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?

'No Fun' Jobs to Do

Someone cute, grey and furry moved into our pantry while we were away.  It turned a Saturday bike-riding along the Ballina riverfront  into an emergency declutter and clean. I had scheduled a SPACE attack this month but this required total assault.

BEFORE - not taken yesterday - no one wants to see the real 

BEFORE shot with mouse droppings eh?

It probably took about 3 hours all up. I had my husband help out for some of the time (reaching back corners and the like) and he was great at reading the dates on food products and throwing things out. We binned 5 plastic grocery bags full of out-of-date and mouse spoiled food!

Thankfully I had put a lot of food items into containers late last year and so we really only lost our burritos, naan bread, muesli bars, popcorn and Weet-Bix to the mouse. Still each container and surface needed disinfecting...and that takes lots of time.  I kept saying out loud "I am not having fun".

I've had to ditch the 'snack station' located on the inside door of the pantry (inside the IKEA storage) because the mouse had found the stash as appealing as my daughter!

My eldest son, Duncan, used my Dymo and made some labels for the dry food containers. It was nice to get help...and great that he can spell so well at 7 years of age.

Now, if you can believe it, that night I was sewing and heard a rustle in the kitchen. When I opened the door, baby mouse hid herself behind the spice rack, pictured left, below. What????  #%$$@$ No way!

So I set the trap...found the peanut butter gone in the morning but the trap not sprung. Set it again...same thing. So then I set another one on the shelf above and my old 'trap but not kill' model one shelf below. 

Some time during the day, today,Miss Mouse was sprung and disposed of, by my husband, to the local magpies. There was some remorse on my part...I hate killing things.


School Supplies


Since our school stopped organising 'Book Packs' last year, parents have had to do the 'School Supply Buy' in January. I hate it. There is not much fun chasing down stationery items in discount stores and then finding that you need to visit at least 2 other Newsagents to find the remaining items. It took me the best part of 3 hours and $200 to kit out our two boys heading into Year 1 & 3 this year. "Bring back the $113 Book Pack", I say. I'd rather pay someone else and get back my 3 hours for something fun.







But that is just the start...then there's the labeling of each item and the covering of books. Here I lost about 6 hours over 2 days.

However it forced me to delve into the 2011 wicker basket of art and craft and sort, save or bin each item.

About half way through the pile

Before - the hamper on the right was full of paper rubbish by the end

The artwork came in handy to cover some 35 books though.

A practical canvas for artwork. I used pre-cut clear plastic sleeves to protect the books. Great invention - beats 'Contact' any day.

If you want more of a challenge then try the fabric book cover tutorial found at Hand Madens blog here.

Work Room

Creative Space


I love when other people give you an insight into their workspace. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a room or corner of a room to leave their sewing machine and fabric set up permanently. I have a lot of space in our guest room. And the bed is a great place to display the quilts too!

Sewing Machine


This is my sewing machine. It's a Janome DC2101 and is about 9 months old. It's my first machine...so happy about computerised settings otherwise I would have steered clear of sewing! I have named her Florence in honour of both my maternal and paternal grandmothers.


It's not the right height for long bouts of sewing though. The box to the right holds all the tools, greaseproof paper and scissors for easy access. The cross stitch was made by my mum. I love teapot tea.

Finished Quilts


As you can see, I have a few quilts. Not all are for sale. A few are mone but most were done by my mum, Audrey. She keeps making more and more, so I needed better storage. The Expedit shelving unit by IKEA is ideal. Hopefully the quilt stash won't grow and take over my paperwork section in the top half!

My Fabric Stash


It started off so small...just a bunch of Fat Quarters. Now look at it! I did get a substantial injection when my mum de-stashed all of her kiddies and Liberty fabrics...but the rest is my purchasing...thanks to online shopping.


I have always like stackable see-through crates and I had a bunch already. Some like to sort fabrics according to colour, but I tend to sort by theme...girls, boys, babies, fairies, solids, patchwork pieces  etc. I also have a box for bags, dresses, repairs, t-shirts, fleece/jersey. I also have a blue crate for my current project to be housed in. After months of feeling frustrated looking in the wrong crate, my gift to myself was a Dymo labelmaker. 

This and That


It's amazing how many little things that you can accumulate as a sewist. This was a handy little shelf unit I found at ALDI. The boxes are mostly from IKEA but thankfully not all are full. They house buttons, iron-on patches, hand-sewing kit, selvedges, rotary cutters, scissors and rulers. There's a special box for my 3 year old daughter. It is filled with plastic buttons and cotton reels and brightly coloured cord so that she can thread while I work.

Workstation Zero


This is a great 5 legged table I picked up at IKEA for only $99...I think the legs were separately priced. It's not the right height for sewing but long enough that I can cut and stack as well. The draw unit was from IKEA a few years ago and houses my pin cushions, bobbins, business and order books. My ironing board sits to the right of this for easy access. If I am organised I have room for my laptop or a portable dvd player. I watch mostly documentaries, crime or period dramas. My favourite this year has been 'The Wire' with all 5 series loaned to me by a friend. If you haven't seen this crime drama, do yourself a favour. It's screens on ABC1 late on Friday nights.