Christmas Album - An Organized Way To Save Christmas Cards

Now that Christmas is over, I'm trying to get the house reorganized after all the Christmas chaos. Part of my organizing is to figure out what to do with the Christmas cards. I'm sure most people just throw the cards away each year. However, I'm very sentimental and I save all of our Christmas cards. Previous Christmas cards have gone into a drawer but this year I decided I wanted to do something more with them. So I decided to make a Christmas album...

Here are some of 2014's Christmas cards.
My Christmas album idea came from wanting to be able to look back
at previous cards and see how everyone has changed and families have grown.

I found this beautiful photo album on sale and
 it has been waiting to be filled with pictures.

Previous Christmas cards have been pulled out of their drawer
and are now nicely organized in our Christmas album.
Here's to 2015!

Happy Crafting!

Mission Organization: Laundry Room

My laundry room organization and transformation has been a process over a few months. I've been itching to share it with all of you but I wasn't willing to let you peek until it was complete!

Many of the things previously in the laundry room stayed but found a new area to reside. I'm happy to say with a little rearranging, a few things not being used around the house, and a couple of new things, I love my laundry room!

My blue bucket in the corner is actually new but was added in before I got a chance to take my Before picture. Sorry!
I actually have two (one in each corner).  One holds laundry odds and ends (steamer, cleaning products, etc), while the other holds doggy supplies.

The accordion peg rack might be simple but it is one of my favorite new additions to the room!
The fact that it only cost $2 from my local thrift shop doesn't hurt anything.
A coat of red paint and it's good as new!
Plus it's a great place to hang my bras to dry ;)

My laundry sign has been around for years but got a redo to go with my new color scheme.
You can find my blog post for it here!
The frame is made up of antique clothes pins that I got from a cousin after her grandmother passed.
The sign is both beauty and function as it reminds of the expensive electricity times.

The decorative clothes line is something my grandmother bought for me when I bought my first home. She found it a good excuse to go shopping and help me decorate. While some things were not my taste, some things were like this clothes line, which inspired the new colors for redecorating the laundry room. After my grandfather passed a year ago I treasure the things they gave me even more. Looking at these things around our house remind me of them :)

From left to right:

My first blue bucket to help keep things organized, a white dish to hold my bra savers, and a beautiful mason jar meant for beverages now holding my laundry detergent.

My laundry time sign hanging on the wall.

A cute clothes pin sign from my mother. It says "24 Hour Laundry Service Drop your pants here"
Definitely not 24 hour laundry service but it puts a smile on my face and how often does being in your laundry room make you smile?

A white basket to hold my stain stick, fabric softener ball, and a microfiber cloth (I use it to clean the lint off my dryer because I can't stand it building up lol), and my second blue bucket holding Zeke's (the dog) extra things.

A shelf that wasn't being used once we moved now hangs above my washer and dryer. It now holds blue and red mini pots that contain clothes pins, a red basket that holds my color catchers (if you don't use these you should look into them! They absorb and dye that runs in the load. No more pink jeans, which my husband is eternally grateful for!), and a pretty pot and flowers.

I hope you've enjoyed a little tour around my laundry room!

Happy Crafting!

Mission Organization: Craft Room

If you know me or read my blog you know that I don't do boring! So why would I want a plain white box for storage when I could make it pretty? Is there any other choice but to make things pretty? Of course not!! So I dug through my crafting supplies and came up with paint, stencils, and Sharpie brush tips.

First I sponge painted the boxes. Giving it both color and texture.

My purple box now makes it easy to find my alphabet and number stickers.

My teal box will now house my things that I use for my knit shop.
The punch I use for my tags, my logo stamp, and ink, etc.

Follow my blog as I continue my mission of organization!

To catch up on my past mission organization here.

Happy Crafting!

Repurpose, Reuse, Recycle

Do you have things laying around your house that you save for sentimental reasons but don't know what to do with it? Repurpose it! I've taken some vases and turned them into dressing table storage for my makeup brushes. The flower pot from the first flower my husband ever gave me when we were dating is in our office and holds pens, pencils, scissors, etc. Our sheets with holes are used to cover our plants when it freezes. Old pillows that were to lumpy to sleep on have been added into the dogs bed for some extra cushion. The kiddy pool my nieces outgrew is great for the dog to play in during the summer!

There are so many things you can reuse that we just normally throw away. Paper towel and toilet paper rolls are great for kids crafts or can bent into different shapes and used as stamps, they can be painted or colored for different holidays, tape the ends off and cut a slit in the side for a diy piggy bank. Combine your left over scraps of yarn into a colorful blanket or scarf! Old egg cartons are great for sorting beads, crafting supplies, etc.

What do you do to repurpose things around your house?

These are the flowers that my husband gave me for Valentines day last year.
The vase has been sitting in my kitchen for the last year.

The accent color in our bedroom is red and I thought why not use
 this vase that has been sitting around for months into storage!

Happy Crafting!

Mission Organization: Cupcake Liners

Hi my name is Nadia and I have pack rat tendencies. Yes, I admit it! I get it from my Father. I have a hard time getting rid of things that I might use or reuse. I have quite a few jars laying around the house... some with a plan in mind (like my painted jars), some are used for spices, and others do not have a plan yet. Some of these jars my Father has given me, some I have collected, and one a good friend kindly gave me when I told her I had a larger version of it at home.

The jar pictured below is one that my Father gave me that did not have a plan... until this past week. 

Step one: Wash the jars and let it soak to remove the label.
Use goo gone if needed to remove any remaining stickiness. 

Due to my love of baking and my love of fun colorful things I have collected quite a few different cupcake liners. Originally they were stored in a drawer with my baking items but over Christmas my collection grew considerably and a new solution was needed. While organizing my jars I came up with the brainy idea to make a cupcake jar!

Everything in my kitchen is green so the lid must be too!

Ta Da! My cupcake jar!

Happy Crafting!

Painted Jars/Vases

Happy New Year everyone! One of my New Year's resolutions for this year is to get organized. I spent the last part of 2013 helping my parents clean out their garage and taking all of my stuff that they've been storing for me for the last few years. In there I found some wonderful memories as well as some not so wonderful ones. It was great to go through everything and figure out what I want to keep and what I'm willing to get rid of.

All of that has inspired me to clean and organize my own house... my craft room is the first room on my list. While my craft room is functional it got messy during the knitting of Christmas scarves. Now that my huge project is done I want my craft room to be super organized... especially since I have new crafting supplies to add in there.

Of course I don't do anything without a little pizzazz! So to start my craft room organization I decorated some matching jars for my knitting needles and crochet hooks. This is something I've been wanting to do for a while now but hadn't gotten around to do yet. 

I love the matching jars! It is totally coincidence that I have them... I got the big one from my dad and the smaller one from my good friend Tamara. I'm totally sentimental so these jars will always remind me of them :)

I found my inspirations here. The blog my inspiration came from is in a different language but has a picture tutorial. So I squirted my paint in and tried swirling it around...

But I wasn't getting the results I wanted. I was hoping to get some paint drops running down the sides. So I watered down the paint a bit.

I wanted a little extra pizzazz for my bigger jar and added a black dot border.

The end result is some beautiful unique storage for my craft room.
I can't wait for them to dry so I can start using them!

Happy Crafting!