Accordion File or Mail Organizer

DIY Wall Organizer

I have 2 places in my house that I need easy access to stash and organize things. Kitchen counter for mail, school papers, etc... and my Tweaking Corner Room for orders, ideas, work in progress.

I've learned in my life I operate in times of stash and times of organization and when those two come together that is success!

Nearing 10 years in this house we've tried at least a dozen different places to drop/organize mail. The one I thought was the most reasonable was just inside the office on the wall which doubles as our music room. 

These jewels I thought were the perfect answer. Come in the door, step in the office drop mail, continue... you can see how well we adapted to this grand plan.

So this year, ya I'm slow at these things, lol. I decided if we are going to drop everything on the counter, which we all hate it being there afterwards, the organizer should be near the counter... aaah haaa, lol.

As I searched wall organizers and command centers, there were lots I kind of liked, to purchase ranged from about $20 to nearly $100. Then there were the DIY versions which are typically more my style. But I'm more of an hour projector, not a weekend projector.

I found ones built from wood, some sewn, even one from re-purposed cereal boxes. Which brought me to the latest organizer Tweak. With items purchased from Bi-Mart and in about an hour you too can have a wall hanging, mail or file folder organizer. 

Do The Tweak at  How to Create Wall Mail/File Organizer by Wendy Locke on Snapguide.

Quick Sew Personalized Pillow Cases

Drop Cloth Envelope Fold Pillow Cases

 

If you've seen much of my blog, or follow The Tweaking Corner you may not have realized yet, but I am not a sewer. I own a sewing machine however am not very versed at it's potential (understated for sure). If a project can be completed with basic straight stitches, no strange settings I can usually manage. Ironic since my home pic is of a quilt section. At the time seemed like my greatest creation (turns out it still is as far as sewing, lol).  Just know as your read this, I would rather do nearly anything other than sew. However I really wanted these personalized pillows for our bed.

 

So with that preceding information. I made 2, 19X19 pillow case slipcovers in just over an hour and a half including two Facebook posts and winding a bobbin.

 



Click here to do the tweak.



Party Supplies

30 Years Strong

 Bi-Mart Employee

There's something that comes with longevity that just amazes and impresses me...

 

 Peggy is our store mom, she is technically the book keeper. But if you need any support including even the smallest of details, for example a button sewed quickly on your vest she's the one.

 

 While this celebration is about Peggy and how awesome it is she has been with Bi-Mart for 30 years...this post is about Tweaking... (smile)

 Yes! I even went here... personalized napkins.

I say any time there is opportunity to celebrate - tweak it!

 

OK little side note here... If you are outside of our area you may not be aware that we have no other "big" stores in this town. So pretty much we Creswellians have learned if you can't get it at Bi-mart, our local Farmer's Market store and a mix of a few other small boutique style stores you have to drive to get what you need. So when we party at Bi-Mart we like to do it with Bi-Mart supplies....

 

Yep all these decoration can be purchased from supplies at Bi-Mart (except napkins)

 

Tissue paper

Pipe Cleaners

Embroidery Floss

Scrapbooking Paper

Double sided stick tape

2 Skewer Sticks

Streamers

 

One party to go from Bi-Mart.

 

Tissue paper flowers made possible by googling "How to make tissue flowers". There a million different options. Some people like videos, I like short quick instructions with pictures. I made them years ago with my oldest child just needed a refresher....

 

All hanging items strung with embroidery floss full group of threads together.

 

Hanging mobile structure is skewer sticks I just cut off the points.

 

Banners and mobile pieces are scrapbooking cardstock.  I do have a Silhouette Cameo I use to cut my pieces you could easily cut them by hand. I printed the letters on my printer and you guessed it ink and printer both from Bi-Mart.

 

So the next time you have an event your planning don't think what big box store can I shop far from here think what can I get at my neighborhood Bi-Mart first.

 

And then I added the napkins and personalized them with the Silhouette Cameo pen option. Pretty great party décor from you local Bi-Mart store. I think.

 

Percolator Coffee Pot, Perking Regular Coffee

Check out How to Use Regular Coffee in the Peculator for Camping. by Wendy Locke on Snapguide.

Epic Pop-up Box Card

Pop - up Box Card

 

These typical small box cards are designed to fold flat and fit into an envelope. Great for mailing or gifting flat and then creating a great impact when opened wide.

However I was challenged on a bigger scale for Rich the president of Bi-Mart's recent celebration.

Rich celebrated 40 years with Bi-Mart. In my book doesn't matter to me who you are 40 years anywhere with anything these days deserves celebrating in epic proportion. (Bi-Mart was just a bonus!) So the challenge was it needed to be something everyone could at least sign, large, from our store and the recommendations poster board, be creative, have fun.

Finished size of the box portion of the card was 9"X9", yes opened up it is a 9X9X9 cube. Instant centerpiece for sure. What a fantastic learning experience!

Congratulations Rich! We are looking forward to many more years with you.

Resources/Supplies:

Bi-Mart: 2 pieces white poster board for box, 1 piece blue poster board for envelope

2 packs scrap booking assorted papers for accents

 

Silhouette Cameo: to cut shapes

 

SVGCuts.com: Summer Box Cards

 



A cheap gardening trick

Keeping slugs/snails out of your Hostas

with out expensive chemicals

 

I love spring, all the beautiful flowers emerging,  new green foliage sprouting up everywhere. Hostas are one of my favorite. I am not a gardener, the only time my thumb is green is when I spray paint it during some 'Tweak project'.

 

However I stumbled on a bit of information that I thought was worth trying. If your Hostas start looking like some one has riffled them with a shotgun they need Coffee! Well caffeine anyway.

 

Collect your leftover coffee grounds in a container, remove filters (extra tip: It's easier to remove filters after they have dried, lol).

Sprinkle them around the base of your plants. With a baggie for a glove I removed all those pesky little snails I happen to see.

This absolutely saved my Hostas last year. I was a little slow getting it done this spring, but they don't look too bad yet. I think I may have done it a couple times last summer. And a bonus is the Hostas get extra nitrogen from the composting grounds! Win Win!

 

His Love

Shadow Box Frame

I was recently shopping in Ben Franklin and seen this wonderful little box transformed into a great shadow box. I love easy inspirational projects that I can Tweak to make my own. As soon as I seen it, I notice the little stamp under it and knew this was a Tweak for me.

 

 

Do The Tweak

 

Gift Tags

Gift Tags

 

This time of year is a reminder that we will have more than usual reasons to gift others. I've posted before I love to find reasons to gift and having gift tags on hand make that even easier. Also I love to decorate the house for Thanksgiving with the festive looking Christmas packages lining the rooms...So prepping for Christmas tags is now...

 

 

DO THE TWEAK 

 



Daily Life Recipe

Into Each Day Put: 

I have discovered it is important to surround myself with things that remind me of great things/times. So when a bad day creeps in I can ward it off with things around me. Chronic migraines tend to overwhelm me. (This is not a med blog, just FYI, these are managed, and I work with a neurologist)
So I find when I cannot leave my darkened bedroom for a few days and can barely get up to fix food. I need something in those areas to remind me to live 'today'.

This fun little saying seemed the perfect thing to put just above the stove in the kitchen. The fun fonts were all done in the Silhouette DE software.

DO THE PROJECT

Life is short. Buy the shoes.

 

Reusable shopping bag. Triple layer vinyl project.

 

Shoes these days are a really big deal. Weather your a high heel Stiletto lover, simplicity of  flip-flops is your fancy, tennis shoes for running (after kids or on tracks), boots, or anything else for every occasion, people today buy lots more shoes than our previous generations.

So needless to say this saying is quite the hit with many people. However 26 years ago when I had been married only a short time I owned only 4 pairs of shoes. Yes, I only owned 4, 2 pairs of dress shoes; a pair of heels and flats, and 2 pairs of tennis shoes; a good pair and a work pair for mowing the grass, etc.

I went out for a shopping trip of essentials, and window shopping for our soon to be born son. When I seen a pair of shoes, the kind that put a smile on your face immediately and actually make your heart skip a beat. I knew the right thing was to admire them, try them on (wink), feel how comfortable they were, and put them back on the shelf.

At the end of the day my darling hubby asked about the events of my day, which I rambled all the highlights and minimized how wonderfully fabulous those shoes were I had seen. His response was "let me see them." I hid my surprise, and said I didn't buy them. "Why not?" I could think of a million reasonable responses, no reasonable adult would think I should have brought those shoes home at this point in my life. His shock increased as we spoke, deeply questioning, how much could they be? In his mind that obviously was what he had missed. My answer they were on clearance, and I actually thought they were yet cheaper than the clearance tag. "You really liked them?...go back and get them." I remember his very articulate convincing conversation, why I must go back and get them, lol, really true story.

So for me this is a reminder how much my dearest husband loves me, and how I really need to, sometimes (smile) live a little more in 'today' and not worry so much about the future as we do not know what it holds for us.

DO THE PROJECT

Blessings

 Count Your Many Blessings

 This is a project that is just as inspirational in it's completion as it was all along the 'tweaking' way.

 

I must add a little preface here... I love working with vinyl because when your done it's so crisp and exact.

For todays project I wanted it distressed. I also wanted to use this particular paint/stencil method. I also knew I wanted to add numbers because that's the latest craze, and just so worked out on the Silhouette America site that was the challenge of the week. So let's get started and pull this project all together.

 

 

 

See how it's done                                  



See how it's done.

See How it's done!

Kitchen, Spice Jar Tweak

Spice Jar Labels

 

 

Todays tweak reminded me how it is those little things that make such a difference in our everyday lives.

 We have an RV and not different than most RVers we try to utilize every inch of space. However again like most RVers we also like to make things easy on ourselves as well.

We purchased all those little bottles of spices so we could conveniently put them in the small space, and not have to pack them from our home kitchen every time we head out.

Quickly we discovered not all 'small' spice jars are created equal so a few spices ended up in the built in spice rack and one ended up in the pantry cabinet, and the others ended up in yet another cabinet. Suddenly the convenience of it all was just too complicated, after all, all you really need on your eggs in the morning is a little pepper, right?

Anyway Bi-Mart carries little glass spice jars with plastic lids for about $1.00 each, open stock buy as many or as few as you like, so I did!

I used my Silhouette to make vinyl labels (see page for complete details). However you could use address printing labels to print and stick. Buy the new popular chalkboard labels and write your flavors with chalk. Cut out your favorite scrapbooking paper in your favorite shape and seal it to the jar with clear contact paper. So many options, just make it yours!

 



Making the most of small gifts

I love a good child care provider. Occasionally leading me to want to give a little bonus. However I am not sure if you all are like me, but I frequently find myself thinking, "I only have ____ to give."   It only takes a few minutes to make it a real heartfelt gift. Making the response a hug and treasured memory instead of an awkard money exchange.

 These are the simple match boxes I posted last month. Take your currency fold in half. Wrap tightly around a pencil, remove from pencil wrap with ribbon use glue dot to hold in place.

 

Life is short, Celebrate every moment of it!

 

Gifting a gift card inspires me to really take the time to make this amazing. I find any one can give, a gift card in a store bought greeting card. I wanted this gift to be super special.

4 mini matchbook notepads personalized with paper watermarked with the couples names and momogrammed.
Cutsom box for these to nestle inside.

a personalized crafted congratulations card.

personalized card specifially made to insert their gift card. Nicely placed inside matching envelope.

In the top of the bag are 2 (sour cream containers) personalized treat containers filled with a few of the new couples favorite treats.

A few final touches on the bag.
This moment has been celebrated!

 What's your next 'moment'?
Find a way to 'celebrate' it in a more meaningful way.