Storage Solutions: Pretty Storage Bin Tutorial

Don’t you love my new, DIY fabric toy storage bins for the living room?



Would you believe that they started out like this?

How about this one?

Which started out like this:

Here are some guidelines for making your own…each box is different, and I’m not sure I’ve figured out the best way to do it, yet, so expect that it will take a little experimentation.

How to Make DIY Storage Bins from Diaper Boxes

1.  Find a box.  Cut the corners off of two of the flaps.  It makes things a little easier later on.   (I’m not sure which two would be best…I tried the short flaps and the long flaps and either seems to work.) 

I used this handy dandy thingy (a zip & snip ) that hubby bought me for Christmas.  It cuts through cardboard like (insert simile here.)  It’s also AWESOME on all that plastic packaging that toys, tools, and other Christmas presents come in.

(I also had to cut part of the flaps off on that box.)

2.  Measure.  Measure all the way around your box and add a couple inches.  Measure from the bottom of your box to the top of your flaps, and again, add at least 3 inches (you will want your fabric to wrap around the top and bottom.) 

3.  Cut your fabric.  For the diaper boxes, I used two fabrics and sewed them together and pressed the seams.  This made the whole project a lot more complicated because I was obsessed with making sure that the seam was level and the same on both boxes.  It’s not.  I may come back later and glue some ribbon at the seam to even it out a bit more.  If you are a perfectionist like me, just use one fabric, or for Pete’s sake, don’t use a plaid fabric because it’s too darn easy to tell if you screwed up by looking at the top of the box.

*Note:  My boxes were almost 60 inches around (all 3 of them.)  So, if you are buying fabric for this project, I would buy 2 yards so that you have enough length, or plan on sewing (or gluing or stitch witchering) two shorter strips together.

4.  Glue.  Apparently I was too busy burning the flesh off my fingertips to take pictures of this part.  I started on one of the sides that was least likely to be seen (the short ends on the diaper boxes, for example) and used a hot glue gun to attach the fabric along the bottom of the box.  Pull it tight as you go. After wrapping it all around, I folded under the edge and glued that down.

5.  Next is the tricky part.  The fabric isn’t attached yet on the flaps.  Fold the flaps down, and try to get your glue gun underneath them.  If you value your fingertips, you may want to use a piece of cardboard or a plastic knife or something to shove the fabric under the flap. Keep working with it, alternately swearing, tucking fabric, and picking glue off your fingers, until you have glued all four flaps down.  I’m sure there’s a better way to do this…I just don’t know what it is.

6.  Enjoy your new storage boxes!  The one under the end table holds games and puzzles.  Adam loves it.

Last week, I said, “Look, Adam!  I made you a new box!”  Later that night, at my Grandma’s house for her birthday, he was asking me for it there.  Crazy kid, loves organization as much as I do.

             

One of these will hold dinosaurs, and the other will hold diapers and wipes.  I’ve had this fabric for almost 3 years, so I consider this to be a FREE, but beautiful project.

Do you have any cheap, pretty storage solutions?  I’d love to hear about them because I’m always trying to hide stuff!

More children's storage projects from On the Banks of Squaw Creek:

Crib Spring Bulletin Board	Stuffed Animal Zoo	Bookshelf Dresser
Wooden Puzzle Storage		Pretty Diaper Boxes

Nice and Easy Window (Mis)Treatment Tutorial

Adam’s been saying, “Nice and eeeaaasy, Mom” a lot for the past couple of weeks.  I think he learned it at daycare.  It cracks me up.  It is kind of a warning whenever one of us needs to be careful doing something.  I’ve decided it’s a great motto.  So here is my “Nice and Easy Window (Mis)Treatment Tutorial” for a balloon shade or valance.

In the “nice and easy” spirit, these are just general guidelines.  This project does NOT have to be perfect.  If you are like me, you will need to remind yourself of this several times throughout the project.

Materials:
measuring tape
fabric
sewing machine/thread or stitch witchery
needle and thread

Directions Guidelines
Measure the width of your window.  Add a few inches for fun.  Mine aren’t quite 1.5x the width of my windows. 
Decide roughly how long you want the valance/shade to be, and once again, add more (at least a foot).  I made mine plenty long to begin with because I wasn’t sure how much gathering I was going to do or how long I wanted them to be in the end.
Cut your fabric.  I used this full size bedspread that I bought at Walmart about 4 years ago for $11.  The trim was already there, which contributed to the “nice and easy”ness.



IF I were going to line my curtains, I’d do it now.  But that would have complicated the project, so I skipped it.
Sew a finished edge on each side.  Just fold the fabric over towards the back and run in through your machine.  You could probably use hem tape (stitch witchery) too, but I’m not sure how that would affect your “gathering” later on.

Start your gathering at each edge.  Thread your needle, and use it to make a long running stitch along the edge of your curtain. 


When you pull it tight, it should gather.
  
Keep going, until you have a few inches gathered (or whatever looks good to you. 

Go back down through the parts you gathered, and tie it off at the bottom.

Repeat on the other side, and as many times throughout the middle as you want.  This is a VERY forgiving project.  If you find you gathered too much, just snip your thread and start over.  If you gathered too little, do the same thing.

Finally, I just draped it over the rod and “floofed” it until it looked good.  You could sew a rod pocket, if you’re an over achiever.  But I’m not.  

Metamorphosis Monday


   

Mistreated Windows

It’s true, I have mistreated my kitchen windows.
But first, I neglected them.  For almost two years, they were trimless.  Like in this old picture of Adam. sitting on the counter.

Then, last March, the trim went up, but it wasn’t painted.  Some of it was primed.  But the trim, and the windows themselves, all needed to be painted.

I finally got around to painting the trim, hanging curtain rods, and “mistreating” the windows this week.  (If you’re not sure what it means to “mistreat” windows, you really need to pay The Nester a visit.)

Aren’t they beautiful?  And they were cheap.  And easy.  I’ll tell you more about that in a tutorial I’m working on.

 

 

I think I spent more time cleaning the kitchen and photographing it than I did on the window (mis)treatments.  But I love the results!

What about you?  Are you mistreating any windows in your house?  Or simply neglecting them?

 

Papa – Paparazzi!

Usually, I’m the only paparazzo around here, but I’ve got some competition, now.

Santa brought Adam his own camera for Christmas.  He took 150 pictures on Christmas Day.  About 15 of them show something recognizable.  We’re working hard on looking at the view finder and holding the camera still.

Here’s a sample of his work:

(A good photographer would try to avoid an angle that shows off my double chin so well.)

 

Daddy making silly faces

 

A couple of self portraits.

 

He’s available for weddings, family photo shoots and special events, in case you’re interested!

Turkey Tuesday – Terrifying Turkeys

A turkey almost gave me a heart attack Monday night.  I wish I had pictures of the whole situation, but I don’t, because I was busy being frightened to death by poultry.  So you’re going to have to “make mental images” just like my middle school reading students.  I hope, by the end, you’ll understand the shear panic I was feeling.

One of our flocks is going to market Monday and Tuesday night.  I went out to take some pictures to post here.  I was just going to photograph the semis lined up on the road, with the gorgeous purple, pink and orange sunset in the background.  But Adam really wanted to go see the turkeys, so I agreed to take him into the office.  The office is command central - the little room at the front of the barn where all of the controllers are located, and it has a door to the main part of the barn.  (Apparently I have no pictures of the inside of the office but here’s an old pic of the brooder house, not even the same barn we were in.)

So, into the office we went.  And I opened the door to show him (my 25 lb 2 1/2 year old child) the GIANT, 45 lb turkeys.  Giant.  45 lb. Waist high.  Aggressive. Poultry.

 

As usual, they greeted us with a chorus of  “gobble gobbles” and then crowded towards the door.  They are curious creatures, and always like to come and say hello.  The door is up about a foot on the wall to keep the turkeys from coming into the office (making your mental image?)

 

I really wanted to get a picture of them with my new lens, so I was fiddling with camera settings, standing right by the open door, when I heard (and then felt) wings flapping.  I nearly keeled over when I saw that one of the turkeys (let’s call him “Curious George”) had jumped the door threshold and was standing on MY side of the office door.  NOT COOL.

 

I’m pretty sure I had some choice swear words at that time, but afterwards, Adam just laughed and told me I called the turkey a “little fellow.”  That was nice of me, I guess.

 

I’m not sure how to describe the next 60-90 seconds besides shear panic on my part.  I was fairly sure that either a turkey was going to kill me, or my husband would.

I couldn’t just shove George through the doorway and shut the door because of that foot high ledge that was meant to keep the turkeys OUT of the office. There was a 3 foot piece of PVC pipe hanging out near the door, so I started by grabbing that and trying to push the other turkeys from the door.  Of course, they were all huddled up to see what their crazy friend was doing.  So in one hand was my DSLR camera, and the other hand held a dirty piece of PVC, my only weapon.  I was yelling at Adam to back up and using my hip to trap the escapee between the door and the threshhold, so that he wouldn’t be running around the office.

My brain and heart were racing.  I didn’t have my cell phone – I’d left it in the car.  And even if I had it, Bart wouldn’t have answered, because he was in the other barn loading turkeys onto the trailer.  Adam was clearly not going to be any help, and there was NO WAY I could lift that turkey over the threshold, especially since I knew he would start flapping his enormous wings at me if I got too close.  Bart has actually been CUT by a flapping turkey wing.

With my hip holding the door against the turkey, I took a deep breathe and evaluated my options…

     a) keep trying to shove the turkey over the threshold, possibly using the PVC as a lever to lift the turkey a bit.

     b) or let Curious George run free in the office, grab Adam, and go get hubby (who carries these turkeys around like it’s no big deal). 

I was pretty sure I’d be in big trouble if I went with option b.  I could hear the lecture in my head.  You know, I “should have been paying more attention” and he “really needs to be loading the truck” and on and on.  I don’t think any farmers like rescuing a damsel in distress when there is serious work to be done.  And I really didn’t want to lose my photography privileges. :)

Option a was really my only choice.  I tried the lever idea.  I even put my glove on and tried to grab the turkey’s leg.  No luck.

And then, in a very anti-climactic ending to this story, I let the door open a little bit more, and the turkey jumped over the threshold and back into the barn.

But it turns out that I did get a fairly decent picture.  Remember, they were all crowding the door – they’re not really jammed in that tight.  But they are kind of cute, right?

  

Right.

Playing with our Christmas Presents

In case you missed it, I got *this* for Christmas:

And Adam got this:
 
And I used MY Christmas present to put together Adam’s.

I must say, it was pretty slick!  I like my new drill!
And Adam ADORES this easel.  We put the legs on upside down (folded up inside of the easel) because if we put them on right, he wouldn’t have been able to reach.  It has a white board on one side and a chalkboard on the other, but his favorite thing to do is paint on the attached roll of paper.  Hubby’s sister got him the paints, so I made her come over to paint with him.



She took her eyes off of him for one second…
 
…which is why we used one of Daddy’s chore t-shirts as a paint shirt.
 
Yes, it’s messy, but I also think it’s worth it!  The kid LOVES his paintings!

2011 Plans

I never really make resolutions…I’m pretty bad at keeping up any sort of routine.  But I do like to make plans.  I don’t expect you to read all of these…but I thought it would be a good record for me and maybe a little motivation.  So here are my “plans” for 2011…

House:

1.  Windows and siding for the house.  The original windows and siding are in terrible condition.  It’s going to cost a fortune because we’re going to hire it out..we’ve done all the remodeling by ourselves (with my dad) so far but hubby just doesn’t have time for this project.

2.  MAYBE finish the 3rd bedroom and upstairs bathroom.  If there’s any money left after the windows and siding, we’d like to hire someone to do these two rooms, too.  We’ll just have to see.

 

Me:

1.  Work more in the brooder house…I still have a lot to learn, and although we really value the help of our “Brooder Lady” Beth, she’ll be ready to retire in a couple of years, and I am probably going to be her replacement.

2.  Continue to purge and organize.  I got a pretty good start this summer, and I have kept it up.  The house is slowly becoming less cluttered and more organized.

3.  Post more about the farm.

4.  Get caught up on my digital scrapbooking.

5.  Get back to my pre-pregnancy weight more quickly this time around.  (Who am I kidding?  I NEVER made it back to my pre-pregnancy weight after Adam!)

6.  Work on my photography.

7.  Get more small house projects done (ideally, before Baby Brudder arrives at the end of March!)

finish painting the kitchen window trim

kitchen window treatments

paint the tv stand

hallway window treatments

finish the changing table

paint bathroom vanity

paint bathroom cabinets

paint bathroom walls

clean out the entryway closet

organize the boys’ clothes

FILE in the office!

toy storage for the living room

master bedroom window treatments

master bedroom decor

paint the stairs?