Tag: crafts

A custom junk drawer organizer and why it was totally worth it to get that quesadilla from Chipotle

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I am an organized person. It’s something that comes naturally to me. I find great joy in purging and redoing a space so that is more accessible and useful. Many of my home projects evolve from realizing a space is not organized well for it’s purpose and looking at ways to improve it. It’s my happy place.

Even so, everyone needs a good junk drawer. Someplace to throw that screw you just found laying on the floor that probably is important but you’re not quite sure why yet. You need a holding place for things like that but every few months even the junk drawer needs a good re-organization.

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Transforming an Altoid Tin into a mini First Aid Kit

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There is a classic scene in the TV show Friends where they discover that hyper-organized Monica has a secret closet where she keeps all the random stuff she doesn’t quite know how to organize but can’t throw away. It is the opposite of the rest of her life. It is messy, overflowing with junk and unorganized. While I don’t have a Monica closet, I do have a Monica bin where I keep things that I come across for which I have sentimental attachment or think “this might be useful for a project someday”.

Someday is now.

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Rossi’s art installation and a desperate (and failed) attempt to save my furniture

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I love all animals but in weighing which of my pets have done the most damage through the years, that honor clearly goes to our cat Rossi (aka Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi). I don’t say this lightly. Two of my Labradors were chewers and one even ate his way through a paneled wall in our basement.

But, the cat still wins the award for most property destroyed. He has managed to claw his way through most of our furniture leaving behind shredded fabric and broken decorating dreams in his wake.

He seemed particular fond of one end of the couch so in my brilliance I hung a cat scratcher for him in the same spot. He opted to find another area of the couch to start clawing instead. I then bought him a cardboard scratching bed and redirected him there. He took a nap in it, and after waking proceeded to walk over to one of our recliners and claw the arm.

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Making a Fancy Trash Can from a Holiday Popcorn Tin

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The popcorn never tastes fresh and the flavors are questionable at best but somehow I’m still suckered into buying one of those holiday popcorn tins every year. At least I’ve learned to buy them after the holidays are done and the price drops by 50%. It still means I’m paying more than it’s worth but at least I feel like I’m getting a bargain.

The flimsy cardboard divider loosely separates the popcorn into three designated flavor sections: butter, cheese, and caramel. The cardboard never really keeps the actual popcorn flavors fully separated so in the end you get a generic blend of semi-identifiable flavors with each stale bite. Yet still, I can somehow get through the caramel section in its entirety in one sitting. Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe I’m just too attached to junk food.

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Every glass planter needs a hot pink crocheted basket to keep it warm.

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Crochet is having a moment. A recent Instagram search brought up almost 40 million posts with everything from crocheted bikinis to surprisingly varied plush turtles. The expansiveness of the crocheted projects I scrolled through in my feed is beyond anything I imagined although I shouldn’t be surprised. Creativity unleashed always leads to something amazing.

For National Handmade Day, I decided to dig out my crochet hook and try something new. While I love living in a DIY space, crocheting is not something I have done much of as an adult although I did have a prolific phase in my teen years. Between my obsession with rug hooking kits and attending one too many Artex paint parties with my grandmother, I did spend enough time with a crochet hook to make a decent granny square.  I was up for revisiting this timeless craft.

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