Refrigerator Magnet Baskets

A couple of months ago I had a brainstorm. While browsing in a dept. store I came across letter magnets. I remember these from when my nieces and nephews were younger. They LOVED these things! My Mom had them on her refrigerator and they would play with these for hours on end. And it wasn't just one or two nieces, but all of them loved those magnets when they were little. So, I thought, "What could I possibly do with those?" And then it hit me--why not make a little basket that would hang on the refrigerator that the little ones could put them in?" I thought it was a good idea because another of the little ones' favorite games to play was putting stuff in a bag or box and taking it out--another thing that kept them entertained for hours. So I decided to combine the two and this is what I came up with.

I think it'd make a great gift--I priced them very reasonably and I'm also including a choice of either a set of letter or number magnets to go with them! I do plan to make more of these this weekend. These little baskets would also work on a dresser or shelf to hold small items or toys. I might even make some in "grown-up fabrics" and maybe different sizes for Mom (or Dad). So--we'll see how these sell!! I personally love them! Might have to make myself a few.

My Sewing Space

Unfortunately I do not have a room totally devoted to my sewing. I actually live in an old brick schoolhouse so I don't have a lot of room to work with, but I do the best I can with what I have. And here's my little sewing space:

My small sewing table sits in front of the dining room window. It has a leaf that can be folded out if I need extra sewing space.

I also have a cutting table that has two leaves. When these leaves are down, it's pretty compact at 12" wide x 36"long. Folded out, this table is a whopping 36" wide x 60" long! Usually I just fold one leaf out when using it. I store it under the stairs and beside my chinchilla's cage.

I use the end of the dining room table for my ironing. Since most of my projects are smaller, I find a tabletop ironing board works great. When not in use, I just lean it against my cutting table.

I do have a room upstairs that I use to store all my fabric and craft items. It's a larger room, however; it has a slanted ceiling that is very low so virtually no wall space.  If it weren't for that, I would probably make this room my sewing space as well. To store my craft items, I have a plastic shelf with my drawers and organizers.  I keep some trims and other odds and ends in them.  You will also notice all the black and white boxes under the shelf--these are all my sewing patterns.

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I bet you're wondering what's in those blue boxes aren't you? That is just some of my ribbon. I have it all organized according to color.

  And let's not forget all my fabric! I store it in metal cubes according to theme and then by color. For example, all my baby/kids fabrics are together, animals, floral, novelty, etc.  The smaller fabrics on top are fat quarters.

And last but not least: my MIL gave us an old secretary that I sanded down and repainted. I store all my finished shop items in it and it works great!

So now that you've seen my crafting/sewing space, what does yours look like?

Reorganization

I am generally an organized person. I like to keep things neat and pretty and in their place. However, sometimes I get distracted (or to be more blunt: lazy) and don’t keep things as organized or as neat as I intend to. During the Christmas holiday, I became quite busy with orders and because of this, I found that I had made a mess of my fabric. I kept telling myself, “When the rush is over, I’ll straighten it all out.” I really did have the intention of doing this, I swear!

After things slowed down, I thought that I had better do something with my fabric mess. While looking at it I also came to the decision that I no longer liked the way I had it arranged. I have had my fabric arranged in different ways twice now. First I had it wrapped around cardboard. Same cardboard they use in the fabric stores only cut down to size. That worked pretty well but I decided to change that because it wasn’t very convenient when I had to unroll all the fabric off the bolt for smaller pieces.

So then I decided to roll it and put it in baskets. That worked pretty well for awhile but when I would buy new fabric, I would have to try to jam it in it’s proper basket. I was running out of room! So I had to figure out another way to organize my fabric.
I was inspired by fabric sellers on etsy and the way they would have the fabric stacked in their pictures. It looked so pretty and neat! But how much room would that take up (I’m limited on space)? Well, what the heck, I decided to try it out.
It took me a couple of tries to figure out how to fold my fabric so it would fit neatly in the metal cubes I use. I did manage to get it accomplished in less than a week though! And I am quite pleased with the way it looks. I can also shuffle through them and see what I have on hand easily enough. I still kept the stacks in themes (animal, baby, novelty, misc, floral, and flannel). That was one thing I didn’t want to change when I decided to reorganize.

I liked the way it looked so much, I decided to do my fat quarters the same (they’re stacked on top of the cubes)! So, how do you like it? If you have any fabric organization tips or techniques, I’d love to hear/see them because, I’m sure, I will reorganize again in the future. I guess I like change.