Tidy Brown Wren, bringing order to your nest

If you've been following the Monday Motivations in January you'll probably be looking at a nicely organized closet in your home right now.  Am I right?  If not, it's not too late.  Just follow the instructions on the first post and the second post .  If you need some inspiration, check out my closet to see my before and after pictures. There are a few items that I'd like to purchase for my closets as my budget allows.  I thought I'd share them with you.  If you have some items that work for you, please share them in the comment section.  1.  My first wish list item is the new skinny hangers, sometimes called Velvet Hangers.  I found some at Ross for 50 cents a piece (they came in a package of 12).  If your closet is crowded, these hangers will give you a little bit of extra room on your rod.  You can also get them on Amazon.com. 2.  Another item I like is the square utility totes from thirty-one .  I got t...

I want to welcome my new friends from the Living Wholly For God Seminar.  I think the ladies at Providence Presbyterian did a wonderful job setting everything up and and providing the tasty meals. I'm so glad I got to meet many of you and I hope you found my presentation to be helpful and encouraging.  A few of you asked about a quick overview of today's presentation and I thought my regular readers might like the information as well. . . so here we go . . . 1.   Priorities :  Choosing, through thoughts, words, and actions what is most important to you.          Action to take :  make a list of your daily activities and how much time you give to each activity.            A.   Our tendency towards perfectionism  can keep us from doing what God wants us to do and can cause us to "steal" someone else's blessing.      ...

Well, I've been having a fun time in my craft "studio".  Now that I have a fancy schmancy work area,  thanks to my Christmas present from Hubs, I can call my craft room a "studio".  Doesn't it sound important? I finally completed three items and was able to photograph them on Tuesday thanks to a heat wave of 45 degrees here. The first item is a cute party apron.   I call it a party apron because it has a sequin trim.  The purple and green fabric is really adorable and came from a little girl's skirt.  Of course, one must always wear one's pearls while entertaining. This red satin purse by Liz Claiborne was upcycled into a razzle dazzle evening bag.  I found the fun circles and squares in Oma Miller's sewing box.  I'm not sure what they were originally made for but I thought they dressed up the bag in an unusual way.  Since things were getting way too "dressy" in the craft studio, I decided to take things down a notch and m...

My husband and son were clearing out a section of our wood storage area and they uncovered an old plywood box that had been partially buried by some of the wood.  They opened up the box to find old electrical wires and switches.  They removed everything from the box and found, at the very bottom, two old glass containers.   One of them was broken, but one was intact. The most interesting, in my opinion, is the cello shaped bottle.  One one side it says: "BY THE KINGS ROYAL PATENT GRANTED" The other side says: "ROBT TURLINGTON FOR HIS INVENTED BALSAM OF LIFE". One side says: "LONDON"   and the other side says: "JANY".  If you're interested in learning about this type of bottle, I found some info here . The other bottle (the broken one) was apparently hand blown with a hand blown hollow lid.  It still contains a mysterious black powder which spreads everywhere (ask me how I know).   Soot?  Gun powder?  Who kn...

I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from a friend (in blog life and real life) stating that I had been given a Stylish Blogger Award.  Who, me? Cindy, from Dwellings , gave me the award.  She is such a sweet person and a very talented homemaker.  Thanks for the "shout out", Cindy.  In order to receive the award, the recipient must:           1.  Be a gracious recipient and thank the awarder (and courteously link back to her blog).           2.  Share 7 things about themselves to make it interesting.           3.  Give the award to 15 other recently discovered blogs.           4.  Contact the blog authors to let them know the good news. So. . . for the 7 things about myself:           1.  Jesus C...

Have you been working on your coat closet this week?  Well, I have too and I'm ready to show you the "before and after".  So, here is the before. . . Yes, it was in need of some help.  I'm fortunate to have built in shelves already in the closet.  Most of our coats are short, so it works well.  I think the previous owner used the shelves for his shoes, because they were covered with dirt when we moved in! After about 20 minutes of work, this is what my closet looked like. . . I had already gotten rid of several extra coats at the beginning of the season.  Here are some of the items I got rid of this week: 1 hula hoop 2 posters from old Sunday School Lessons 2 old choir books (that were returned to church - oops) several old purses a set of floor samples was put with my staging/redesign supplies I bought the MDF crates at Michaels a few years ago.  They hold hats/gloves, purses, and light bulbs. The bottom red crate holds backpacks...

I've been organizing again.  Are you surprised?  This week, I tackled two closets.  My coat closet is done and I'll show you the before and after pics on Monday.  I also worked on my fabric closet.  I gained an extra closet when my son moved over to the apartment over our garage.  I wasted no time shoving it full of fabric for my Etsy shop. This is what happens to fabric when you shove it into a closet. . . To my credit, it is stacked into categories. First , I took everything out of the closet, sorting fabric by color, type, and purpose.  Any scraps too small to use on my larger projects were tossed into a wicker laundry basket.  The extra blanket on the shelf went into a different closet. Then , I added a hanging shelf from Walmart.  I also reused the small wooden shelf that used to hold my son's shoes.  Lastly , I loaded the fabric back into the closet, keeping categories together.  I used the hanging shelf to hold f...