Cure for the Winter Blues: Organize the Jewelry

I have a great jewelry vanity. I say vanity rather than armoire, because this thing is huge. Here it is:


See. It's quite big. I am a jewelry addict. I have a lot of everything from rings to necklaces to earrings. Everything has just been kinda shoved in my vanity until now. I've sorted through everything and organized all the drawers. One problem is that there is not enough storage for all my necklaces. To rectify that problem, I made this great necklace holder awhile back.


It's just an old wood frame repainted. The middle is a chunk of plywood cut to fit in the frame with three cabinet knobs screwed into it. Perfect! (Except I think I need another one!)

Another problem is that the drawers in the vanity are slick on the inside and the jewelry all slides around when I open and shut them. So, I decided to line them with fabric I have laying around. But what fabric would work best to keep stuff from sliding? That's when I remembered I had an array of various colored felt laying around. Here's one drawer before I lined it:

And here it is after:

Much Better! I tested it out and no more sliding jewelry to get tangled together when I open or shut a drawer. Here's the whole thing organized and lined:

It's amazing how completing these small projects can make you feel like you just scaled a mountain top! Well, maybe not to the top of a mountain, but at least the top of the laundry pile! :)

Happy Crafting!

Cure for the Winter Blues: Hide the Clutter!

In the quest to cure my winter blues, I need to organize....eventually. This post is more about hiding the mess rather than cleaning it. It's not really a mess per se, it's the bedroom closet. Since we moved in in June, there are no doors on the master bedroom closet. It's been bugging my for awhile. I don't really have the funds to buy doors right now, plus I've been thinking it would be softer to do curtains. As I said, funds are low, so I'm making curtains out of what I have in my stash.

My stash so happens to include a canvas drop cloth, an old sheet, some grosgrain ribbon and old lace.

Our bedroom is done in blue and yellow. The drop cloth was an odd size, skinny but long. In this case that worked out well, I just folded it in half and cut. That way all the edges were already finished except the top. I folded over about 2 inches on the top to make a rod pocket and sewed!

I then accented the bottom with a strip of the sheet about 5 inches wide. At the top of the strip, I sewed the lace and grosgrain ribbon that I had gathered to ruffle slightly. This sounds a lot more complicated than it really is, I just sewed straight lines!

When it came to hanging the curtains, I didn't have a rod, and didn't want to spend money on one. So, what did I have in my stash to make it work? Picture hanging wire, two eye hooks and a nail! I just put an eye hook in each end of the doorway and a nail in the middle. Here's one end of the closet opening:

I just had to string the curtains on before I put up the other end of the wire. It's just twisted around the eye hooks, so I can untwist it to take them down to wash if I want.

Here's the finished project:

And here's a closeup of the bottom:


I absolutely love the result! I don't have to look at clothes and shoes if I don't want to, and the curtains slid open and shut great on the picture hanging wire. It makes for a much cleaner looking bedroom. I can already feel those blues sliding away. Just a bit. Check back later today for another great blues buster!

Happy Crafting!

Cure for the Winter Blues

I am suffering from the winter blues. For the last two weeks here in the Minnesota tundra, it's been below zero. I am currently unemployed and trying to start my own business with little or no capital, one of our vehicles is not working properly.....the list goes on and on. In order to get out of this funk I decided I need a cure. "I've got a fever....and the only cure is more cowbell!" Okay, maybe not more cowbell. I think I need to reorganize my house and my life. I need to get over the blues by doing, and of course, by crafting! And I'm sharing everything right here. So later today, look for the first of an entire week of posts with cures for the winter blues.