One Tiny Step in Craft Room Organization

I have my vast collection of ribbons in some of those little clear storage drawers. Many of them are on spools, but others were bought by-the-yard or came around gifts, blankets, flowers, or chocolate boxes. I try to keep them sorted by color in little baggies, but they don't always fit...or stay inside the baggies. When I pull the drawer out, this is what I get. And if I want to get a ribbon out of the bag, all the ribbons must come out.

Recently, I've seen ideas for wrapping ribbons around either small pieces of cardboard or clothespins. I don't have any cardboard to turn into ribbon holders at the moment, but the clothespins seemed like a pretty good idea.


There are lots of pictures of this idea all over the internet, so I'm not exactly going to do a tutorial. I will, however, tell you a few things that worked for me. If a ribbon had an angled end, I clipped the tip of the angle into the clothespin. If not, and the full width of the ribbon wouldn't fit within the clothespin's jaws, I folded an angle into the end of the ribbon (or blanket binding, in this case.)


If the ribbon was wider than about a half inch, I tried to wind it in straight, smooth rounds on top of itself. That worked better with some ribbons than with others. There were a few velvet ribbons I had almost a yard of, and they didn't want to stay straight at all! By the way, this works best with about a yard of ribbon or less. You can try it with up to two yards, if the ribbon is rather thin, but more than that and I'd definitely say to try spooling it on a piece of cardboard, because it will get rather ungainly on the clothespin. If the ribbon was narrower than a half inch, I didn't even try to keep it in straight lines, but instead wound evenly around the full length of the clothespin's jaws.

I tried a couple different ways of securing the ends of the ribbons. A straight pin seems to be what they used in a lot of the pictures I found, but I'm somewhat concerned about the pins snagging on other ribbons. I also tried threading the last few rounds of ribbon through a safety pin, sort of as a latch to loosely hang on to the end of the ribbon. I didn't have nearly enough spare safety pins, however, so I secured others with a dab of scotch tape, just like they do in some of the fabric stores. I'm thinking I don't want to leave that on too long, but it will probably be fine as a short-term solution until I find more safety pins.

The clothespins take up a good bit more space in my drawer than the baggies did, but I'm thinking that they will be much easier to use. And if I can see the ribbons, I'm much more likely to actually use them!  (This year I'd like to drastically reduce my stash of paper, ribbons, and beads.) It's not much, but it's definitely a step in the right direction!

The First Spring Decorations

This is how I've had my corner shelf decorated for winter. Not great, but not horrible. My grandparents gave me the shelf when I bought my house--it was made by my great-grandfather! These photos don't actually show what a pretty color it is, but I'm not really home enough in daylight hours to take good natural-light photos. At any rate, I love the shelf, but I've never really had good luck with finding things to go on it. I like the little angel candleholder, but she's very wintery. The little lantern on the top shelf was a Target Dollar Spot find I bought just to have something to fill the spot, and have never found anything better. At one point I had my Old Country Roses cream pitcher on the next-to-top shelf, but it's now in a safer home in the china cabinet (when it's not out holding flowers). I keep looking at things that might be interesting additions to the shelf, then deciding that they're too dark to really show up in a dark wood shelf in a somewhat shadowy corner!

Here is the start of a spring makeover for the corner shelf. I've resigned myself to not really being able to decorate for spring--my basic house colors of red and black don't really lend themselves to bits of pink, green, and lavender being thrown in! But I figure I can lighten things up a bit, and get rid of the blatantly winter bits.

I've replaced the wintery angel with some porcelain birds I got at Michael's. I really like them, but they're a bit short for the shelf. I'm thinking they either need to go on the top shelf, or I need to "floof-ify" them with some lace, flowers, grass, or something to give them some height.

The lantern has been replaced with a sheet music covered treble clef, also a Michael's find. I think it's really cool, but could also use a bit of something more. I'm thinking a base (something to give it some height, not a bass clef, haha), or maybe some flowers. Red roses would be a bit cliche, but red is my favorite color. Black would certainly match, but wouldn't exactly help with the whole "decorating for spring" idea. Hmm...ideas, anyone?

I still plan on switching out the candle holder--it seems a bit silly to have a candle holder in a place where I would absolutely not light a candle. I still like the rose bouquet at the bottom, although perhaps I should pull it forward. And the amaryllis pot is perfect spring decor, since those are spring bulbs. Ooh, perhaps I could find some silk red-and-white amaryllis flowers! That would be springlike while perfectly matching my decor!

Improvised Bedside Table: A Before-And-After

I've had fabric-covered boxes as my bedside table for over three years now. It started off as a short-term solution until I found a bedside table I liked better than my boxes. Three years in, however, I still haven't managed to buy a table for beside my bed. I often forget to look for something I could repaint or repurpose, and after all, my boxes are doing just fine--if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Old fabrics, new fabrics, and bedspread

The boxes had gotten to where they could use a bit of fixing, however. Three years of having damp glasses of water sitting on them, my cat jumping on them, and my vacuum cleaner running into them had made the boxes a bit softer, and the fabric a bit dirtier, than they first were. I laundered and ironed my fabrics, then stopped. My original plan for my bedroom color scheme was pastel pink and blue. As I decorated, however, I found very little pink-and-blue, and lots of pink-and-green. My original table fabrics didn't really match the bedroom, or my bedspread, as well as they could have. I decided to try some other fabrics. I love the pink-with-blue-roses vintage print, but the newer pink and green roses really do look better with my bedspread.



I had a few boxes I had saved from some shipments I received at work, so I tried stacking them in different ways. This is the arrangement I went with. If I'd had larger pieces of fabric to work with, I could have covered two same-size boxes with a single fabric, but most of my fabric is scraps from dressmaking, so I don't have pieces that large! The shape of this "table" reminds me of some 1950s vintage wooden end tables my parents have in their living room. I've always liked those tables.










Here are the fabric-covered boxes. I covered the top one tightly with the printed fabric, then decided to drape the fabric over the lower one a bit more loosely, sort of like a tablecloth, only tucked underneath at the edges. I used plain straight pins to secure the printed fabric to the smaller box. They stay pretty well in the thick corrugated cardboard of the box.

Here's the final product! I added a small metal tray to the top to help support the weight of my lamp and such, and to help protect the cardboard from future damp water glasses!