Travel Jewelry Holder Tutorial

HERE IS THE TUTORIAL YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!

You want to make your own? 

Travel Jewelry Holder Tutorial

For Personal Use Only! Not for Reproduction!

Materials Needed:

• 1 outside fabric piece—23"x9"

• 1 inside fabric piece—23"x9"

• Batting piece—23"x9"

• Fabric Necklace Pocket-- 12”x12” (12”x6” when folded in half) 

• Binding— At least 68” long whether bought or made.Double Fold kind if bought and about 2” wide if made. 

• Bios Tape for clear pockets and middle-- 3 pieces 11” long and 1 piece 9” long 

• 2 Clear Pockets—11”x2¾”---The “plastic” is 
  clear vinyl tablecloth material. You can pick it up at Joann's,Michaels, Walmart and other craft stores. Mines a little thicker gauge but you can use what you want. You can also just do fabric pockets if you want but I like to see my earrings.

• 8 ribbons for the loops---5” long--Grosgrain works best but you can use any kind. The 1 inch wide works good. As long as your velcro is the same width you should be fine. 

• Velcro—apx 2” total—each piece about ½” long and as wide as your ribbon 

• Outside Ribbon—26” long

See the Full Tutorial in PDF below!
***Sorry for those who opened up this file and it didn't work! I have attached a new file! IF it still doesn't work please let me know and I can try and post it in a new format or send it to you directly! Thanks!***
  
Jewelry Roll PDF 

If you're having trouble with the above link try this:
travel jewelry holder.pdf

I linked up on:

Travel Jewelry Holder PREVIEW

So here is a teaser preview of the Travel Roll up Jewelry Holder Tutorial I will have up on here soon!

I'll just leave you with these 2 teaser pictures;) Don't worry I will reveal the whole thing soon enough!

Smurf Blanket

So my daughter got attached to the same blanket I slept with for nearly 12 years! So it is pretty warn to say the least! So I decided to make a new one (which by the way she won't use because she's way too smart to be fooled)! It turned out that the fabric that was used was actually a piece of a now vintage bed sheet! So I hunted it down and here are my before and after pictures:)

 BEFORE

 AFTER

Note that my Mother also helped me with this one...lets just say A LOT! It would have taken me 3 days what she did in a couple hours!

Yard Sale Finds

We go garage/yard saleing a lot during the summer. It not only saves money but we can often make a profit on things as well. I can often find kid's clothes and toys for a steal! If you're looking for something in particular you can also try your local ads or craigslist.org. They also have a great site you can sell your items as well www.yarsellr.com. 

Here are a few yard sale finds we found this week:

Doughnut Holes

So I have really been wanting to make glazed doughnut holes and I figured "how hard can it be" right?! So I search for a recipe. I found cinnamon/sugar ones, chocolate covered, even lemon glazed! But no reg glazed. SO I found a good glaze recipe that was for cupcakes (it worked out great!) and set out to make them! So problem 1: It takes FOREVER to make dough! At least when I try and do it!:/ So I gave up on that and instead found some pre-made pizza crust dough (and some quick pretzel dough but I haven't tried that)! The Pillsbury pizza dough in the can thing worked perfect!! I just rolled them into tiny balls and threw them in some hot vegetable oil in a pan (med heat) and you've got donuts all ready to coat! If you make bigger balls flatten them and they will rise/round up in he pan & cook more even! If not you will have raw dough in the middle FYI! So just use a spoon with holes and pull them out when they are golden onto a plate. Then coat them in glaze (let glaze harden) then you can put another coat of glaze if you like! Let glaze harden again and you're good to eat! If you prefer powdered sugar or cinnamon & sugar coating then just do that instead of glaze. If they cool a little before you coat them that's fine they will still coat beautifully! Maybe even better! Anyway, I will attach pictures and the glaze recipe when I get to it! Just thought I'd share my experience! Oh, I also added a note for my hubby that said, " DOUGHNUT you know I love you a HOLE bunch" too:)
I think I have pictures somewhere....

Blanket?

So I Attempted to make a small blanket for the car seat for Sophia but the Minky fabric I was using was well....impossible. SO, after seeing the whole thing be one big pucker I decided it would be best as a pillow instead. So we have a really cool pillow now!:) I used the stuffing from some old messed up, flat pillows and well...my pictures are with my phone so they are horrible but ya...Check it:

 The girls love it! In fact Sophie was just napping on it and Alli kept wanting to lay by her:)

Rag Quilt/Rug Tutorial

I have mentioned before how brilliant my Mother is! She recently got featured on someone's blog for this tutorial and I thought I should at least feature my own Mother for heaven's sake! Anyway, my Mom is an awesome Quilter, organizer, cook, seamstress, etc. Usually I start a project and my mother ends up finishing it because I get too frustrated (I'm kind of a perfectionist). I design she sews:) I usually take all the pictures too. And I'm her computer tech if something goes wrong. Anyway, she's awesome! And this is her brilliant idea she came up with for a rag quilt/rug! It's so easy even someone like me, who didn't inherit my mothers sewing talent, can do easily! It's pretty hard to mess up. So here is just one of my mother's many talents:

Rag Quilt Tutorial

By: Becky Groll 

over at I Dream of Quilting

 P.S. Those are my kiddos crawling all over the project! You will prob. see them in alot of pictures because they love to be in the middle of everything:)

Go check out all my mothers lovely ideas and projects over at I Dream of Quilting

DIY Dishwasher Detergent

I made some homemade laundry detergent today! I have to say I'm way excited to have clean dishes again! It didn't take me very long to make!

All it took was 
3 Ingredients (which you can find at your local Walmart):

*3 cups Borax
*3 cups Washing Soda (NOT baking soda look in  the laundry detergent isle!)
*1 cup Lemi-Shine Powder (Must be powder not liquid! Look near dishwasher rinse aids)

Mix it all together in a bowl then put into whatever AIR TIGHT container you desire. It only takes 2 tbsp per load of dishes. This makes 7 cups of detergent.

Note: I've seen people add lemon essential oils to it as well, but the lemi shine smells nice and essential oils can be expensive!


Now, one reason I decided to start making my own detergent was because my store bought stuff just doesn't cut it! I end up having to do a load with just white vinegar after I've already washed them! And another reason is to save money!! One lady already did the math on how much it saves:

"In the end, you’ll wind up paying around $3.09 for 6 cups worth. Since each load only requires 2 tablespoons, you’ll have enough for 48 loads. That’s $0.06 per load! Compare to $0.15-$0.30 per load with the store bought varieties, which means you’re paying around 1/3 the price. If you do one load per day you’ll end up saving at least $40 per year by making it yourself. " 


Now that's a lot of savings!

Echo Vessel Giveaway

Over at Erickson and Co she is having a sweet giveaway! Check it out Here I love their sippy cups too!

Kid Friendly Organization---The Craft Room

So lately me and my (BRILLANT) Mother have been working to not only combine but to organize all our craft things! Sense I have 2 very busy girls we have had to get creative in the way we organize (hide) all our craft materials. These are some of the ways we have made the craft room a little more kid friendly. Without breaking the bank!

1st: Plan it out!Get all your containers and organizing tools for all the things you need to hide away. Use Pinterest.com or bhg.comb
It doesn't have to cost much! Use things you already have, recycle, shop craigslist or other local ads, dollar stores, walmart, clearance sales, check out the garage sales and thrift stores and even check out your local junk yard.

2nd: Make sure you label things so they are easy to find!
3rd: We find things with lids, latches, zippers, or locks are best with kids. But if it's not "sealed" make sure it's up high so little hands can't easily access them.

Now some people just do one form of crafting. Whether it's sewing, stamping, scrapbooking, beading, etc. Well, we pretty much do it all around here! So we have to come up with lots of different ways to stash things!

I used this roll away 3 drawer container I've had for years to help organize the hard to store things. I organized things within the drawers as well. 

Then to make sure I know what's in there I used these printable labels from bhg.com(see below)!

Source: bhg.com via Jessica on Pinterest

 These containers we got on sale at Target or something like that. We've gotten some at Kmart, Target, the Dollar Store, etc. Just look for the sales:) Inside this container we have our scraps by color (and labeled) in gallon ziploc bags. We could just throw them in there but then we would have scraps all over the place (we learned this from experience). 

Here again my brilliant Mother came up with this idea:

Source: idreamofquilting.blogspot.com via Jessica on Pinterest

She used paper towel rolls to roll her fabric on. You can also cut wrapping paper rolls to size as well. She found this label to wrap around the rolls to hold them in place and put what size the fabric is. Brilliant right!

 

 Another thing we use to keep our fabric nice and organized are cardboard fabric inserts/bolts. You can get them at any place that carries fabric. they just throw them away so you can usually pick them up for free. We got ours from a fbric store that was going out of business.

We stored these bolts inside a cabinet (which we picked up on craigslist for cheap--3 of them actually) and on bookshelves (which we picked up at walmart years ago).We cut the cardboard inserts so they fit on shelves.

We were going to sell our old, cheap walmart entertainment center but decided it was best used in the craft room under our lifted table:

We also use plastic containers to keep our fat quarters and laying cakes all neat.

For our ribbon we used this idea for all the smaller ribbon and ones that didn't have much on the roll:

Source: bhg.com via Jessica on Pinterest

We also plan to use this method:

Source: grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com via Jessica on Pinterest

That way we can see them, they're organized and the little hands can't get them.

For my beading materials I use tons of different containers I have picked up at Ikea, Joanns, Michaels, etc. on sale of course!

For our knitting/croqueting stuff we use shoe and sweater closet organizers:

 You can also see our wrapping supplies.

 I know it appears to be a bit cluttered and non child friendly but all this stuff is tucked behind closet doors so the kids can't access them as easily. Out of site, out of mind right:)

Want to save some more money? Cover diaper boxes with fabric:

Source: designsbymke.blogspot.com via Jessica on Pinterest

Or cover milk crates:

You can also clean out your ice cream buckets! These are very nice because they have handles and lids and are easy to label:)

You can also make your own containers!

Source: skiptomylou.org via Jessica on Pinterest

To keep the iron cord up and safe we made one of these:

Source: Uploaded by user via Jessica on Pinterest

Very clever!

 We are currently using this container for remotes in our living room but you can also use them for craft supplies. We got it for $1 at the Dollar Tree.

 As you can see we have used many forms or organization throughout our craft room.

 Jars for our buttons

and baskets for fabric

 Vases and cans for scissors, etc.

 We are still in the process of organizing and moving things around so sorry about the mess! We are constantly working on craft projects and better ways to stay organized:)