Beauitful World of Cardboard Part I

I love cardboard. There are so many wonderful things that can be done with it. In some ways it has turned me into a little cardboard hoarder, in the idea that I will be able to make something with it, which isn't too bad, because usually I do find something. Here are few goods that have come up recently. Enjoy.


I don't know if you are like our little family, but we love to stock up on canned foods! As great as they are though, there is a down side of finding a way to store them all. So here are a few nice ways.

 In kind considerations of my lovely sister, April, she gave me her empty 12 pack soda can boxes, they are a great way to store canned foods, and if you want them to be rotated by date, you can cut a hole in the back and put the new ones there so the old ones are always in front.

 Although the only down side, is they don't always fit all kinds of cans, they should make a uniform can size. These soda can boxes are best for "Cream of" whatever cans, and can still fit two rows worth, otherwise, many other cans are too fat and can only fit one row worth. Either way it still works nice!

 Then in my browsing on pintrest, I found on THIS website, the great idea of using a magazine holder to rotate or store cans. Then in a little more browsing I saw on THIS website, to use cereal boxes as a magazine holder, so I thought "hey! Why not forgo the buying of magazine thingies and just use what I got!" so Here we have it. Although I don't know if I would entirely call these official "rotators" since the old ones won't be in front. But it can at least store a bunch in one area. And one other down side, is it also only holds certain sizes as you can see. Here I have the small tomato sauce cans, and two rows of tuna cans. It's been so nice to fit more in one spot!

 Then aside from can storing, here is a little fun with regular organizing. As an end of the semester treat last year we splurged and bought a 6 pack of bottled cream soda! And after we were done, I had this great epiphany of an idea.

 This is probably by far one of my most favorite ideas. Over several months, it is still to this day nice and organized, that means it is a real winner! Oh and a little side note, I did add a layer of cardboard and hot glue on the bottom to make it more durable and last longer, so far so Great!

 Then in my multiplying stash of cloth material, I organized my material into boxes by color, or by designs, or finished projects (or close to finished) or my old clothes ready to be something new, etc. Then I labeled on the outside with scrap papers (maybe someday I will make it cute and pretty). So far this has also been an amazing life saver in organizing. Before this I just had piles stashed and thrown in the closet and it was crazy, it almost made me never want to sew because it was so hard to find stuff. Now I am in heaven!

And last but not least, our office supply "junk" drawer. It was always cluttered, so I got old cereal boxes, cracker boxes, all the sorts, cut them to the height of the drawer so they would fit, and then put items in the different sections that best belonged together, for example, there is a "glue" box, a "scissor" box, "stamps", etc. This has also been wonderful.

The best part about all these jewels is there is now extra purchases necessary, you can just use what you have!

That's all for today! Thanks for stopping by!

Until next time!

Storage boxes

As promised, this Fall Feature I will share some boxes that I just finished yesterday. Remember when I did the quilted storage boxes? Well these are similar but a little different at the same time.

Funny how as my girl gets older and more mobile throughout the house her things start spreading over too. She used to have all her toys in her room back when she was a tiny wee lad, but now that she plays and plays and mostly out in the living room, it was time to make some nice toy boxes for her in the living room to go with all this extra playing.

We like to buy whippies and diapers (when we do buy the occasional disposable for her out and abouts and our traveling) in bulk boxes because it seems to be lots cheaper that way and they seem to last forever (which means one less lovely trip to the store, yeah!). So it also turns out that these boxes are perfect sizes for our book shelves, which means perfect toy boxes. But I had to spruce them up a little of course.

So here is how they turned out. . . .

 This basket was my first inspiration, I liked the idea of have the cloth inside, so I used the inside as a pattern.

 Then I painted all the boxes a nice simple black

 Almost ready and dried!

 For the inside I cut 5 pieces, two long ones for the length of the boxes, two shorter ones for the width of the boxes and one more for the bottom. I used the above cloth inside piece as my guide but if you make these on your own you could just measure your box and make sure the pieces are a little bigger to allow for seams.

 Then I sewed all the pieces together, having the smaller ones in between. Then I  sewed them all together to make a circle. Then I sewed it to the bottom piece. Then I sewed a circle of elastic on the other end so it would sit a little more snug in the boxes. Here is how the final products turned out. . .

 The top box I store my books that I don't want my little girl getting into, but the rest are her toy boxes.

 More toy boxes!

And then a box for all her musical toys.

And of course we can't forget they are all matchy matchy, which if you know me, I love it when I can make it work out that way :)

What do you think? I love how they turned out, and they didn't cost me an extra dime cuz I used stuff from what I already had. Yeah for saving money! :)

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day! Come join me tomorrow for a "Sun-up Saturday!"

Until next time. . .

Quilted Storage Boxes

In my little girl's room there is this neat built in shelf in the wall and it happens to be conveniently right underneath her changing table. I thought what a better way to make use of it than to store things in it that I need to be able to grab right then without having to leave my little girl unattended. So to make it a little more matchy matchy with the rest of her room I made "quilted storage boxes".

The boxes were just random empty boxes we had laying around that fit well on the self. I like that they are random different sizes, I think it gives it a nice "block" sort of look.

Sorry I didn't take more pictures of the process of making it, I don't always remember to take pictures until I have already finished my projects...oops! At least this one was pretty easy that I don't think you would need a ton of detail if you wanted to make some of your own.

Here is a backed-up look of the finished project:

The boxes that I used are: the middle self boxes are a child size shoe box and the other is what my  "Plaster of Paris" came packaged in. On the bottom self from left to right it is: a box that an Ice shaver came in (thanks April for getting it for me!), another child size shoe box, a square shaped box that someone shipped goodies in and lastly a bulk package box that wipes came in. The hoarder in me likes to save EVERYTHING, cuz you never know what you can make with it later on and this time I made myself some nice storage bins cuz I hung onto some random boxes a little too long :)

Here is a more close up look of how they turned out:

She loves her stuffed animals- I had to keep one close by so she can hug and squeeze it while she waits for me to finish doing her business :)

Here is the ice shaver box and child size shoe box turned into the "bibs" and "socks" boxes (she has about 40 bibs she got from different people- I hope she doesn't get messy enough to need that many! :)

The child size shoe box and Plaster of Paris box turned into the "washcloths" box and "burp rags" box

The random shipping box and bulk sized wipe box has turned into "diaper shells" and "diaper inserts" boxes for her clothe diapers

Attaching the "quilt" pieces was super simple- all I did was use the extra squares that I had from the rest of the decorating her room (they were about 5x5 squares) and hot glued them in the design and way that I wanted them. I very much like how it all turned out and it was super easy and it didn't cost me an extra dime because I had everything on hand still.

As a side note, you may be wondering how I got the labels on the boxes- I printed them on material, not paper, to add to the "quilt" look.

To do this I:

 Cut and glued wax paper to a regular sheet of paper (it was a scrap paper from my husband's previous semester in school). Make it so the waxy/shinny side is facing up

See the lovely wax paper?

Then you iron the material you want to be printed on to the wax paper, make sure the material is also cut to the same size as the paper so it can feed through the printer well. This was my first time trying this, so it didn't completely work out the way I wanted, but I am sure with more practice I will figure this thing out. The wax serves as a temporary glue to hold the material in place so that you can just put it in your printer and print away, right onto the material. I must not have ironed it on good enough because when I printed, it took the material with it but left the wax paper behind. I got lucky and it still worked fine for me, but if you try this at home, it would prob be best to make sure it is ironed on nice and snug. When it is done printing you can just peel the material right off and Wall-ah! The great thing about doing it this was is you don't have to worry about typing backwards like "iron on-printer paper" makes you do it, and it is probably lots cheaper than that expensive paper, and to top it off even more you don't have to deal with that goofy edge it can sometimes have after you iron it on to something.

Long story short- that's how I made my labels for my boxes, and that is how I made my lovely "quilted" storage boxes that are matchy matchy with the rest of my little girl's room! See:

Matchy matchy pillow in the corner

And matchy matchy glider, quilt, another pillow and curtains!

Now I just need to finish her matchy matchy crib skirting...I will talk more of this when I actually finish it. So there you have it- fun, cheap and easy storage boxes!

Until next time!...