Tweaking the Front Entry

We don't have a home office but our front entry expedit does a good job of covering up our paperwork in its drawers and cupboards. It does seem strange that I am writing up this post a day after I started packing up some of the files and paperwork from this area. I have no clue how the front entry in our new home will be set up. It is quite a deal larger and darker than this rental.

Not our furniture here in the entry

Right next to the front door I have two sorting bags from IKEA. Documents and receipts with personal info are put into the top one to be later shredded. As you can see my recycling bag is chock full of paper and cardboard recycling.

Then I have a fireproof locked box for the essential documents - Wills, Passports, Birth/Marriage certificates and Insurance papers. I think I should put a few treasured photos and a few USB photo sticks in as well (folks who lose their house in a fire usually regret losing photos the most).

Next I have a portable suspended file for all those Appliance Manuals and Warranties.

 I have to be careful to stay on top of the mail and prevent the top of this expedit unit from attracting clutter. It's a bit of a 'drop zone' for my husband and I.

I am linking up with 101 Home Organisation at A Bowl Full of Lemons

Rearranging Relief

Zakka Sew-Along - Zig Zag Tote

For the best part of the past 2 days I have been working my way through the pattern for the Zig Zag Tote in the Zakka Style book for the Zakka Sew-Along. It has been REALLY challenging. It is my first bag ever and I am not very good with conceptualising written patterns. This afternoon I was 3 steps away from finishing it, when disaster struck! I could have cried but I was too tired to bother...so I set down my unpicker, turned off my machine and walked out of the sewing room. I need time out from this project. 


So I turned my brain to the rearrangement of shelving in my son's room. Strangely I felt relief!


Expedit Love #2


My husband put together the 2nd 2x4 unit this afternoon and shifted the old 2x2 into big brother's room. So I had to think about what to do with the extra shelf space and storage it created. That's a 'nice' problem to have.


Before                                                                                After

Of course it did involve a lot of tidying up as well. Always good mind numbing stuff!


Before

 After

The New Expedit 2x4 


Top - Ikea fabric boxes with cds of talking books, board books and finger puppets. I alsor swapped the framed pictures because this cute one, from A Little Birdie Told Me, looked better with these colours in the boxes.

Top Shelf - Toy Story tins from Op-shops. Stripey robot and Toothless the Dragon (we picked him up at the 'How to Train Your Dragon' live show last weekend in Brisbane).

2nd Shelf - Disney, Dr Seuss and Charlie and Lola book series. Then a selection of my favourite kids books including many written and illustrated by Alison Lester and Fulvio Testa.

3rd Shelf - Mostly picture and fiction books

Bottom Shelf - Non-fiction. Full of trains, space, dinosaurs and 'Tell my Why?' titles.

Desktop - needed a good declutter. I forgot to take a 'before' shot. It would have been worthwhile -darn! (But it should be a complete mess by tomorrow afternoon...so I may update this post with a photo).

Younger Boy's I-Spy Quilt


This one was also made by my mother when Tristan was barely out of a cot. I love its busyness and borders.

Older Boy's I-Spy

Now I can claim this one! This was my first single bed quilt and first written pattern. I whipped up the patchwork top in less than 4 days in January 2010. It involved a LOT of fun fussy cutting and many, many fabrics.

I wanted Duncan's quilt to be predominantly green. I added a few non-picture tone on tone greens, blues and oranges to give it some 'pop'.

I love all the London prints that my mum gave to me when she de-stashed her kid's fabric. Thankfully the green Dr Seuss had just been released, so I couldn't resist throwing in a Lorax and Sneetch..

A lot of the animal/wilderness prints were from Keepsake Quilting. They do some great I-Spy releases. It was much harder to find 'Australian' prints. I found only 2 - cricket and koalas. I also threw in some Halloween prints too!

Back to the tote tomorrow...can't wait to finish it! The next project the 'House Pouch' started today. I am not sure if I will join in with this one - it had better be easier than this first project! Grrrrr for the idea of following the patterns as laid out in the book rather than building our skills by doing the easier projects first.

Thank God for Good Friday

Back on the 5th of April 1985, I woke up and asked God if I could be friends with him. I didn't really know what to say but I had been going to a Youth group for about half a year, and realised that some of the kids talked about God like a real person. I didn't think that just believing in God was the same as following God. 


Anyway, 27 years later, God and I are still friends. All because of what Jesus did at the very first Easter.  


Expedit Love


Last Sunday, passing through Brisbane we picked up 2 new Expedit units from IKEA. My husband put together the first and set it up in my daughter's room.


Before                                                                                          After

More storage space was needed and so this unit was place alongside the old one. 


Before

After

A little decluttering of the two baby boxes.


Before

After

The New Expedit 2x4

 top surface now houses the baby boxes and cds.

top shelves house the smaller hard cover and board books.

 2nd shelf is a bit more decorative with handmade friends.

3rd shelf houses the accessories and dress-up clothes.

bottom shelf filled with books.


The Old Expedit - 2x2

op surface of the 2x2 unit now displays the 'le Toy Van' fairy castle.

top shelf $5 pink boxes now house the Disney Princesses and their friends. 'Beast' and 'winged Dora horse' were from Op-shops.

bottom shelf - more books (these will need to be culled soon. I pulled out a few books to donate but I need to spend more time on it).


Girly I-Spy Quilt


I can't claim this one. It's yummy goodness was made by my mother for her only grand-daughter. She made this BEFORE I even owned a sewing machine and learned to quilt.

for some reason the uploader keeps turning these...but you get the idea of the fussy cutting.




Large Zipper Pouch


Remember the 20c zips from the op-shop this week? I used the pink one to whip up a large zip pouch for my daughter. And seeing I had some scraps of the Easter give-away fabric, I used up a large strip for the front. It's the size of a large pencil case.

 I did some free motion quilted eggs on the pink polkadot fabric strips.

When I told her it was a an Easter pouch she promptly out it into the waistband of her skirt , popped a teddy bear inside, used my measuring tape for a tail tucked into the back, and hopped around the house like a marsupial. 


So I may need to re-think the name of this one a little!

Sorting at the Beginning

Our Academic school year began today. Tristan and Duncan moved up into Year 1 and 3 respectively. It was also the last day of Family Day Care for my daughter Frances. She re-starts Pre-School next week and also begins Pre-Kindy 2 days a week at the same school as her brothers. So it felt strange to drop all three kids off this morning and then drive home without them. It's a little taste of freedom I could not even glimpse at when this journey began nearly 8 years ago with a newborn baby's cry.

Anyway...enough reflecting. Here's what I wanted to share. The art of sorting things out BEFORE they begin. The volume of school notes, awards and newsletters can get the best of me each year. So this year I was determined to put some structures in place to help me sort through as things come home rather than at the end of the term, or heaven forbid, year.

This is my favourite IKEA piece. You may also be familiar with the Expedit. In fact some ladies on Pinterest have boards dedicated to this particularly aesthetic and versatile free-standing shelf unit. So here is the one that stands adjacent to my kitchen and gets the most use.

Top left - Each child has a magazine holder for me to store any information regarding their school year.
Top middle - Address book, Order Book (Stripey Brain 2011), Bible and Bible Study.
Top right - large square boxes for card stock and paper craft.
Bottom left - Colour coded A4 folders and suspension files for craft/notes etc. (Not sure if this will work...but willing to try something new).
Bottom right - Envelopes and writing paper (stored in Ikea DVD boxes)

Bottom middle - A clear folder for all of their school awards and stickers in 2012.
The next 3 contain information and awards prior to formal schooling. The next 2 contain Academic Reports and the last 2 contain programing and planning for ASD support and therapies. (Both my boys lie on the Autism spectrum).

On the shelf above stands 4 jars of coins. Actually 5, if you count the half full jar of foreign coins at the opposite end (not shown). Duncan and I cleaned out our money dish next to the front door and sorted the coins into the jars.


50c coins - give
$1 coins - spend
$2 coins - save


Then we bagged up the rest of the 5c, 10c and 20c and totalled $65! Just got to find time to get them to the bank and divide the proceeds into the kids' 3 accounts.

The trusty knife and chopping blocks area got a tidy.

Then I organised our DVD series into an under-used shelf unit. We have a few including, Railway Journeys,  the Thunderbirds and Indiana Jones (no Star Wars yet!). 


My stash

The West Wing - brilliant script and acting but watch with subtitles to follow along,
Wire in the Blood - BBC psychological crime thriller starring Robson Green,
McLeod's Daughters - 'sisters doing for themselves' on an Australian farm,
Life of Birds - I love birds but I could watch any 'Life' series by Sir David Attenborough,
Into the West - brilliant Historical Fiction Series about the clash of the white man's and the Native American Indian's worlds. 
Lord of the Rings - Still love the books more but these are exceptional films.
Battlelines - WW2 documentary following the personal accounts and battles of both sides.


What I would like to add to my stash:

The Wire - Possibly the BEST TV series I have ever seen by HBO. Follows the police and the  drug runners in Baltimore until the lines become so blurred you don't know who really are the criminals. 
How the West Was Lost - I bought the CDs in 1993 when I was in the US but I have never seen the documentary series. 
Downton Abbey - Missed this because it was aired on a commercial channel and I just can't do commercials.


So what's in your 'Series' stash?