How to organise cards.

I've always been someone who likes everything organised and in its place and I have a box which stores piles of old cards and special notes which I can't bare to part with. However with Henry's birth and the baby shower and dedication, cards were just piling up. I recently read about the idea of not having items that don't spark joy and some people may just throw cards away,  I really treasure them.

I wanted to make sure I kept them in an accessible way so I can refer back to them and keep them together. Too much love and kind words were in these cards to stow them away in the bottom of a box.

After trying several options for organising cards in the past (including gluing cards in notebooks, scrapbooking and using photo albums), I've decided on a favourite way- using hinged rings.

A box of these set me back about $12 from Officeworks but the 30 hinged rings I have should last me through a first, second and third birthdays and then ....30th birthdays.
I used the original invitations as the front covers of the cards and holepunched through them all, before joining the cards using the hinged rings. As we received so many cards when Henry was born that I actually sorted the cards into sizes before hinging them and making three piles. The photo below shows the different books of cards but I haven't shown you the cover invites as they contain personal addresses etc. For Henry's birth cards there was obviously no invitation so I attached a copy of the announcement card we sent out when he was born.

These cards are now stored in a white box on my office shelf- .ready to refer back to if I need a good read and one day Henry and I can read through them together. I will definitely be doing this in the future for when we get cards for other special occasions.

Lisa x
P.s Don't forget to enter the giveaway below, it's still open for a few days :)

The garage organisation project.

My nesting instincts kicked into full swing and I really wanted to turn our garage into a more useable space. We had the amazing luxury of two large sheds in our old home and now have no shed at all (well there was originally one small shed but it needed to go in our backyard makeover to make the walkway more useable). Back to the shed dilema..

We are extremely fortunate to have a double garage as it seems to be a bit of a luxury in our area due to smaller block sizes and we really wanted to utilise this double garage to be our 'shed' for storing all those DIY tools and cans of paint we have accumulated over the last few years. 

To really take advantage of the garage and little bit of extra space in there involved a lot of planning. We needed to think carefully about each area and to make it most useful while still allowing parking space for our two cars. As our family is growing we really wanted more storage than we actually needed to accommodate the items that will probably enter our world in the next few years (like trikes and beach toys).

Before:

 We had a pool fence enclosed and there were a few storage shelves already in the shed. Finding a place for the bikes, lawn mower, deck chairs and other larger items was really important for us.

Lots of little items like sanders, screwdrivers and paint cans were just thrown around the place and dirty, with no particular organisation going on. The left side of the garage was really just a dumping ground for bits and pieces we didn't want in the house.

The first step:

I'm not always good at remembering before photos so the below photo will have to serve as the best before shot of what the right side of the garage looked like (although we clearly had already started the project and built a shelf.

This shelf was custom built by my Dad using some existing wood he had and some bought pieces. The outside of the shelving received a coat of white paint to help it be more durable against the elements. The shelf was built on top of our existing retaining wall and actually takes up no more floor space than if it wasn't there. I know I am extremely fortunate to have a Dad who can custom build a shelf for the cost of materials.

Before the shelf was built though we needed to deal with the existing gap between the fence and roof line. This was fairly easy to fix using metal sheeting and green paint which matches the fence. Now no water can get in and damage our shelving or the items on the shelves.

In total 4 shelves were built and they were all painted white and cottage green to match in nicely with our existing colour scheme.

One of the shelves was spefically cut into to hold the whipper snipper too. Step one complete. Stay tuned for how we tackle to rest of the garage organisation and if you have any good ideas on how to make the best use of this space please share, I'm always keen to work out the best solutions for a space and two (or more) brains are always better than one.

Lisa x

Setting up a little 'blogging' area.

I have spent far too much time on my laptop sitting on the couch and it just isn't great for your posture and causes back pain after a while. I have been fortunate to not get too much back pain during my pregnancy but it was time to make sure I had a set work area.

My parents had a small desk in their shed so I snapped it up and used some estapol to freshen it up a bit. To make the space feel more like a set area, I mounted my fixed up display cabinet. It's now filled with a few precious thrifted items and just has so much character- I just love the turquoise, wall paper combination.

It was a bit tricky to photograph the cabinet as the light in our main room is so bright (and lovely) during the day and the grass reflected it.
Mounting the display cabinet was involved screwing it into the wall and it was definitely a two person job. I thought I'd share a technique we use to avoid excess dust going everywhere.  Simply use masking tape to attach an envelope underneath the drill hole and this will catch all the dust.

I  found a lovely little letters, bill, misc holder at the local op shop and also hung up a diy corkboard that I made in 2012 using a thrifted frame. This means the area feels a little bit organised and like its a purposeful organisation station :)- see top picture. For now the corkboard holds some bunting I made a while ago from thrifted supplies. I used some homemade scrabble pins to hold it up. It's nice to be able to find new spots for old crafts.

It is great to find a use for the my chair which I found on hard rubbish, put on new rattan and gave a fresh coat of white paint. The chair adds an extra burst of white and is comfortable to sit on for a long time.
Let's hope this keeps the back aches away!

Lisa x

Getting down and organised.

Lately I have been able to complete more craft projects recently and am really enjoying finishing some of the projects that have been lying around for ages. It is satisfying to be not have such a huge to do list and see progress around the house. It's also meant I've had more chances to blog and have enjoyed being able to share a different project everyday. I've been trying to write a new post each day and would love some feedback, ideas from you readers out there about any other DIY projects you'd like to see or other details you want when I'm sharing projects send me an email at thethriftychallenge@gmail.com.  

Now for today's DIY projects which all involve making the nursery a more organised space...

 

First up I decided to update an old pinboard that was lying around for the nursery. When bubs arrive I'm sure there will be lots of cards and many photos taken so I thought it would be lovely to have a little spot for these things.Updating an old plain pinboard is very easy. All you need is an old pinboard, some fabric and a staple gun. I also chose to use some grey paint (leftover silver dollar from the hallway) to paint the frame so it matches nicely with the fabric. This particular spotted deer fabric has certainly made it's place in the baby's room as it was also used on the quilt, pillow, elephant softie and ottoman.

I removed the frame from the existing cork board and used a staple gun to attach the fabric to the cork board. While the frame was removed I gave it a light sand and two coats of silver dollar paint. Once secure I then reattached the frame and it was ready to hang.

Now there's a space in the room to hang special photos and paper memories. This technique for upcycling a pinpoard is very simple and a quick way to create a cute pinboard and you can just use whatever material you have lying around.
Having places to hang items around the nursery is also important for me. I don't just want things thrown across the floor. These next DIY items came to me by accident. I was buying a little sewing basket from a garage sale and in the basket were some sewing goodies. However when I got home I also found these hooks in the basket, I quite liked them and thought they'd be useful to hang things from such as towels,  bags and changes of clothes. They were quite nice but needed a tiny bit of work to fit in with the nursery aesthetics.

before

After

I wanted the hooks to be a little bit more interesting so instead of just painting them white I used some paint tape to seal off the top half and gave it two coats of white. I like the end effect of wood and white and they look sweet hanging on the side of the wardrobe and holding some little booties for now ( I would have taken a wide photo but there are a few other little projects I've been working on nearby that I didn't want to get into the photograph).

And to finish off this productive day or making space for mementos and hanging items, I also thought I'd create a little growth chart for baby. If baby is anything like me in height this won't last that long.

I had an old ruler in my stash of randomly thrifted items and quite like it's vintage look. Without needing to do anything else I lined the ruler up along the door and attached it using two screws- a simple and easy growth chart that I look forward to using with bubs although I'm still not 100% sure whether I'll mark growth on the wall or door pane. I think I might add a little mark too for Maisy as she's the only current family member less that one metre tall. Her mark should never change as I'm certain my four legged friend is fully grown.

This nursery is making me so excited- so much cuteness is one space. I just need bubs to get here safely so we can start to enjoy the beautiful room. This definitely has been one of my favourite spaces to create so far and it's so nice having a room coming together and almost finished. I'm working on a few more things including what to do for a cot and chair and then I'll be happy to share a full room tour.

Happy upcycling. 

Lisa x
Today I'm linking up with  A Creative Princess,All Things with Purpose,Rhinestone Beagle,Glued to my Crafts,Artsy Fartsy Mama,Sweet Haute,A Glimpse Inside,It Happens in a Blink

Memory box.

I thrifted a little box the other day and decided it would be perfect to create a memory box for the year. I like the idea of having somewhere to place special tickets, photos and mementos from the year. This idea could also work for holidays or even remembering a particular special day.

It was already a nice gold colour so it didn't take much to transform the box and I didn't need to use any paint.  All I used was a white paint pen, a stencil, paint brush and mod podge for paper. I traced the numbers onto the side using the white paint pen and it ended up looking quite neat. Then I mod podge the word love onto the top (this picture was part of the invite for this amazing wedding). It was such nice lettering that it's nice to find a special place to use it. I put a layer of mod podge underneath and also a layer on top and the picture was held firmly in place. Then put in your treasured bits like photo booth snaps, precious ultrasound photos and concert tickets.

Now it's on my shelf ready to house all the momentums I collect this year. I'll see how many pieces I collect and then maybe I'd like to make some more for future years, though I'm not exactly sure how to where to get more wooden boxes from. It won't be long before I've got this whole house organised :-)

Lisa x

P.S I'm linking up with

The Dedicated House
Nifty Thrifty Things
C.R.A.F.T.
My 1929 Charmer

Crating storage.

I had a crate sitting around that I really wanted to update and modernise to fit in with our home decor. While the wood look is great, it didn't really work in our home and I wanted to smooth out the edges and just make the whole crate something more special. I have really learnt how paint can make a world of difference and while I'm happy to use xolours sometimes, I prefer simply furniture and bright accessories. For this reason I decided the crate would be white (china white to be precise).

before

This crate had already gone a little makeover (see here).  However to make it white I had to give it a good sand all over. Then two coats of paint later, it was almost finished. I want to use it in nursery to house toys, although so far I only have a soft baby block and a softie elephant. To make it easier to move around I added four little plastic caster wheels which were $8 from the local hardware store.

I also thrifted a gorgeous crocheted blanket in the perfect colours which looks perfect draped over it.  This room is really coming together and I can't wait till there is a little bub in their using the space ;-)

Lisa x
P.S My filing cabinet got featured on Roadkill Rescue- check it out here!
P.P.S I'm linking up with
The Taylor House
Live Laugh Rowe
A Glimpse Inside
Seven Alive
52 Mantles
Bloom Designs

 *update: I had one more crate lying around and decided to try turning it on the side this time and filling it with the dog's toys for easy access...she's loving it :-)