Organising my Sewing Patterns | DIY

You will have noticed from this post on cleaning up my craft supplies, I am trying to get a bit more organised with fabric, wool, general craft supplies and patterns! I have just finished organising the paper / printed sewing patterns I have so I thought I would share what I did with you.      

A friend recently posted this article from Craftsy on my Facebook and after reading through, I found it had a few really good ideas for organising and storing your sewing patterns. I really liked the first and second ideas, but space wise decided that the first idea of storing patterns in a folder was the best one for me!

I had a look around for the expandable sheet protectors (you can find them here or here) however I found they were quite pricey. Instead I opted for these Premium Sheet Protectors from Marbig (I purchased mine here.) They are a lot thicker than normal sheet protectors and worked well for me!

To make things easier to see, I made up a cover sheet for each pattern which included a picture of the pattern and the items that are needed to make the item (i.e. fabric, zips, buttons etc.) This allows me to quickly refer to what I need for a pattern, without having to get the instructions out.

I find that having them in the folder makes them really easy to flick through, and saves me a lot of storage space.

How do you organise your pattern stash? Are you a fan of PDF patterns or do you prefer traditional paper patterns?

- J x

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Organising My Craft Supplies | The Beginnings

image from pinterest

I am finally getting around to organising my growing pile of craft supplies. One of the main reasons I have been putting this off is because I was unsure of how I wanted to organise everything. We are looking to own our first home this year so we won't be in our existing house for too much longer. However I have decided to bite the bullet for now and just organise everything as best I can. I will do an updated one of these once we move.

This is what my craft supplies storage looked like before. A complete mess I know! We really have limited storage in this house and are quickly outgrowing it.

This is the after! It is still not how I would really like to store all my supplies but it works for now.

I had to be completely ruthless when it came to organising all my craft supplies. I can sometimes be a bit of a fabric scrap hoarder (who knows, it may come in handy for something!) so I made myself chuck out any remnants I knew I would not be using.

My favourite part is how I have organised my fabric stash - it looks so pretty and utilises our filing cabinet which does not really get used. This idea came from Lauren from The Thinking Closet. It makes it so easy to see what I have on hand.

I found these great fabric stash tags by Sarai Mitnick from Colette Patterns. I love this idea as you can see exactly what you have at a quick glance. It gives you a place to write a description of the fabric, the length and the width. The big blank space down the bottom allows you to include a sample of the fabric so that you can see and feel the fabric without having to get the fabric out of the drawer.

Here is an example of my tags. I have written a general description about the fabric, written the length in pencil so that I can change it as I go (I have also included whether the material has been cut) and how wide the fabric is. I used a stapler to attach a small sample of each fabric.

I attached them to the drawer so that I can flip it out whenever I want to see what is in my stash. As Sarai states in her blog post, the hardest part will be to remember to change the length as you cut each piece of fabric! 

I used a fabric covered box to store my fat quarters and scrap material.

How do you organise your fabric supplies? I cannot wait to have proper storage for all my craft supplies. Watch out for an updated post sometime this year!

- J x

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Moving out of Home | How to Stay Tidy!

Moving out of home is a very exciting, liberating time for many young people. No longer under their parents watch, they can do what they want, when they want and how they want! Don't want to make the bed? Don't worry about it. Can't be bothered doing the dishes? Who cares! Why did our parents want our rooms so tidy when, lets be honest, nobody sees them during the day anyway?!

When I was at home, I could never understand why my parents kept our house so clean and insisted we make the bed each morning. I was so excited to move out for a number of reasons, but one of them was so that I could leave my house however I wanted without the nagging from my parents.

Having lived out of home for over 2 years now, I have come to realise that Mum and Dad might have been on to something and I find myself getting annoyed when the house is untidy - who would have thought!

Over the years, I have learnt that getting into good routines will mean the house stays tidier and there is less work to do on the weekends! Obviously things don't always go to plan, and there are still some weeks where I just cannot be bothered! But believe me, you will be thankful in the long run.

I wanted to share with you some of the strategies / routines I use at home. You can employ these in your house whether you are living with your partner or especially if you are living with friends!

 

image from pinterest

Do the dishes straight away
Yes - a boring job I know! But wouldn't you rather wash a few dishes at a time rather than having to wash your whole dinner set?

you can find these at Woolworths here

This brush is definitely a must buy. It means you do not need to fill up the sink when you only have a few dishes to do as you put the detergent in to the handle.

image from pinterest

Do the washing every week
Again, you don't want a massive pile of dirty clothes to wash (and iron if you do!) I tend to wash my clothes throughout the week and whilst I am cleaning the house on the weekends, I will wash the towels, sheets etc. I still have no desire to iron, so my pile usually sits there for a week or so while I pick clothes out of there! I never said I was perfect :)

image from pinterest

Tidy the house throughout the week
Keeping the house tidy throughout the week will mean there is less to clean on the weekend! I tend to leave my major cleaning (vacuuming, washing the floors, cleaning the bathrooms etc) to the weekend as I have no time during the week, but if the house is tidy it takes no time on the weekend to complete these jobs.

image from pinterest

Clean every week
I know this is a job that can be put off because it is soooo boring, but if you clean every week it will be easier to keep the house tidy, and it will not take you as long when you do your big clean. I know that if I skip a week of cleaning, the next time I do it, it takes me twice as long and makes me regret not doing it the week before!

I hope this post inspires you to make your own cleaning routines - and has maybe helped you realise your parents might have been on to something!

- J x

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