Over the door pocket hanger

Our last house had almost no closet space.  Now that we are living in a house with closets, I am making the most of them!

Here is the linen closet in our master bathroom

I decided to make my own over the door hangers to increase the amount of storage area.  First, I found a tablecloth on sale for $3.88 at target!  

I measured the door and chose the size of the hanger, mine is a very narrow door, so mine is only 15 inches wide.  Then, I hemmed all of the seams around.  I now have a rectangle of fabric to put pockets on.

I used a curtain liner ($2.34 at target) to make the pockets so that they would be clear.  For each pocket, I measured how wide and long I wanted them to be.  I then made a trapezoid shape pocket, with the bottom being the desired width of the pocket.  

I then pinned the pocket on making the sides of the trapezoid straight, not at an angle, to create a deeper pocket.  I had a difficult time figuring out how to make a whole line of pockets in one row that all had that deepness, so I made individual pockets, which took a lot longer.  If anyone has a good idea for this, let me know since I want to make at least one more of these before I'm done. 

I still want to paint the shelves, and put up some paper in the back, but here is how everything turned out.

bookshelves for the nursery

This past weekend, we took our first birthing class.  After that class, I was in super nesting mode.  I convinced P to spend half the day Sunday driving all over to pick up some stuff we absolutely needed for the nursery.  Luckily, we found some great deals on craigslist so it wasn't too much of a dent in our pocket book.  I am almost ready to show pictures of the nursery, but I'm still finishing up the changing table and I haven't found the perfect rug yet.

In the meantime, here is a little teaser.  I wanted to get some sort of bookshelves for the nursery and when I saw this idea on pinterest, I had to do it.  I forgot to take a picture of the wall before I started, so here it is right after I started.

I bought 2 different fabrics, 1 1/3 yard of each and followed the instructions in the tutorial I linked above.  It was so simple, and they turned out great!

Now all I need are some more books to put in there!  I might eventuall put another shelf above it for things other than books, but I have to be careful because the door opens in on here so it can't be too deep.

As for the little mouse and mouse hole in the corner, that was the test that came with my amazing vinyl image that is on the opposite wall, but I'm not ready to show that yet!

Also, as I was putting together this post, I tried to get the link for the tutorial off of pinterest and realized that it was down, I almost cried!  I hope it's back up soon as P is on a trip tonight and if I can't sleep, I have plans of spending time on pinterest, feeding my addiction.  :)

sprucing up the kitchen

I love my kitchen but since we recently moved into the house, I haven't really done anything with it.  I decided to rectify that today and I did it for under 5 dollars using stuff I already had at home!

First, I had a gift certificate for stitcher's crossing so I got 2 yards of fabric for a total of 3.84, which is the only money I spent on this project.  I used the fabric to make a valance for the window over the kitchen sink.  The hardware was already there from the previous owners.  Here is the before and after.

Next, I had this old bulletin board sitting around doing nothing.  It was a little worse for wear and it was just laying in my quilting area.

I saw this idea on pinterest, and I stole it.

I have an inbox, outbox, calendar, and menu!

Here is the before and after of that corner of the kitchen

Eventually I want to get a little table underneath there to put batteries/pens/pencils but this is what I had at home today to work with.  What about you?  Any craft ideas done on the cheap?

Yes...I like food

I really enjoy making food for other people.  To me, feeding people is a way of expressing my love for them.  So imagine all of the love this week when I had people over for dinner two nights in a row!

First, I had leftover bread from making tea sandwhiches. An entire loaf of heels and crust going to waste in my fridge, we can't have that happen! So I made a bread pudding, a savory bread pudding. Of course I didn't manage to take a picture of it, but it turned out great. So great, that people took home leftovers, that never happens! I also made a chocolate cake that I found on pinterest. It required making the cake, refrigerating overnight, and then assembling. I took lots of pictures of this cake :)

The next night I made another winner from pinterest, baked chicken parmesan.  I also managed to forget to take a picture of it, but mine looked exactly like the one in the link, and it tasted as great as was promised.  I had to cook mine about 20 minutes longer than he did, but only because my chicken was still partially frozen.  I even have enough leftover for dinner for me and P tonight, which is great because I'm temporarily out of ideas...back to Pinterest!

Our wedding mementos

P and I were married last year.  Our friends and family were so generous, and gave us so many cards and well wishes.  I didn't want to just stick them in a box, and I didn't want to throw them out, but it was a pretty big pile:

And I really hate clutter.  So, I decided to make an album with the cards and pictures of the people who gave them, as well as other paper memorabilia from the wedding.  Here is the album:

And here are some of the pages:

It was really fun to go through all of them again over a year later, it was such a great wedding!

A crafty Sunday

I am, like many people I know, addicted to Pinterest.  Since joining earlier this month, I have found so many new ideas I want to try out.  I have also found new blogs to follow.  One such blog had a great idea for going a whole month without spending any money.  I realize there are essentials like milk, eggs, etc that can't be avoided, but I love the idea of trying to make do with what you have and use up some of the supplies in your house already.  One of her guest posts talked about recycling oatmeal cans into useful storage, including a ribbon holder.  When I used up a can of oatmeal this morning baking, I knew just what to do:

Mine doesn't look as nice as the one she made, and of course I still have more ribbon to store, so hopefully the next one I make will turn out a little nicer, but it works great!

Next an ongoing project.

 I am attempting to hand quilt cupcakes into a fabric that is not cotton.  It is some sort of polyester blend, and it is not easy to work with.  Here is what the cupcakes will look like when done:

And now I only have 23 left to do as well as 3 milkshakes for the three rectangle sections.

It's a good thing I had all of this to keep me busy, so I wasn't too intent on the football game today where the poor Packers lost.  As long as someone beats the Patriots, I'll be happy, but I was hoping it would be the Packers, Go Pack Go!

Healthy Cooking

Last year for Christmas my mother got me a subscription to healthy cooking.  Even though it's been over a year and we've moved, the issues keep coming.  I hope this continues as this is probably the most useful magazine I've ever subscribed to.  I've made at least four or five recipes in each issue and usually many more.  I received this issue a couple of weeks ago.

Today I finally got a chance to make some of the recipes from this issue.  First, a peach blueberry baked oatmeal

Unfortunately, I had it finished just in time to go to church so we will have to try it out for breakfast tomorrow and see how it tastes. 

Next I made a sausage potato bake.  They make it healthier in the magazine by using ground turkey with spices to imitate sausage, but I really wanted sausage so mine isn't quite as healthy as theirs.

This turned out to be a huge success.  My husband (who hates most vegetables) didn't even mind that there were onions in it.  

If you are looking for ideas about what to make for dinner, I highly suggest this magazine.  I worked as a nanny for over a year for a vegetarian family, and during that time I made almost every vegetarian dish I found in this magazine, as well as replacing tofu for many of the meat entrees.