MintBasil

I have been making some progress with making the house feel more like ours. We are trying to work on our bad habits so we don't clutter up the new space. One big area of improvement is keeping our kitchen counter tops cleared, specifically with mail. Out of embarrassment I did not take a 'before' picture but just imagine weeks worth of piles over a kitchen island and a cupboard crammed with recipe print outs, cookbooks, note pads, and car related items.

I cleaned out the upper cabinet and added two thick cork pin boards to the inner door. $1.49 each at Michaels and they included the sticky tape. I then moved the home phone and cells phone into the bottom shelf to clear the lower counter top. Thankfully, the previous owners had installed a phone jack and outlet into the cupboard itself. The second shelf holds a piggy bank for spare change and our monkey pencil cup. The top shelf is storing all of our manuals and some paperwork we need handy.

But how do we solve the problem with the piles of mail? I cleaned out the drawer under the upper counter and decided to sew my own organizers to keep everything neat.

This is the first version. I use home deco weight fabric I had in my stash. I didn't use any interfacing and I just tacked the top points together to make a box. This version was a bit too flimsy for what I needed it to be and I knew I could make a more reinforced corner. So back to fix my pattern.

This is the second version. Much better! I used the hvy weight interfacing from JoAnn's (not the craft bond stuff) on both the interior and exterior pieces. I also drafted tabs into the pattern to fold around the edges to reinforce the corners. The button are decorative tacks to hold everything in place in a stylish way.

This version worked out beautifully. The only thing I am going to change about it is to make the tabs wider. It was a hassle to get those turned with the thick, interfaced fabric!

So this is the drawer. I have one more fabric organizer to make (to fill in the corner) so we have three seperate areas to store notepads, tape, rubber bands, and the like. The open space is to temporarily store our mail til bills get paid and filed. Next on the list is to find a small hook system to install on the bottom shelf in the upper cabinet for all the keys and to find a cell phone charger station to keep everything neat and tidy. I also have extra magazine boxes from Ikea to place on the top shelf for additional storage.

And I have to figure out how to organize all those printed recipes and find a place to store our cookbooks. I need yard sales to start up soon!