Summer cleaning and crafting

I must confess: I am a very messy crafter. When I start working on something, I'm usually interrupted by children, phone, life in general, etc., so I just leave everything I was working on right there. When I had a craft/guest room, I could just shut the door and pretend it wasn't there. But since Davis took over that room, I now use a little corner of my bedroom for my sewing machines and part of my closet for all my supplies. Until this weekend, my closet was in a constant state of disaster, as I would end up digging through all kinds of junk until I found something I was looking for, and then quickly shut the closet door and try to forget it was there. Although I would never call myself a great housekeeper, I do like to keep the rest of my house somewhat straight and picked up, as I feel much more relaxed when everything is in it's place. For some reason, this feeling has never crossed over to my craft and sewing stuff. But on Monday, I journeyed to Target to get some shelves and get myself organized. I can't believe I'm posting these pictures, as they are completely embarrassing. But I love before and after pictures, and you really can't appreciate the after without seeing the before, so here goes

My closet BEFORE (ooh, it just makes me cringe with shame):

My fabric stash BEFORE (and a pair of PJ pants I've been looking for--hurray!)

Whew, now I'm exposed. But I'm very proud to present, after many hours of work, the AFTER pictures of my new, organized craft area corner of my closet. And my shoes are organized! I'd forgotten to take a picture of those; they used to be all in a heap on a top shelf. I would throw them up there and run out real fast before one fell on my head. And then go on a frenzied search for a missing shoe when we were inevitably late for church (thanks Stephen for your help those days, you have an amazing knack to find missing shoes.) Now they are nicely paired together. Peace in my closet at last!!

My fabric stash now, all neatly folded and stacked. Yeah!

And I'm also proud to say it still looks like this a whole 3 days later. I'm hoping I'll be able to keep it up!

Now that I had everything organized and found things I thought I had lost, I completed a couple of projects I'd been wanting to do.

A new big-boy diaper bag for Davis.

No more schlepping around bottles and formula for my little man. I got the bag at Hobby Lobbe for $3.99 and added his name and made him a new bag tag to match; I'm loving him in plaid this summer. Ooh, I got a laminator last week---LOTS of fun!!! (I just blurred out our last name for the post---it doesn't really look like that.) This one is just big enough for some diapers, wipes, a cup and a little snack. I love it!

4th of July pants for Eliza

I found this fabric at Joann and at first couldn't decide if it was too cheesy, but finally decided I liked it. I'm pleased with the finished product. I think I paid $3.50 for the yard of fabric, and I already had the ric-rac. They took about 30 minutes to make (thanks to my friend Rebecca for the pattern; she designs the children's line Flit and Flitter ).

Now that my sewing stuff is un-cluttered, I feel like my mind is a little more un-cluttered, too. I'm beginning to think about making some clothes for Eliza for fall.....I'd better get started now!