My newly re-decorated/re-organised Sewing Attic

After moving around bits and pieces of furniture a couple of weeks ago in order to re-decorate our entrance room/ chill out room downstairs I ended up having to re-organise my Sewing Attic. My fabric stash used to be kept in 2 large old trunks that belonged to my great-Grandparents who bought them out from Northern Ireland. While they held a lot of fabric they took up too much room in my little Sewing Attic and because I stored some of my quilts on top of one of them it meant I couldn't easily or quickly see what fabrics I had. Now one of them is downstairs in the new entrance room and one is in my lounge providing much needed storage in those rooms. Now as you can see in the above photo my fabric is much more readily accessible and looks pretty too in a variety of baskets and.......

........also stored in my newly restored and decorated vintage nail boxes. Yes Nic you were correct in your guess of what I would use these boxes for :-) A good deal of my quilting fabrics are kept in these 2 boxes. The 2 large round baskets hold fabric scraps and some larger pieces of a variety of different fabric types.


The sweet little white table in this photo was kindly given to me by my good friend Darlene who also helped with the re-decorating of my downstairs room. I love its art deco lines and its slightly shabby chic paint job.


The other 2 vintage nail boxes hold larger pieces of different weights of dress fabrics. I love that they are so more accessible now and I can see at a glance what I have and have not of course :-) Also on top of these boxes are various vintage tins and chocolate boxes holding ribbons, buttons, beads, trims etc which are now in a much more accessible space. The fifth wooden box which originally held soft drinks now holds some sewing magazines and patterns

I still have my inspiration board in the same place but I have also hung an old pair of  scissors (maybe for upholstery? ) and a vintage folding wooden ruler near it.

And here's a little collage of some of my favourite things in my re-organised space, a couple of my fabric wrapped wreaths now hanging and looking pretty, my favourite magazines all organised in newly covered magazine holders and some of my thread stash now stored in a re-purposed wooden beer display box. As I don't drink beer I think it is a much better use :-)

Finally I now have these larger pieces of 'Nicey Jane' fabrics hung on a rod in what used to be Amelia's bedroom which is opposite Caitlin's room and next to my sewing space. When Amelia moved into her new bedroom, I earmarked her old room for a combined creative space for both Caitlin and I. I think this is a great way of storing larger pieces of fabric so I intend to get more of these clipped hangers to hang other larger fabric pieces.

Today was a miserable wet day so I spent a couple of hours up here catching up on projects that have been sadly neglected these last couple of months. With my newly organised sewing space I feel re-energised about sewing again and have lots of projects in my head to tackle so watch this space :-)

Re-use, re-purpose...

 

A couple of weeks ago when I was endeavouring to make a dent in the mess that is our garage I spied these old wooden nail boxes filled with dirty old car parts, tools etc... I instantly thought that they would make cool vintage looking storage inside my home somewhere rather than decaying amongst rusty greasy car parts. So I pulled them out and gave them a good scrub and also treated them for borer.

 

I then spent a couple of afternoons and nights covering the insides with some pretty scrapbook papers with each box having a different colour theme. It was a bit like choosing the fabrics for a quilt and it probably took as long to choose the perfect collection of papers for each box as it did to glue them on.

 

The pink/green one.

 

A brown/blue/green/pink one.

 

A blue/green one.

 

And my favourite, the blue/yellow one. I just love the designs on these papers.

And this is the last box which is not a nail box but an old soft drink bottle box. For this one I used papers with text and an autumn colour theme.

Now if you are wondering what I may be using these boxes for you will have to wait for my next post.

Sorry to keep you in suspense :-)

Getting organised....

One simple and  practical idea that we (the Mothers) all liked at camp last week was that although we cooked all the meals everyday the menu was all planned for us along with all the required food stocked in the pantry/fridges/freezers. We all thought wouldn't that feel great to be so organised like this at home. So on Sunday morning I took 2 recipe books off my shelf, sat in the sun on our deck and wrote out a menu for this week along with a grocery shopping list.  As you can see in the above photo I have a wee 'library' of recipe books collected over the years. I have 2 recipe journals to write down recipe's in and one journal specifically for storing those recipes ripped out of magazines. The added benefit of writing out a menu each week is that I will actually use recipes from each book rather than them gathering dust. I love trying out new recipes hence my large collection of books. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there that has recipe books that are seldom used though. Oh and to be completely honest here that shelf does not house all my recipe book collection. I have another 1/2 dozen recipe books on another shelf, because they are just too big to fit up there with the others and also not forgetting my small collection of "Donna Hay" magazines which I have stopped buying now.

 It really does take that pressure off throughout the day knowing exactly what's for dinner. Narrowing it down to 2 books each week makes it easier to choose 6 recipes for dinner, lunch ideas for the girls and my weekly baking. In case you're wondering my husband does actually cook and is a good cook. When his workload is not so demanding he cooks a few times a week but at the moment it's down to a roast on Saturday night. 

My girls are also enjoying having the menu on the fridge and knowing what's for dinner each night. No more "What's for dinner?" questions although 2 of the meals this week have stretched to do 2 nights which led to disappointed cries of "What about Thursday's 'Pork patties with fresh plum sauce'?? I like it when a meal lasts 2 nights though as it gives me a night off cooking :-)

So is anyone else this organised when it comes to family meals? Do you have a large collection of recipe books but only use a couple of favourite books?