Tutorial: Recycled Kitchen Cupboard Organizer

When I first created my kitchen cupboard stacker, I thought I'd never seen anything so beautiful in a long time. Call me crazy but this autumn with the grey winds and cold rains, I've been finding my ray of sunshine every time I open my kitchen cupboard. Stacks upon stacks of neatly lined culinary condiments -- each and every jar, bottle and sauce clearly visible and accessible. No more rummaging around and taking down all the bottles to reach for the stock cubes hiding away at the back. No more bending down-picking up-carrying over-and-stepping-up on the step-stool to reach for the peppercorns jammed behind bottles of ketchup and peri peri sauce. Mmmm bliss ... :)

So I thought, why not make a simple tute out of it and share the happy times? You'll need this stuff and only 20 minutes of your time to get your cupboard in spanking order:

• Empty plastic milk bottles, juice boxes and/or empty kitchen/toilet paper rolls
• A piece of stiff cardboard (I just rip apart old parcel delivery boxes and they work like a charm)
• A retractable cutter
• Hot glue gun
• Measuring tape
• (Optional) Spirit level gauge or half a glass of water in a clear glass

Right then. Now that your supplies are in place, go ahead and empty your kitchen cupboard and give it a good clean inside (start with a blank canvas eh?)

Now take your measuring tape and measure the width of the cupboard shelf that you want to organize. To make the tiers, here's how will calculate the width, length and number of cardboard strips you need:

Strip length:

You want to cut strips of cardboard as long as the width of your cupboard. (My cupboard is about 14 inches across so that's how long my cardboard pieces are)

Strip width:

To determine the width of each cardboard strip, look to the the fattest jar/bottle that you have in your cupboard. In my cupboard, for instance, the fattest jar is Hellman's mayo (see photo above). So in short, my cardboard strip is wide enough to accommodate a Hellman's mayo bottle.

Number of cardboard strips needed:

This will be (the number of times your fattest bottle will sit inside the cupboard) minus 1.

So for my cupboard, I took the jar of Hellman's and placed it inside the cupboard; I counted that only 3 bottles of the mayo would sit front to back in a single row.

So the number of cardboard strips I need is is 3 -1 = 2 cardboard strips.

Now for the thrifty, salvage-y, crafty bit **grin**.

I took the tallest bottle in my cupboard and held it up to where I wanted it sitting inside the cupboard. I held a ruler next to it in my other hand and eyeballed the height of my first tier; it had to be about 4 inches tall. For the second tier, I simply opted to halve the height of the taller tier i.e. 2 inches.

(If you need to build more than two tiers, it is best to build one tier, fill it up and then hold the tallest bottle in the next-down tier to eyeball the next tier's height.)

I'll show you how I made the shorter tier here. I simply took three empty plastic milk bottles and washed them out. I measured 2 inches up from the base and marked it all around. Then I made a slit using a retractable cutter at that mark and cut all around the bottle using a pair of scissors. Here's how the cut-up bottles looked (ignore the mess in the background, I was having a messy day :P)

So each of these little cut-up bottoms is 2 inches tall. Next, I simply placed the three bottle bottoms along the length of one cardboard strip and traced their outlines roughly...

I hot-glued each of the bottle bottoms inside their outlines to create a wonky little tier, see?

(If you're feeling extra DIY-ish, you could place a spirit level gauge or a half-glass of water on top of the tier before gluing anything, just to make sure it is horizontal. If it is too topsy, just change the positions of the plastic bottoms or slice off thin slivers of plastic until your tier is level. I did it and do not regret it; its not perfect but nothing will fall off it, see?)

And there you have it, one tier all done! Can you see all the recycled bits and bobs I used to create the tiers for my cupboard?

When assembled, put the tiers in your empty cupboard and see how they're doing. If all seems okay, pull out your hot glue gun and connect the tiers together at all the places where two tiers touch each other. My tiers were touching each other where the orange juice box is, so I hot-glued 'em there.

It all looks a bit raw and wonky ... but all of that will disappear in one-two-three!

One ...

Two ...

Three!

Voila! That's kitchen cupboard perfection for me. Now all I need to do is change the label on my chilli flakes jar. Boo. Another time.

Go on and give this a go ... let me know how your projects turn out! Toodles!

Yayyy! I got published on Craft Gossip!!

So the best thing about today's craft morning for me: I got published on CraftGossip.com!! (As if that gigantic post-it I've placed beneath the header isn't enough, hehehe!)

But I'm so thrilled, it's making me sing.... :D

Check out the link to my page here!!

Meanwhile, I'm doing my special I-got-published dance, jiggly bits n all ... hehehehe!!

Toodles!

xxx

Mimi

Fabric Basket Liner

Did I mention that I'm very very new to sewing? I started sewing on a domestic sewing machine only a coupla weeks ago. (My sis-in-law is an absolute doll to have offered me her unused Singer last winter and I shamelessly jumped at the opportunity of a freebie, hehehe!)

I had no idea what to do with the poor beast though ... so it ended up spending a good several months under a sorry-looking pillowcase (that was all I could rummage up as a dust cover) on a neglected shelf.

I never thought I'd be saying this but I feel so blessed to be in full-blown nesting mode hahaha! That's the one thing that has turned me towards sewing... otherwise I would rather be working or doing something else instead of picking up this wonderful hobby.

So after a few chats with my darling Mom (who has a super-awesome seamstress gene somewhere within her system) -- I have learnt to clean, oil and start using a sewing machine. I don't think I'm doing a bad job so far ... at least I'm having fun while at it ...

Which brings me to today's morning project: a fabric basket liner!

I have a coupla wicker baskets lying around the house that are in baaaaddd need of a fabric liner. After browsing a few techniques, I amalgamated a handful of ideas on how to go about sewing one. Here's a picture of my first prototype. The fabic is pretty ugly. Where did I find it? Let's just say DH won't be able to find his stripey blue jammies when he gets back home from work today hahaha...!

The most awesome thing though is -- the liner turned out to be bang-on. It's the perfect fit and it was super easy to make. Above everything, it has served me well in its foremost purpose: to test whether I can sew a fabric basket liner or not. And I can! (Of course I added my own twist on the various techniques to come up with what seemed easiest to me).

So in conclusion, now that I know I can make one, I'll be making another prettier one for my one-trip-up basket that is sitting stark naked on our staircase.

And why have I rambled on so? Just to let you know, I'll be putting up a tutorial to create this super-easy basket liner soon so watch this space! Happy crafting! xxx

Follow-up: Today's Crafting Project

It worked, yayyyy!!! I managed to turn part of our ugly old curtain into a fully functional 9-pocket shoe organiser!!! (9 pockets? Are DH and I missing a foot between the two of us? Nawwwh. But that was all the space I had ... hehehee!)

The good news: it was pretty easy for me to put together .... which means it must be REAlly easy for all you who know how to sew already.

We managed to hammer the nails in place to hang the organiser inside the cloaks cupboard and it stores shoes like a dream! (It's still that awful ugly-curtain print but at least now we can appreciate its functionality rather than hate the print :P)

So I've decided to make an identical organiser and hang it inside the other door of the cupboard so we can have lots of efficiently utilised space. (More room for winter boots in the cupboard as well before the chills approach in a coupla months.)

Tutorial coming soon!

xxx

Mimi

Today's Crafting Project

So it was about time I finally took the plunge and made a shoe organiser for our coat cupboard. There's a huge mess in there ... and our tiny shoe rack is of little use. And no matter how badly you want to, you will never see the inside of that cupboard in my lifetime (unless I spruce it up and get it to look all neat and pretty .... **mental note to add to my future projects list**)

I've been working on a homemade hanging shoe organiser all day today. Couple the long hours with my almost-next-to-nothing sewing skills and a very pregnant belly, it's not been the easiest of rides. Grrrr .... :-X

Butttttt .... today's motto is just stay calm and sew. I'm nearly there, it's almost over.

And even though I've recycled an ugly old curtain to create my organiser, if it turns out successfully (fingers crossed!!) I'll post a tutorial up here soon.

Watch this space and wish me luck!!

xoxox

Tutorial - Quick and Easy Recycled-Yoghurt-Pot Ribbon Organizer

This little cutie had been sitting on my "to-do" list for the longest time...

Really I should be ashamed because it is so quick and easy, I don't have any excuses to not have made it any earlier.

I had a bunch of narrow craft ribbons lying around in an untidy heap in my drawer...

... And I really needed to take care of it. So I ended up making this handy dandy ribbon organiser. You only need a handful of things for this project and it shouldn't take you more than 30 minutes (10 minutes for the crafty ones) to finish it up!

Here are the main things you'll need:

• An empty plastic yoghurt container (or custard/cream pot) with original lid
• Gift wrapping paper
• PVA glue (or that thing they call mod-podge)
• A retractable cutter
• An untidy pile of ribbons just itching to be sorted!

Right, let's get going.

First things first, I washed out and dried the yoghurt pot and lid ...

Next, I cut up a piece of cute gift-wrap (I liked this silly one with all the faces on it) and pasted it onto the pot using PVA glue. Set it to one side to dry while you carry on ...

I took the lid and placed it top-down on a blank piece of paper. I traced the outline in pencil...

Now for that pile of ribbons ...

They were all the same width; I measured one and it was about 10 mm wide, see?

This gave me an idea of the size of slots I needed for my ribbons. Back to that circle outlined on the paper, I drew a series of roughly 10 mm long lines inside the circle. I did this in a concentric fashion; you could draw them wherever you want inside the circle ...

Next, I took the yoghurt pot lid and placed it bottom-up on the circular design. Holding it firmly in place, I made slits on the lid along the pencil lines using a retractable cutter. (Make sure the slits are fairly straight and around 1mm longer than the actual ribbon width...)

Right, time to take care of those ribbons. I bundled up each ribbon and placed it inside the pot...

Next, using a small blunt object (I used the plastic end of a tic-tac pencil) I pushed one each of each ribbon through a slot in the lid...

And I pulled it through on top. Do this with all the ribbons...

Once all the ribbons are pushed through, place the lid back on the pot.

Ta-daaaaa !! You have a bunch of happy ribbons living together in their cute little organizer. Every time I need a ribbon, I can look at the exact shade I need. I can also see when a colour is running out through the transparent lid when I start pulling it through ...so now I can top them up easily.

This organizer is so quick, easy and cheap, you could make one for each specific bundle width of ribbons e.g. a pot for 6mm ribbons, 10mm, 20mm and so on ...

You could also have pots according to families of colours and arrange them in your collection. Do let me know how your projects turn out; happy crafting! xxx

Tutorial: Two-tiered Recycled Shoebox Sewing Kit

So it was about time I did something about all the mess with my sewing supplies. I'd read in several places about reusing an old shoebox to create a sewing kit but I couldn't find a step-by-step tutorial anywhere. I decided to take the plunge and make a tutorial out of it as well. I also took it a stretch further and recycled a collection of smaller household containers to organize my sewing equipment.

I ended up making a handy two-tiered sewing box that fulfills most of my storage needs. Here is the finished product:

The main things I used for this project were:

• An old shoe box
• Some decorative paper (I used some wallpaper from a leftover roll and scraps of gift-wrap paper)
• Food/drink/etc boxes e.g. juice box, cookie trays, fruit containers. I'll talk about these as we go along...

Right so those are the main things I used. Let's get started!

Here's the shoebox I used. It's pretty basic ...

I wanted to make a hinged-lid sewing kit. To do this, I sliced the box in two adjacent corners along one length using a retractable cutter ...
Here's how it looks after being cut.
To allow the hinge to slide inside the box, I shaved off some slivers of cardboard on either side of the cut edge like so ...
Next, I prettied up the box and the lid using paper from an old wallpaper roll. I used watered-down PVA glue and used the technique outlined in this video to cover the box and the lid. (Thanks monkeysee!)

I found a lonely old button lying around and hot-glued that to the lid to make it feel like a sewing kit lol !
Next, I pasted a piece of gift-wrap paper to cover the inner base of the box. I also hot-glued the cut-edge of the lid to the inside of the box, creating a hinged lid (yellow arrow). See?

Now that the outer shell of the kit is ready, time to work on the inside. I used a handful of different boxes salvaged from the kitchen and around the house to create the inner compartments. Let me show you how to make one box and you can pretty much apply the same technique to any box you find suitable.

Here's a rinsed-out orange juice box. I sliced off the top using a sharp knife...
Next, I opened up the four sides of the box by cutting down the four corners, down to the point of the height of the box.
I trimmed off the four sides around 1-and-3/4th the height of the box. Pretty simple, see?
Next I just folded in the extra cardboard and hot-glued it to the inside. Here's the finished box. Ta-daaa!
So I ended up make three such boxes. I covered up the base of each box with pieces of gift-wrap paper ...

A little tip here: try to keep the boxes roughly about the same height to make it easier to organize the insides.

Right. The sewing kit has two levels. To make the upper level, I took a piece of cardboard and trimmed it down to slightly smaller than the actual shoebox.

Next, I prettied it up by covering it with gift-wrap paper. I also cut out a small rectangle on one side of the cardboard to make it easier to lift out.
Next, I played around a bit with the different boxes and settled upon two boxes that I wanted on the upper level. I hot-glued these to the cardboard tray. Check them out; can you spot a re-used cookie tray in there?
All done! Here's the finished sewing kit. Let me show you how it's working for me ...

The upper tray lifts out easily, see?
And here are the contents of the top compartment. I pasted strips of magnetic tape in one cookie compartment to keep all the pins in one place.

And here's the bottom compartment. See the cherry-box compartment on the left? Works perfectly! :-)

So now all my sewing supplies are neatly in one place...

I'll be making a thread/bobbin sorter next to keep my threads tidy. Watch this blog for more tutes. Thanks for looking and let me know how your projects turn out! xxx