you can print off and make as well.

 I'm trying to start a little ancedotal record book. Every month or so I try to have her write in this little notebook. Then I can see her progress. I just made up my own dotted lines and wrote out the alphabet for her to trace.

 This is my other great "find"- a plastic sheet page protector can be written on with a dry erase marker. I use it all the time for  workbooks that I want to reuse. Simply cut the side that has the 3 holes on the side and the bottom; then you can slide it right over any paper or workbook page.

 I typed up her sight words in a large font. She used her Leap Frog letter, but any letter you find around, or can even make on your own with a large magnetic strip and writing the letters and cut off in little squares. Hint you'll need a few of each letter! Isabella reads and spells out the word on the fridge.

                                                                  

Making patterns

Matching up sight words. Use flash cards and type up another set to match with.

Tracing "S" words on her new dry erase crayon board

Laminated upper case letters ( also made one of lowercase), She has to circle the letter of the week with a dry erase marker.

Tracing on laminated sheet.

I hope that these give you some good ideas. Remember that every child is different and a gift from God. Find what works for you and them and have fun!!

What we've been up to

What a lovely spring day! It feels more like summer, actually! I pulled the kiddie pool out yesterday for the girls. I have been thinking for the last 3 weeks that I should think up something to write on my blog, but nothing was coming to mind. I was just in a funk. I just didn't feel like doing any of my "normal" things for fun. Y'know how that is, just trying to get through each day peacefully. My 3 year old daughter was in this phase where she would argue with me about almost everything! I guess it's good practice for in ten years, right?! Anyways, we don't tolerate that, so there was a lot of disciplining going on around here ( and me yelling and going crazy!). Knock on wood, we've had a really good week and I'm hoping that phase is over for now. Jacob and I had a little regroup session the other day too.. I think that helped me to see where I was slipping in my consistent parenting that I strive for. I was getting to worn down that I would finally just say "whatever.. you can do it.." Which makes it harder for me to really stick with things that I really mean because Isabella thinks that she can just whine enough and then get her way. The only thing that was keeping me sane was to have my little afternoon break with my new favorite show Army Wives on Netflix.
I have been itching for a project lately but didn't know what! It has to feel "needed" and not too expensive..I read all these great, inspiring blogs about how to redecorate and fix almost anything into the cutest thing that looks much more expensive that what you bought it for.

So last week all these things finally came together! (well not really on the "cheap" project part, but we budgeted for this for a while)  We ripped out the old, dirty carpet and put in some beautiful laminate wood flooring to match the rest of the house. I LOVE it! It look like a new house now! We redecorated by moving couches to different rooms. So now the living room is the tv room and the family room is now the reading room. We also painted the walls, stripped the ugly old border and painted the trim white. Whew! What a week, but it looks so good ( and nice to be done too!) I also went to the Habitat for Humanity Restore and got 5 out of the 6 cabinets I need to put in my bathrooms. The previous owner ( who was being foreclosed on..) decided to take most of the cabinet doors with him! Why?! So I finally got around to getting out there and picking them up for $5 each! I am paining them all white because the wood tones are all different. That's my next project in the next few weeks. We are also going to paint the dining room to match the living room and flow better since they are almost one big room...

Before

That border I've hated since the day I looked at this house! Going away!!

Priming the walls..

Perfect trim

Ooh!! It's coming along!

Bye, Bye ugly old carpet!

Hello gorgeous floors!

The "new" couch.. (should have taken a picture earlier in the week 

- Now it has toys all over it!

I think Livi likes the new area rug!