Two Spots Around the House.

There are a couple of spots around the house that are making me smile lately. I'm in the process of seriously decorating on a strict budget (finally, after we've been in this house for 5 years), so things are still being switched up. There is a bookcase on the way from Target next week that will help to get things more settled and organized in our small living space (we have this particular bookcase in the 5 shelf already and we are really pleased with them). We're also hoping to get a hand-me-down day bed from my parent's this Spring that is destined for the girls' room.

Did you ever have a suitcase like this when you were little? My mom dug this out of the attic for me; it was one of my favorite things when I was growing up. Right now it is sitting on top of a wee dresser my mom was getting rid of. The dresser needs a bit of work, but it's clean and functional for now. 

The suitcase stays open and stores the girls' play jewelry and dress up crowns. I always smile when I see it.  

The other spot that I'm loving is the new-ish shelf above my desk. The driftwood photo hanger probably won't be staying there permanently, as it is too high above eye level. Red Riding Hood and the Wolf are about to go in storage while they wait for their new home, but I've enjoyed their company for a couple of weeks. See that snow globe? That's the only thing I have ever purchased form Sax Fifth Avenue. 

What spots in your home make you smile?

Small Storage Solutions.

Creative storage is a way of life over here. At least it's something I'm always brainstorming. In our 750 square feet of happiness there lives five humans, two cats, a homeschool, and a small business. Thank God for attic and basement storage.

Because of my quest to organize our space to the max so that things don't seem overwhelming, all over the place and messy, I tend to compulsively purchase any and all storage boxes or baskets that wander into my path with a sale tag on them. It's a problem. Really. But because even buying storage on clearance can get expensive, I also never throw away a shoe box or mandarin orange container.

Our kitchen has pretty minimal cabinet storage. We supplement with our old two shelf television stand and put the microwave on top. Quite a few years back we also snagged a narrow white decorative storage unit that was on clearance in the bathroom section of Target for $40. We use it to hold my tea and fancy tea cups in the glassed section, and plastic food storage containers in the bottom cupboard. A few months ago we finally added a floating shelf above the small kitchen table that we use as a food prep area. Ironically, we purchased this shelf for our old apartment, and after we bought the house it sat up in the attic for almost five years.

The shelf is now home to odds and ends like a fruit bowl, a basket from an Easter past that holds K-cups, and a salvaged glass jar that holds clothespins used for closing up bags of tortilla chips and frozen fruit.

Refrigerators get messy enough with photos and calenders and kids' drawings plastered on them, so I think it is important to keep the top somewhat streamlined. This is valuable space that we need to store bread and boxes of crackers and cereal. (It doesn't always look this empty by the way.) When we lived in our tiny apartment, we used the above green baskets to store my son's clothes on the shelves of a changing table that had been passed down to us. These also spent some time in the attic before we thought to remove the fabric liners and glue felt to the bottom so that they wouldn't scratch the surface of the refrigerator. They work nicely to store and hide the mess of our bagged bread and bagels and chips and pretzels.

My husband picked up these ceramic canisters at a thrift store. We keep them on the kitchen table and use them to conceal packets of oatmeal, hot cocoa, dried fruit, popcorn, or whatever will fit into them. 

The narrow storage unit in the corner of the kitchen also serves as a place for me to have a couple of decorative items in the kitchen. The jar in the center was cleaned and spray painted white to hold pens and pencils, and also serves to keep the scissors up high and away from the baby. (If you want a sweet kitchen companion you can find my owls here.)

Sometime during my teenage years I saved this wooden recipe box from a rummage sale. It doesn't hold recipes, but instead houses granola bars.

Not only does our house have very few cabinets, it doesn't have a pantry either. For the last five years we've been storing almost all of our food items on the 5 shelf bookcase that was in my husband's bedroom while he was growing up. To help organize it and keep like items together, we section off most of it with clementine boxes. This makes putting together a grocery list a little bit easier too.

Other box storage that has been re-purposed for use around the house are shoe boxes. We have quite a few of them covered in kraft paper placed here and there around the whole house. I use them to store anything from loose DVDs in paper sleeves, to USB cables, business supplies, stickers for the kids, and Lego direction booklets to name a few.

This is probably some of the ugliest storage you've seen in a long time, but these cardboard fruit crates were just too useful to get rid of. I may eventually cover them, but for now they fit perfectly in the odd bit of space next to either side of our bed that is too small for a traditional nightstand. I just add to the stack when I get a new crate, as they fit together nicely. Each little cubby can hold a few books, and even bottles of water.

My husband purchased this shiny metal bucket in the painting section of a hardware store for a few dollars. It sits on the bottom shelf of our phone table to hold a tablet of paper, and the mouse and power cord for our laptop.

For the stash of headbands and necklaces I've acquired from having the shop, I had my husband hang two inexpensive metal robe hooks on the bedroom wall. Not only do they keep my accessories where I can easily see them, but they look pretty too.

If you haven't noticed by now, I'm always mulling over new uses for empty containers of any shape and size. I mean, why spend money on storage containers when you can re-purpose things you already have? Jar lids make great little trinket dishes. They just need a bit of fancying up. (Okay, in reality this dish actually holds SD memory cards, but these hair pins look much prettier. You can find hair pins in my shop.)

You may remember from this post where I shared about our new book nook, that we found this wire basket in the yard when we bought our house. I cleaned it up a bit and spray painted it. Now it holds books, as does this little metal tub I just got at Target last week for $2.50. (Read about the book nook here.)

Clementine boxes are also the perfect size to hold children's books, specifically Little Golden Books and Dr. Seuss books. This one I tried to cover in kraft paper and added twill tape to the edges for durability, but it's not terribly nice to look at. (I think I may end up covering it in yarn, like I did here.)

Thanks for reading! I hope you've been inspired in your approach to small storage solutions.

For more home storage and organizational ideas, see my organize page. Please feel free to share ways that you've re-purposed items to use as storage in the comments below!

The green scarf in the top photo was screen printed by Michelle Brusegaard, the bird and flower print in the kitchen is from Gingiber, the sweet fabric plant is from Jane Joss, and the wee chalkboard bears were made by Handy Maiden.

Bookshelf Storage.

Creative storage is a way of life over here. At least it's something I'm always brainstorming. In our 750 square feet of happiness there lives five humans, two cats, a homeschool, and a small business. 

When we bought our house there was one tiny corner closet in the main bedroom. That was it. There is also minimal cabinet space in the kitchen. Right after we moved in almost 5 years ago we put a Rubbermaid closet unit along the back wall in the smallest bedroom. And then we had two more children. Last year we ripped out the standing stall shower in our 2nd bathroom and put in a small closet.  Of course, under-the-bed storage is a must, and we're installing more vertical storage in fits and starts.

Another thing we did last year before Christmas came (which means more toys, books, games, and other things that will need a place to be kept) was to get rid of two big old speakers and CD changer and radio to put bookshelves on either side of our television unit.

It was very important to me that the shelves stay organized since I'm always warring against clutter on flat surfaces. I put a lot of thought into my quandary as I organized the shelves. It soon became apparent that I would need to find another place to store a good quantity of the kids' books, as I would need a lot of this space for other things, so we took care of that by installing book ledges in our dining room/school room.

Click on photo to view it larger.

On the bottom shelves the kids each have a fabric box labeled with their name for storing their smaller toys. The shelves above are home to some of the larger toys and their stack of magazines. Then comes the things that we want out of reach of the baby: some of the "nicer" kids books and boxes of puzzles and small games that belong to the older kids. Above that we store some of our school books, library items, and a basket for keys and other odds and ends. The top shelf is reserved for crafting supplies and my camera and Flip, and a few of mine and my husband's books. I purposely kept a mix of boxes and books on almost all of the shelves to encourage the shelves to stay organized. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Even still, it's a bit overwhelming as the living room is small and one can't get further than 7 or 8 feet away from the wall of storage. (If you rememeber, this is why I needed a photo wall that was uncluttered and uniform.) 

The bookshelves are from Target, as are the fabric boxes.

How do you organize your space efficiently while utilizing affordable storage solutions?

DIY Storage :: Yarn Wrapped Clementine Box Tutorial

Every year around Christmas I find myself in need of more storage. Often times I also need to do a bit of rearranging to make room for new books, toys, and games in our current space. I shared some creative shoe box storage recently, but I also love to repurpose clementines boxes. Clementines are great because they're super tasty, and they come in a wonderful box all ready to store scarves or books, or organize like items in the kitchen pantry. 

The last box that came into the house got a makeover by being wrapped in yarn. The shape of clementine boxes can be a little bit challenging to cover, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend this project for someone who is an intense perfectionist as it can be difficult to cover up every inch of the box underneath the yarn. Also, this post is not very image heavy, as my memory card went and corrupted almost all of the files. But as each clementine box is a bit different anyway, you'll just have to figure out what works best for yours.

 SUPPLIES.     clementine box

             yarn

             hot glue gun

I began by wrapping each post of my box individually. You'll want to apply a dab of hot glue at the beginning and end to adhere the yarn. Be careful not to burn yourself; I found that using the side of a pencil worked well to press the yarn into the glue without it sticking to my fingers. Try to be a bit stingy with the glue so it doesn't make a mess and get stuck to the yarn in places you don't want it to be seen.

Once you've got the posts wrapped, start at the top of the box and wrap around it until you get to the bottom, occasionally applying some hot glue to keep the yarn in place. I also glued a piece of yarn to the very top edge of each side of the box.

Clementine boxes are the perfect size for kids books. Depending on the surface where you'll be storing it, you may want to consider gluing a piece of felt to the bottom of the box so it won't leave scratches when moved; if using the box for storing kid items it would be really cute to glue their name to the front using fabric or wooden letters. For storing fabric items it's a good idea to adhere a piece of felt to the inside of the box on the bottom as the texture of the box can pull at fabric.

I use a clementine box to store school supplies we use daily, and with its new yarn-covered facade the box will blend nicely into it's surroundings on the bookshelf. I hope to share more about our bookshelf storage area soon!

DIY Shoe Box Storage.

Storage is my best friend. Really. It seems we've always found ourselves in tight quarters with little or no closet space, and storage solutions are an absolute necessity. One thing I never throw away is a shoe box. There are so many ways to dress them up; why not take advantage of that instead of spending more money on plastic bins? And with three wee ones running around I find myself with new shoe boxes often, as their feet are always growing. 

For my project I gathered a few shoe boxes, a roll of Kraft paper, some washi tape, scissors and scotch tape. You can also add ribbon, lace and fabric to your supplies if you want to get extra fancy!

Wrap both the lid and the main part of the shoe box like you were wrapping a present. If you want it to look extra-special nice go ahead and cover the inside of the box before you wrap the outside.

This time around I accented most of my boxes with washi tape, and I also had the kiddos draw pictures on some of the Kraft paper for me to wrap one of the boxes in.

see more of our book nook here.

I use covered shoe boxes to store anything from layering scarves, business supplies, USB cables, television remotes, stickers and pencils, toys and books, to those loose DVDs floating around in paper sleeves. Pretty much anything that needs to be contained.

They also make great gift boxes when prettied up with ribbon or lace. Just the thing to gift a handmade present in.

Book Nook.

We finally managed to put our book ledges together and get them up on the wall! And by we, I mean my husband. I needed some more space on our regular book shelves for school supplies for the kids, and since we also use the bookshelves for toy storage we decided to move some of their books onto ledges.

There was this odd bit of wall space between the grandfather clock and the steps in the dining room (really it's more of a school room at this point), and I adore the idea of books under the stairs. We can't build bookshelves into the steps because the stairs to the basement run under there. But this is the next best thing! I want to add a comfy pillow to the floor as well.

I found this metal wire basket in our yard right after we bought the house four years ago. It's been sitting in the basement ever since. I spray painted it gray, and I think it is perfect for our book nook!

One of the great things about the ledges is that it is much easier for the kids to see what books are there. I want to paint them white eventually, but we're still painting our living room and kitchen, and I don't think I can take any more painting projects right now!

There is a window to the left by the stairs, so the kids also like to sit there and look out the window while reading. I'm so glad our kids love books! The ledges are packed two to three books deep, plus there are still plenty more books on the big bookshelves, not to mention the books in their rooms. Yup. We love books, and book nooks, in this book house.

D.I.Y. Little Trinket Dishes.

I'm all about storage. Can I repurpose this (insert random thing here) into storage? Can it be pretty?! I had a bit of an ah-ha moment with some jar lids. They make perfect wee little trinket dishes!

SUPPLIES. jar lid
          spray paint
          bit of fabric
          glue (I used an Elmer's glue stick)

Spray paint the jar lid with at least two coats of paint. When it dries completely use it as a guide to cut the fabric circle by placing it on top of the fabric and drawing a light line with a pencil around the perimeter of the lid. Cut the marked circle out of the fabric and glue it into the inside of the lid. 

Fill it with pretty trinkets!

Organizing :: Headbands and Necklaces.

I was mulling over the fact that I had too many largish necklaces and a handful of headbands that didn't have a good place to live. I wanted to find a simple solution where they would be out of my way, but wouldn't get smashed and tangled. These inexpensive robe hooks from Target did the trick. Plus my walls are a little bit happier too.