Family Command Center

I have been wanting to do this for A LONG time. And my family has been giving me crap over it, apparently they've never heard of a "family command center" because they kept referring to it as "the space command center," and something else that had to do with space... 

But I'm so happy to have finally finished it!

I feel so much more organized :)

What's included:

1. My dry erase calendar with Say It On The Wall Vinyl, and decorative tissue paper backing.

2. Two dry erase boards made from 4x6 frames, spray painted white, with polka dot paper. One is a "To Do" list and the other is a "Grocery List".

3. Another white frame with a clip that I Super Glued to the glass of the frame and added a sticky note-pad.

4. Mail holder (made from recycled boxes).

5. My Birthday Calendar (far right).

6. A pencil holder made from a tin can, with scrapbook paper wrapped around it, and hung with twine.

7. And my newest craft!...Corkboard from an antique frame. This is one of my favorite elements of the whole command center. :)

Monday: Sew Can Do, Graphics Fairy,  Mad In Crafts, It's So Very Cheri, Skip To My Lou, The Girl Creative,  DIY Showoff, Making The World Cuter,  Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Keeping It Simple, Trendy Treehouse,   

Tuesday: Sweet Floweret, Hope Studios,

Wednesday: Sugar Bee,  Silly Little Sparrow, Today's Creative Blog,  

Thursday:Someday Crafts,  The Thrifty Home, Someday Giveaway

Friday:Beyond The Picket Fence, Train To Crazy,  733,  Shabby Cottage,  Fireflies and Jellybeans, Somewhat Simple, Thirty Handmade Days,  Shabby Nest, 

Hodgepodge Friday,  Fun To Craft,  Tidy Mom, Finding Fabulous, Fingerprints on the Fridge,  Simply Sweet Home, 

Chic On a Shoe String,  Kojo Designs.

Saturday: Show and Tell,  I Am Only One Woman, The Hungry Hippo, Funky Junk Interiors, Saturday Spotlight @ Craft Envy. 

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DIY Mail Organizer

I have seen this done before, and I desperately need something to organize all the papers on our counter, so I ventured to make my own version.

What you will need: 

-one cereal box (bigger the better--like Chex, but I didn't have that)

-one smaller box (I used a fruit snack box)

-brown crafting paper (dollar store :)

-embellishments (I used ribbon, twine, and scrapbook paper)

 1. To start, cut the flaps off of the top of your boxes.

2. Cover with brown crafting paper and tape or glue (I used double stick tape).

3. Tape or glue boxes together and add embellishments. I cut a few things out with my Silhouette and added ribbon around the sides. 

You can use magnets to put the organizer on your fridge, or stick it on your wall.

Monday: Sew Can Do, Graphics Fairy,  Mad In Crafts, It's So Very Cheri, Skip To My Lou, The Girl Creative,  DIY Showoff, Making The World Cuter,  Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Keeping It Simple, Trendy Treehouse, 
Tuesday: Sweet Floweret, Hope Studios,

Wednesday: Sugar Bee,  Silly Little Sparrow, Today's Creative Blog,  
Thursday:Someday Crafts,  The Thrifty Home, 
Friday:Beyond The Picket Fence, Train To Crazy,  733,  Shabby Cottage,  Fireflies and Jellybeans, Somewhat Simple, Thirty Handmade Days,  Shabby Nest, 
Hodgepodge Friday,  Fun To Craft,  Tidy Mom, Finding Fabulous, Fingerprints on the Fridge,  Simply Sweet Home, 
Chic On a Shoe String,  Kojo Designs.
Saturday: Show and Tell,  I Am Only One Woman, The Hungry Hippo, Funky Junk Interiors, Saturday Spotlight @ Craft Envy.  

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House Cleaning Cards

I have been trying to figure out a system for cleaning my house that would work for me (something that's not too complicated). So I have been working on this idea in my head for awhile and today I went a head a put it all together!

There are five cards that each have a day of the week and specific chores that must be completed for that day. So there are the specific chores, and then either organizing an area or cleaning a "special area." Monday and Wednesday part of the day is spent organizing an area. Tuesday and Thursday part of the routine is spent cleaning a special area that doesn't get attention often like the ceiling fans.

One special area is worked on two times per week (two of these would be marked off at the end of the week). When all are marked off, I wipe it off and start all over. 

 

*Download at Scribd*

***If anyone would like for me to email (nv.craftenvy@gmail.com) them a copy of the template I made (in Microsoft Word) let me know. I would just post it online but eveyone's chores are probably a little different.

Monday: Sew Can Do, Graphics Fairy,  Mad In Crafts, It's So Very Cheri, Skip To My Lou, The Girl Creative,  DIY Showoff, Making The World Cuter,  Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Keeping It Simple, Trendy Treehouse, 
Tuesday: Sweet Floweret, Hope Studios,

Wednesday: Sugar Bee,  Silly Little Sparrow, Today's Creative Blog,  
Thursday:Someday Crafts,  The Thrifty Home, 
Friday:Beyond The Picket Fence, Train To Crazy,  733,  Shabby Cottage,  Fireflies and Jellybeans, Somewhat Simple, Thirty Handmade Days,  Shabby Nest, 
Hodgepodge Friday,  Fun To Craft,  Tidy Mom, Finding Fabulous, Fingerprints on the Fridge,  Simply Sweet Home, 
Chic On a Shoe String,  Kojo Designs.
Saturday: Show and Tell,  I Am Only One Woman, The Hungry Hippo, Funky Junk Interiors, Saturday Spotlight @ Craft Envy.   Read more

"To Return" Box

Do you ever feel like you have all sorts of stuff laying around your house that people left or that you borrowed? And, it's like, impossible to remember to return everything!

That's why I created this box, to help us keep all of our stuff "to return" in one place!

I'm totally loving it.

What you will need:

-one box with lid (mine's from IKEA $7)

-1 1/2 inch ribbon to decorate

-"To Return" sign

-hot glue

I just used my silhouette machine to cut out the letters and then I put them on a few layers of scrapbook paper. I hot glued the ribbon on to add a little pizazz to the boring box. It's so easy and it's a great organization tool!

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Craft Room DONE!

I FINALLY finished the craft area in my new house...took me long enough!

I have my table for working and taking pictures.  My junk is in an $80 cabinet from Lowe's where I am storing all of my craft things. Everything is organized in my security envelope formula cans!

So excited to have it all neat an tidy!

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Fabulous Friends Wednesday - Sonia from Kosmic Chai Crafts!

Welcome dear friends to another FABULOUS FRIENDS WEDNESDAY!  We are so happy to welcome Sonia from Kosmic Chai Crafts today!  I found Sonia's blog a while back, and I have to say that I just love her mind when it comes to recycling and re purpose projects.  There are so many things I want to make from her blog!  I'm sure you'll love what she has to share with us today, so stop by her blog today! 

Hello dear crafters, I’m Sonia from Kosmic Chai Crafts. I’m a new blogger,
 and so excited that Nicholette and Vanessa are having me as their guest today!
 I’ll be posting here something very exciting today, but I guess a brief
 introduction about me is in order.

I’m 24 years old and married for more than a year now. I have a passion for

crafting, and can hardly seem to keep my hands off it, even as I'm into a full-time job as account manager in a national radio channel. I love reading, dark chocolate, pastas, tea or ‘chai’, glass gems, sea, shades of blue, and everything colorful; and I’m sucker for recycling projects. My mind just can’t seem to stop whirring when I want to repurpose or restyle anything.

Here are some of my earlier creations. Click on the links if you wish to check them out!

Springy Summery Bracelet

Butterfly Glass Gem Mobile

Beautified Flower Pot

Crystal Chain Necklace

Birds on Branches Mobile

Fall Inspired Candle Holders

There are so many other creations of mine too, which you can check on my website: Kosmic Chai Crafts. I'm looking forward for your visits over there!

Okay, now with today's tutorial: Plastic Bottle Purses- such an exciting recycling project! Here's what I came up with:

Could you have imagined these were made out of plastic bottles? These plastic purses can be put into multiple uses, such as coin box, or for storing keys, craft tidbits, beads etc.- almost anything! At the same time, your being a socially responsible person and holding some plastic off the hazardous landfills. 

These are super easy to make, too! You will need:
Two similar plastic bottle bottoms (soda/bottled water bottles)
Sharp Scissors
Cello tape
Two zippers
Sharp-edged Screwdriver (for piercing holes)
Needle
Fishing line/ Nylon/ any strong thread
Acrylic paints of your choice

Now lets get started! Heat and old kitchen knife, and with it drill a hole slightly above the bottom area of the bottle. Insert your scissors into the bottle from the hole and snip the bottoms off the soda/water bottles. This is very easy! Two bottoms make one purse; take note that both are similar in shape and size, or the purse wouldn't look proper. I made two purses out of 4 bottoms: two of the flat kind, and two from soda bottles.

You must have noticed the sharp edges of the hence snipped bottoms, and we don't want bruised fingers every time we touch them, do we? So cover the raw edges with the help of some cello tape. Next, lay them bottoms up for a good coat of acrylic spray paint. I chose silver. Wrong Choice. Choose carefully!

After the spray paint has dried, take your sharp edged screwdriver and pierce holes in regular intervals along the edge. Later on, I found that even a large needle would do the trick!

Bring in those zippers! I wanted to finish this project with everything on-hand, hence I salvaged some old zippers from hubby's unused trousers and jeans. You can do the same; ransack hubby's cupboards. Take care that they're of the same length as the bottle's circumference. Mine were shorter and came only half-way, but I used them anyway!

Now place the zipper along the edge of the bottom. 

Thread your needle with nylon/fishing thread and secure with a knot. Start securing the zipper to the inside of the bottom by stitching it in and out from the pierced holes. This is very easy, really so don't get confused. Here's the bottom half finished:

Now start stitching the upper half of the purse by securing the other side of the zipper to another bottle piece.

Once stitched, close the zipper. Ta Da, you've done it!!

Here's how it looks when open:

Trim the unwanted threads of the zipper, and you're done! The zippers I used were shorter, hence I can zip these only till half the way. Use the zippers of exact length for better results!

Ideally you could have stopped here, if you had the colored it right. I hated the cement-colored look, so started to alter their look. I painted some floral designs on one of the purses, so that the base silver color doesn't show much. The second one however, I re-painted totally white, and coated it with some matt Mod Podge so that the silver doesn't show. I then made small brush strokes with the colors of spring, and outlined them in black. Done!

Pop in your small change, keys, or paper clips, whatever!

Here they are, all zipped up!

I love these- good recycling, great for storage! What do you think? Let me know by visiting my blog and leaving some comments!

Thank you Nicholette and Vanessa, for having me here! Ooh, I had such fun!

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Security Envelope Formula Cans

Vanessa made these on one of her posts awhile back. I have been wanting to get organized lately since my craft stuff is all just thrown into a corner. I have a ton of formula cans and I just decorated them with the insides of security envelopes!

To one person they may just be Chase symbols, but to you...it's a monochromatic mosaic of organization!

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Mouse Trap Notepad Clip

My mom gave me this idea to use a mouse trap as a clip to hang a notepad on the wall! I love it, I think it's kinda cute...just make sure you use a NEW mouse trap :)

This might even make a fun mother's day gift!

 What you will need:

-One un-used mouse trap  $1

-12 or more inches of 2 colors of ribbon

-A notepad  $1

-Fake Gerber daisy with jewel in center  $1

1. First thing you will want to do is strip your mouse trap of excess metal that you won't be using so that it looks like this...

 2. Add your ribbon and tie a bow.

3. Clip in your notebook paper. I took about half of my notebook paper out so that it held better. Then once you run out you can add the second half.

4. Hot glue on your gerber daisy.

Now you have a cute new notepad holder!

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Newspaper decoupage - my attempt at being organized.

Ok, Nicholette is probably laughing right now, as she sees this post.  She has seen my "craft room"/"dump"  and I told her I had a goal to organize it my April.  Well it's March, and I haven't done a thing about it.  I can't even take a picture to show you all how bad my craft room is, for fear of all you dear followers leaving me.

I should have made a tutorial, but this really is just simple.  I used empty cereal boxes and an empty oatmeal container. Mod Podge is my friend! :)  I just used some newspaper to cover these up and some black grosgrain ribbon to decorate the edges.  Cute labels to organize things, and that's all!

Hopefully this means I'll reach my goal to finish my craft room in April.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

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Business Card Holder

Those of you who have been keeping up with our posts know what this is made of....

 ...newspaper!!

I made each individual circle just like Vanessa made the newspaper rings!

You will need:

-11 newspaper rings (check Newspaper Rings tutorial), on hand

-acrylic paint (mine is in Espresso), $.87

-Mod Podge, $3.97

-Paint brush, on hand

 Just glue your newspaper rings together with Elmer's or Mod Podge exactly how I did in the picture. Paint and let it dry. Mod Podge a thick layer to create a clear coat.

You have a hand crafted business card holder!

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Beautiful Labels: Free Download

Cathe at Just Something I Made has tons of free downloads to help you decorate/organize/have fun! Recently she posted some beautiful labels to use to organize magazines, but you can use them for whatever you want! Check out all of her awesome downloads! Read more

Twine-covered cans. SO Cute!

If you're like me, you see things around your house and feel bad about throwing them out because they could make themselves useful somehow.  Well, I saw these and I love them!  I no longer use formula at my house, but other cans might work just as well!  The lovely ladies at Brown Paper Packages have a really great tutorial for these awesome cans, so check it out!

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