Magpie Ethel

IKEA Lust

I have been seeing this IKEA cart on a few blogs.  It is part of IKEA's spring line.  I love the color.  Luckily we have an IKEA here in Portland and I ran out there the other day. They had two in stock, so I grabbed one (it also comes in gray).

I put it together and decided it would work best in the studio for now.  I had no trouble filling it up and organizing it.  All my craft paint fit really well on the bottom shelf.
If you happen to venture out to an IKEA, they also have a Liberty of London look-a-like line right now.  Dish clothes, plates, napkins and glasses.  All kinds of fun springy stuff.

Glad I got that heads up in blogland about the cart...tis a happy day!

 

Eye Candy Organization

Half of the fun of crafting and collecting is figuring out to organize in an eye candy manner.

I love my collection of vintage wooden flatware trays (originally intended to sort your knives, spoons and forks).  They have an assortment of colors and patterns on the ends. I stack them up on a shelf in my studio.

The real fun comes when I take them out to start my Christmas crafting.  The trays hold my collection of vintage mercury beads sorted by color.

How can you not be happy when you have something like this to work from?

Nothing like sorted mercury glass beads to start out the crafting week!

I Know What You Are Thinking....

I KNOW sometimes when you are reading my posts you are thinking "Where in the heck does she store everything?"

I got all of my Christmas put away today...ALL of it.  I thought I may give a glimpse into where it all lives during the year.

My blow-mold Santa collection lives in a corner of my attic over the garage.  The largest Santa (usually inside by dining room window) lives at my parents house in their huge attic.

The remainder of my holiday decorations live in bins in my basement on shelves.  Christmas takes up the top two shelves on the left (the wooden post divides it).  The area to the right of the wooden post holds Halloween, Easter, Fourth of July, Valentine's day etc. I hang items from the ceiling and the wooden supports.

Stuffed to the gills!

When putting away decorations today, I had to snap a photo of some of my favorite ornaments before they hibernated to the bins for the winter. I love the flowers.

It is nice to get all my Christmas goodies organized and put away...on to the next holiday! 

Organization Procrastination

I am getting ready for my trip on Wednesday and have a very long list of things to do...VERY LONG.  However, due to the glitter that I bought this weekend, it snowballed into glitter organization.

The culprit.

I was going to put it in with my other glitter containers.  I have them stored in 5 areas in my studio.  This is not a good glitter system. The graphics on this box were cute and deserved to be displayed.

I had this shelf sitting in my garage and dragged it into my studio and then went to work dividing my glitter by color.

I am now happy with my glitter organization.  I still have two other drawers full of glitter, but now the CUTE glitter is out and can make me happy when I look at it.

I have now procrastinated further by doing a blog post on glitter organization.  I must go cross things off my list for the trip and get busy!

happy day!

 

Give Me an "O"

"O" for Organization!!!  When I show my estate sale finds I can often hear you whispering..."Where in the world does she put it all?"  Luckily I am pretty organized...on a scale of 1-10, I would give myself and 8.

I am going to show you some of the tips I have to keep things in order in the studio.

First, there is the obvious - glass jars.

Then there are the ugly plastic storage bins.  They just fit too neatly up on the top of my cupboard not to use them.  I have them labeled with tags that I just printed out on paper I cut from manila file folders. 

 

The tags look like old flashcards.

I tie little circular tags to knobs and tie with cute ribbons.

Sometimes I will label the drawer with a vintage label from something inside the drawer.  The drawer below with the old crepe paper label is full of that very thing!

 

Cigar boxes are labeled.

 

Sometimes in addition to a tag that is stuck onto a tin with a magnet, I will hot glue one of the item on a magnet as well.  I did this with this can that holds old buckles.

This old wooden box obviously holds cards of buttons.

The round tins that I am forever collecting become a tall tower. I hot glue old bingo pieces to magnets and then label each can with a little paper tag secured with the cute magnet.

Even suitcases used for storage have tags hanging from their handles.

No guessing what is in this tin.

 

Here is another example of putting an item on the outside of a tin for quick identification.

Just a little insight into my organization madness...

there really is a spot for everything!

A Little Pink File Box

When I returned from Farm Chicks I spent some time organizing the business cards I collected in my little pink file box.

I have used this system for awhile to keep track of my blogging friends.  I know I could keep the information on the computer somewhere, but I like the old fashioned look and feel of sorting thru my 3 x 5 cards.  I must admit that sometimes my mind is mush. I have met so many people in blog-land that it is hard for me to keep things straight sometimes.  After I have commented back and forth with a blog friend or if I have developed a relationship with them..they get added to my file box. 

My little pink box - estate sale find.

I found these terrific striped 3 x 5 cards at Office Max.  I thought they were much more charming than those ordinary looking index cards.

I couldn't find ABC dividers that I liked so I made some using assorted vintage looking scrapbook paper cut to size and then added the letter dividers.  I like that is all a mishmash of patterns and not super matchy/matchy.

I made an example card for myself.  If I have a business card I tape it to the side...they make the card more exciting.  I include the blog name and the name of the blogger, or if no blog, just the name.  I would include the home state and city, names of kids, collections or quirky finds. etc. I also list the email for the person and their address if I have it.  Basically any little fact that I need to remember!!!!

I hope this does not sound stalkerish, but rather my attempt to deal with my inadequate memory retention!

In the back of the file box I tuck cards or notes I have received from blog-land friends.  Everything is all neat and in one spot.  My little pink file box is a very good thing!

And just as a side note...I have been busy in the studio working on some red, white and blue fourth of July fun.  I hope to have my things listed on Etsy this Sunday.

Have a great weekend...hope to hit some estate sales tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.

Martha - Almost Four Feet Tall

I have mentioned before that I love my mmagazines.  Unfortunately I also save them (not all of them, just selected titles).  I have saved my Martha Stewarts for awhile.  I stack them in my studio and go thru them periodically for inspiration.  The other day I was out working and realized what a space sucker they have become. 

I hauled them into the house to go thru them and rip out pages I liked.  I have a stack 46 inches tall with 97 copies...my earliest copies date to Oct of 1992 and Oct of 1995.  That is embarrassing.

Doesn't Martha look quite young?

I do have a method to my madness with magazines.  Here are my tips.  When I read magazines I always have post it notes nearby and flag pages with things of interest when I read.  That makes it easy to purge when I do go thru magazines to rip out pages...I know what pages interested me off the bat (altho I often page thru the whole magazine anyhow.)

I also discovered that instead of ripping out the pages and ending up with a jagged tear or ripping part of the page I wanted to save that an exacto knife works great.  I just cut close to the fold and the page comes out nice and clean - quick and easy.  It's a good thing.

And now that I don't have the huge space sucker stacks of Martha in my studio I have lots more storage, something I never seem to get enuf of.  That led to a 3 hour organizational spree this weekend...but that is another post!

I Love to Organize

I admit that I am an organization freak.  Nothing gives me more pleasure than getting everything in order all neat and tidy. I can live with some disorganization, but eventually it will get to me and I will get it all back in order.

Recently my kitchen pantry needed a boost.  All the shelf liner paper was fraying and looking dingy.  I replaced all the shelf liner and got new containers for my flour, sugar, rice etc. 

It all looked tidy but boring. Luckily Today's Creative Blog did a feature on this gal jk vinyl.  She does these awesome labels in whatever color you want.  This was just the thing that I needed in my newly organized pantry!

Don't these containers look totally cute?  I now smile when getting out such staples as flour and sugar!

The labels were simple to apply and you can totally color coordinate with your decor.

I am one happy organized woman! (plus the kids went back to school!)