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Organizing the mess that is my creative life

I'm one of the few folks who still enjoys reading Better Homes and Gardens. I wish there were not so many ads, but one of the things I like about it, as compared to other decorating-type magazines (now that Domino is dead), is that most of the stuff in it is not necessarily high-end. They do have some classy stuff, but they also publish out of Des Moines, so I think that helps them keep it sort of middle-brow.

I was on their website today and found a few things.

I'm in love with this.

from Better Homes and Garden's shoot of Margaret Sindelar's sewing nook.

And I don't know how practical this is, but it sure is pretty. It's better than my ugly board and Kevin tripping over the cord and then throwing the recycling under it because I've set it up right next to his desk because it's the only out of the way place with both light and an electrical outlet.

From BHG shoot of Margaret Sindelar's sewing nook.

I enjoy these glass cylinders for the storage of things that need to be flat, like markers and such.

BGH Quick and Clever Ideas for Organizing Crafts

And, if you're feeling like your house will never be organized, just look at this. 

From Highlights Magazine

What are your favorite studio designs?

I Am Not A Toy

My name is Jack. I hide in this box. Sometimes I don't. I don't dance monkey.

I'm cranky, in more ways than one.

I've been stuck in this box since 1971.

This hobo, this clown ain't skipping the rails.

We just making the childrens--

and sometimes grown mens-- suffer the illusion 

we're fun and then they wails.

Do Jack-in-the-boxes scare you? I've always hated these guys and yet they were handed to me as if all kids were supposed to love them. Kind of the same as Wizard of Oz. Each  Thanksgiving it was on TV while we were growing up and so our families would plop us in front of it, but the flying monkeys gave me serious, recurring nightmares. That is not a kid's movie and Jack is not a kid's toy. I'm still scared. When I found this one at the thrift store a while back I found myself tensing up each turn of the crank. The times he doesn't pop I am not disappointed. 

What scares the crud out of you that is not supposed to?

My Super Star Husband?

I got this text from my sister-in-law during class this morning: "I was just watching your superstar husband on fox 40 in the locker room at the gym!"

Let me translate for you. Rene and Kevin were at one of the local stations today, talking fast trying to explain the mission of Solar Cookers between sensational summer rescue and fire stories. Here is the bit. It's actually not bad. Super Stars they are not, but they hardly get a chance to talk. They did good. Hey, didn't that news guy used to work on TV in Iowa?

 

Gift Card Wallets Gift With Purchase

I don't mind getting a gift card. I don't know if I'm a hard person to buy for or if people are simply lousy at buying me gifts, but a gift card is not only the safe bet, it saves the giftee from having more stuff they don't need as they get to pick out what they really want.

I developed this little gift card wallet--reusable, of course--to wrap gift cards in as a way to class them up a bit. Kids especially like to unwrap things, but sometimes I want to show up with a "present" even though my gift is a card. These little wallets are the perfect solution.

How do you get one? Well, between now and June 30th, you can get one as a gift with purchase. Buy anything in my Etsy shop and you'll get a free one with your order. However, I will soon stock them in my shop. I plan to do all occasion packs, with different colors and themes for multiple occasions. What do you think?

First Handmade. Seriously Funny.

My little fingers are sewing. My to-do list is growing. I slept last night in a state of alert. Since no wild beasts were bound to attack, the adrenaline was wasted on me. Busy, busy.

My second muslin of my first handmade product is complete. Here's the sneak peak.

  



















Now I need to make the pattern and pick out fabrics for the first batch. There will be a give-a-way on A Beautiful Mess this Saturday of one of these items. Stay tuned for more details. There is also a gift with purchase item being offered this weekend in my shop via the Beautiful Mess site so be sure to visit on Saturday.

I don't stay up late enough to watch the late-late hosts, but I find Craig and Jimmy seriously funny. Check this one out. Slow Jam with Brian Williams.

Where's the 40-year-old bag now?

Remember the 40-year-old bag of fabric my neighbor sold me at the garage sale--for all of two dollars? 

 Well, it's not the only old thing cluttering up my house these days. I've got so many cool bits of this and that but what the heck am I doing with them? I can't seem to get them all up on Etsy and I'm not moving very fast on the sewing myself. So, I did indeed pass it on. Of course I passed it on to my favorite male sewist and blogger.

Fortunately, Peter from Male Pattern Boldness has a "yes" only policy when it comes to free fabric and patterns so he was happy to add them to his clutter. What exactly did he add to his clutter?

These fabulous colors of...some shimmery fabric. It burned fast and I couldn't tell what it was.

And this very hip and contemporary (1970) tie, bow tie, vest and ascot pattern. Michael, Peter's significant, has seen him in harem pants, but I'm not sure if he's ready to see him in an ascot. And Peter, if you're reading this, ascots do not go with striped tanks.

Probably, Cousin Cathy will end up with a new purse from the fabric, which would be fine by me.

First Give-A-Way: Decopage Trinket Box

I've been slow about getting to my handmade give-a-ways. Last week it took me a whole day to get the tension on the machine adjusted. So I thought we'd start with a vintage give-a-way. I've got lots of good vintage stuff.

Tada: A deco-paged trinket box lined in aqua-blue velvet, handmade in 1977

Don't you love bubbles in the tub lady and all the old fashioned dresses? The illustrations must have come from an old storybook or maybe they were wrapping paper. What do you think? On the bottom of the box is written E.Yost '77 and the shellac was applied over it.

How do you win? Visit my Etsy store, Smarty Pantalons, and leave a comment below talking about your favorite item (or least favorite item--I won't discriminate). I plan on adding lost of new items this week so they'll be new stuff to choose from.

The contest will run between now and Sunday, June 27 at 7:00 p.m. We'll pick the winner Sunday night after 7:00 p.m. and post the winner here. Free shipping to US residents. Internationals are welcome to play, but you'll need to pay the international shipping.

P.S. If you are related to me you can't win--I've seen how much crap you have and I don't want to have to call that show where they come clean your house out. ;-)

Identifying Fabric is Harder Than Remembering Grease II Lyrics

I'm not a scientist. (Shocker!) And, if a piece of information is not tacky song lyrics, bad movie lines or useless commercials from the 70's and 80's, I'm likely not to remember it without lots of effort. So identifying different kinds of fabrics and remembering sewing vocabulary is not something I'm naturally good at. We didn't have a house full of different kinds of fabrics either, so it's not like I had a lot to learn from growing up. We had denim, cotton and polyester. I got those down, so now on to the other hundreds of options. (I do have the entire soundtrack of Grease II memorized, from watching it on Cinemax after school everyday during some very impressionable years of my life. Ahh, wasted braincells.)

One of my troubles with identifying fabric is that I buy them all at thrift stores and garage sales so they are not labeled. I pick what is interesting and feels good or what I think might be fun for a particular purpose. I'm just not always sure what it is I have. Is that acrylic or wool? Is that acetate? polyester? silk? Sometimes it does not matter because they behave the same when sewing. However, the care and cleaning of the fabric often makes a big difference, so how I wash and deal with stains and smells matters much.

I also have some vintage dresses I want to post on Etsy, but I don't know what kind of fabric they are made of, so I find myself making educated guesses and typing five question marks after the word "blend."

I'm taking a class at American River College this fall about textiles, and although fall will come faster than I want it too, it doesn't help me now. I'm enrolled in this class: Fashion 320--This course is a study of natural and man-made fibers, methods of fabrication and finishes. Topics include the selection, use and care of modern fabrics as they relate to clothing and home furnishings. I wanted to take "History of the Western Fashion World" and "Apparel Construction" but those interfere with the classes I'm teaching and I still must make a living I suppose.

There are a number of references for learning more about fabrics on your own. A few months ago I noted that I was checking out a bunch of books from the library and I'd do some reviews if I found some good ones. Here's what I learned: there are entirely too many books out there with almost nothing in them. (And, I check out too many books from too many different libraries and can't remember when to return them to which library. My husband puts all of this information in his digital calendar, but that's so practical. I prefer to wake up sweating in the middle of the night stressed out about returning my library books. I once returned a book to the wrong library and they never found it. I had to replace it. Unfortunately, it was a lame book to begin with so I was irritated that I was perpetuating lameness. I would have rather bought a better book for the collection, but no, rules are rules.)

Besides the books with almost nothing in them or the books with way too many ruffles and appliques, here are two that were most useful to me.

I cannot recommend The Sewing Bible by Ruth Singer enough and I bought one for myself immediately after checking it out from the library. It's got just about everything you need to know about sewing, stitching, and basic techniques like hemming, seaming, and buttoning. The instructions are actually coherent and the photographs are clearly displayed. This is a win.

Sew Any Fabric, by Claire Schaeffer, is probably the best book I've seen as a general reference to fabric types and behaviors. The pictures of made products are quite matronly, but the info is good and the descriptions are very helpful. There is a full page or more devoted to each kind of fabric and they are organized well and cross-referenced. There is also a glossary and each entry has headings and topics organized in the same manner. Useful.

Start Your Engines

I cleaned the machine people. Granted, the directions were incomplete and who knows if I did it right, but it was pretty clean to begin with so I think we're good. Whether I oiled it in the right spots is an entirely different matter. My first project is a muslin so at least the oil drips will be on a draft.

Good Songs on the Interwebs

I'm all out of steam. Benjamin is off school as of yesterday at noon. We've had boy scout camp all week at night and it's been tough to get anything done. So, here are some good songs, to get you into a good groove; maybe some of that will rub off on me.

I was singing their praises on facebook last month, but I just can't get enough Pomplamoose! They've added another original song since May, so if you haven't visited in a while, check it out. My favorites tend to evolve, but I love the covers Telephone, Put a Ring on It, and September. Watch September below--Go Grandma is right!

Ryan Adams is one of those musicians it's best to know nothing about personally. Just listen to the music play and tune out the tabloids. He's a genius, and I don't say that lightly.

Okay, I know nothing about Jill Andrews. I just came across her recently and this is a lovely little folk country tune.

Organizing Fabric

I've been making some progress on my goals from last week, although I did get side tracked on things like cleaning Benjamin's room. 

(My husband keeps telling me it's normal that his room should be that messy--like dirty clothes under the carpet messy--but I couldn't get in there to put the laundry away on Saturday and I couldn't take it anymore. And, he couldn't put his own clothes away because his drawers were so messy they were quite literally about to break off the rails. As I was cleaning, I had a flash-forward of him being 15 and me finding pot and condoms in his room instead of broken nerf bullets, dried out markers and lego pieces. I don't think five years will improve his cleaning skills but it's likely to change other things. Yikes.) (Update: Monday p.m. I'm cleaning out B's end of the year backpack and I find the stuff photographed above. What is it? An entire pencil bag devoted to colored pencil shavings.)

Although I really need to start the syllabus and website for summer school (boo!), I've progressed far enough in the rest of my cleaning and sorting that I need to figure out what to do with all of this fabric I've been buying. I've got it in piles and boxes and dresser drawers and plastic storage bins right now. And none of it is washed. So, the plan is to sort and cut it, then wash, dry, label and organize. How is the question.

Here are some possibilities I've seen online. 

I like what Urban Grace did with the tags. Of course, they were only organizing swatches. (I need an Allison too.)

I love these labels for rolled fabric from Just Something I Made. When Kevin and I used to quilt we did something similar. Labeling the size of each piece is not that important to me--I can eye-ball it to see if I have enough. But I do like to have all of certain kinds of fabrics together. Cottons with cottons, etc.

The studio below belongs to Saldos de Concha. 

I like the fabric in the glass cabinet. It's protected from dust, but still adds to the color of the room. That's nice, I think. And less messy looking than some of the other systems I've seen about as I search.

Of course, I still am dreaming of this studio I found months ago.

What have you seen?

The 40-Year-Old Bag

I scored at the neighborhood garage sales and I didn't even really get to go to them I was so busy at my own. A gal was at my sale buying some of my fabric remnants and craft stuff and my son told her the lady four houses down had more fabric. This was news to me, so, we both made a b-line down there. She drove; I walked; we got there at the same time. 

Frankie did not, in fact, have any fabric out--our information was bad--but she got some out and sold it to us. (While we were there, her husband got out a ladder at someone's request, and sold that. They also got out some canning jars, and sold them. They were very accommodating.)

What did I buy besides some lovely vintage earrings that belonged to Frankie's mother? Well, Frankie worked at a fabric store 40 years ago and this bag has the new pattern and cut fabric for the project ready to go--as if she'd just come home from the store. In 1970. 

What exactly is in the bag we'll keep a surprise for just a bit. But I was thinking as I went to bed last night that I was putting the focus on finding an outfit for the wrong cousin. I like dresses and that's part of the reason I wanted to style Cathy; she gets all the attention, which is natural with her charisma, and the camera just loves her. But, where is the love for Peter? When left to his own devices he picks out harem pants! Maybe he needs some old-school style a-la my neighbor's garage sale. But, I'm not sure he can pull off poly/silk patterns straight from 1970. After reading today's post, maybe he's too nice.

Do We Think I've Got Four Garage Sale Posts in Me? Part Three

C'était bon. Fin.

Let me start over. I was very well prepared. I didn't have everything out in advance, but it was mostly out and everything that wasn't was by the door and ready to go. Signs were up in advance (which I'll discuss in part four if I ever get there), and I advertised on Craigslist, and a site called gsalr, which will map a route for you, so I figured all there was to do was wait for the people. Benjamin had a rough start to the morning. He'd had a long Friday, which ended in a school dance and song program, and he didn't sleep well. When he and Kevin left for the grocery store about 7:00 a.m., Benjamin took a nosedive in the street. He's still got scabs. It was a hot, fussy day for the kid.

The early birds came the day before. Seriously. I saw dozens of cars go through the neighborhood on Friday, even though the sale was Saturday. I'm so glad Kevin's mom was with me, because I even had a guy come up to the house and into the garage to "just say hi" and see what we had. He stayed and chatted a while and then even came back the next day during the sale. He didn't buy anything. As a matter of fact, he didn't even look at our stuff. He just chatted.

Our lovely elderly neighbor and her daughter, who came to squat in our garage and sell some of their wares, were delightful and we had fun getting to know them as well as meeting random neighbors and shoppers. The dog did rather well when other dogs weren't invading his turf. And, Benjamin and Kevin ate 12 donuts between them, so I think they are still in recovery. (I took this photo before we'd pulled all the stuff out. For some reason the driveway was fuller at the end of the day. Huh?)

The best part is that we sold most of the big stuff, which meant I don't have to haul it anywhere. We forgot to put the stuff on the side of the house out--after Benjamin fell we got distracted and then by the time we remembered we just kind of gave up on it--but other than that we have relatively little going to the thrift store and some of that is my sister-in-law's.

Unfortunately, I've still got the crib. I am N-O-T having another one, so someone is gonna have to take that off my hands. We bought it used and it's been through Benjamin (who was a biter and jumper) and Zoe and DJ (who was a climber). It may look like it's from a 1990's Sears Catalog--at it probably was--but it's rock solid and can hold a few more babies. (For those of you who don't know me yet, Benjamin is mine; Zoe and DJ are my sister-in-law's kids.)

Rat Packers

I did accomplish things today, just not as many of them as I intended. Really, where does this time substance go to when it goes?

On a brighter note, you can see the surfaces in my dining room, which means I've cleaned it. Unfortunately that also means the surfaces elsewhere in the house are in desperate need of attention.

I promise I'm not obsessed with my dog, but Christie Bishop, from Pardon my Crumbs, just tweeted that Charlie is the latest addition to her and Bryan's family. I'm so happy for them! (Update: They've posted great photos on their blogs.)

Since we too have a terrier mix named Charlie, I thought I would take this opportunity to share one more cute picture of him.

Ga Ga for Iceland

I love Iceland. I've never been anywhere but Chicago, so certainly if I travel Iceland isn't at the top of the list, but it's on the list for sure. Iceland has had some bad press lately, so the government cooked up this fun video about, well, how fun it is. I buy it. It always seemed like a fun place to me.

Inspired by Iceland Video from Inspired By Iceland on Vimeo.

Oh, I Sound Old

Oh people, I'm tired. Who am I kidding with the "oh people"? I should just write, "oh me, I'm tired." But, that's not as fun, so I'm faking it. It won't be my first time.

These last couple of weeks--weeks when I haven't been in school and should be pretending to relax--have been positively exhausting. Even the dog is tired, but that is probably my fault since I haven't been walking him lately. Maybe it's the change in weather. Summer finally arrived and I'm not all that crazy about it.

I want to do a post sometime about getting stains out of whites. (This is a topic as old sounding as being tired.) Since I started collecting the vintage linens and hankies, I've been experimenting with getting the stains out. There are three main challenges I face with this problem:

1. Most stain removers are toxic in more ways than one=bad in more ways than one
2. The smells of these toxic stain removers really get to me and often leave smells in the linens I can't stand
3. Actually getting the stains out

I feel like I've tried just about everything, but last night I was flipping through old Domino Mags (oh, I miss you!) and I stumbled on a reference to this product some high-end hotels use. It's called Le Blanc. It's expensive, but so is trying every other kind of product on the market.

I have had decent luck with Oxi-clean, but it only works part of the time and it's quite toxic. I was listening to The Parent Experiment today and Lynette was interviewing Ed and Rachelle Carson Begley. One of the things they mentioned was the stain removing and Oxi-clean and Rachelle, who usually doesn't toot Ed's horn, said she actually likes his stain remover. I might check that one out too. Those two are funny. I don't have cable, so I've not seen their show, but I've heard them on podcasts before and they crack me up.

I got goals people

Coming soon to Smarty Pantalons

Now that the garage sale is over, I can focus on other things: like picking up the garage sale stuff. Well, hopefully not just that. I've got another post planned for the sale, an update about what happened and more advice about having one, but for now I'll just give you the skinny on some of my plans for Smarty Pantalons this coming month.

• More frequent posting. I've been so crazed I haven't been good at regular posting: garage sale over, school out, regular posting in. (I plan on blogging with my students this summer so hopefully that will keep me regular as well.)
• Getting to cleaning up the house and garage. Unfortunately, there is too much Etsy and garage sale clean up left to ignore this. And, I slept like the dead today so did not get much done.
• Get more stuff up on Etsy. If you've come here from Etsy or A Beautiful Mess--Thank You! I've had good traffic and good sales so far. I've got lots more to go up and it's just a matter of fitting in the time.
• Make a mock-up muslin of my first original Smarty Pantalons creation. When I have a prototype, you'll be the first to know and we'll do a give-a-way. I also have a couple of destash give-a-ways planned of patterns and fabric so let your friends know.
• Create an outfit for Cathy, Peter's cousin, over at Male Pattern Boldness. I've been looking at lots of fashion books lately and all I can think about is what would look good on Cathy? I love dresses, but I'm round and lacking height and they don't love me. Cathy can pull them off.

I've got more goals, but I think this will keep me busy. For sure. Of course, I'm gonna squeeze in some vintage shopping as well, since I mostly stayed close to home and worked my feet sore last week. And, I need to fit in walking the dog, visiting grandpa and arguing with my child this week too.

Charlie is happy the sale is over too; it was stressful!

Garage Sale Rules: Part Two

I can sum up all the garage sale rules into one rule: care enough to do some work for the shopper. As a person who frequents thrift stores and garage sales, I do expect to do a certain amount a lifting and digging when I shop; it comes with the territory. However, one of my biggest pet peeves is the people who act like you're bothering them by showing up at their garage sale to buy their stuff. Recently, I heard a woman complaining, at about 10 am, two hours after most sales begin, that the shoppers were keeping her from bringing out her (unpriced and unsorted) stuff from the house. Of course, this was not the fault of the shoppers, but poor planning on the part of the person having the sale.

I have a couple of advantages to most people in the having-a-garage-sale department: I like to sort and organize and my schedule offers me pockets of flexibility in which to get organized. So, since before spring semester was done I was stacking up garage sale stuff, and since school got out I've been working some time each day sorting or cleaning or pricing items. I know many people don't care that much nor do they have the time. I make the time because I care and I like order and neatness at my big events.

Pricing: I don't enjoy barter garage sales because I don't like talking to people and negotiation for insignificant items is meaningless. So, discussing how much each t-shirt or spatula is makes me want to tie a spatula to my leg and jump off a bridge, which is as ineffective as it sounds. I'm guessing.

Here's what I did with the toy cars that were collecting dust and spiders on the back porch.

I dumped out the bin on the patio and swept any bugs away. Then I picked any trash and miscellaneous stuff. (Charlie did run off with the hacky sac while I was doing this and managed to eat half of it before I got to him; he threw up the next morning so I'm guessing that's what it was.) I picked up all the tracks and big stuff first and moved it out of the way and then I piled like things with like things.

(This is a "rule" of garage sales as well--like things with like things; it kind of works for all organization projects.)

Small match box style cars went in the box and other cars got lined up.

When I eventually needed to decide how to price things, I put the sets together: the two interchangeable track sets in one back, the Clifford cars in one bag and the mini-mini cars in one bag.

Then, I put all the match box cars in a box for 10 cents each. I priced all the other cars with stickers made with blue painters tape. I used the painters tape for two reasons. One, I hate it when tape or tags mar the surface of something I want to purchase, so this tape is gentle on surfaces. Two, we've got stuff in the sale from my sister-in-law and I used regular masking tape on her stuff. That way when we're tallying things up I can keep a quick count by pulling tags off items.

Garage sale rule: don't buy cheap tape. Again, this could be a life rule as well. There are few things where the name brand is really worth it, but tape is one of them. 3M Scotch tape is worth every extra penny you'll spend on it not fighting with it.

Voila. I nice organized pile of toys. I don't individually price everything. I've got a box of books for 50 cents and another for a dollar. I've also got a 25 cent box and about three free boxes of random stuff I will end up throwing out or taking to the thrift store, so why not see if someone else needs it first. Do save time by collectively pricing items when you can.

We also cleaned out the garage for the big day and borrowed tables. I will not be following that terrible California tradition of laying my crap in the wet grass. That bad idea stops here.

Chez of Good Ideas

If you haven't made your way over to Chez Larsson, do it; it's a great source of good photos and good ideas. Mama Larsson is a very non-Martha Stewart homemaker and professional--much less fuss and clutter and much more good sense. I love her post today about all the plastic figures in her son's room collecting dust. Her solution? Put them in clear jars. She's got a great sense of humor too, as you can tell from the Simpsonesque quips in today's post. Check it out.