Yarn Storage . . .

Found these via Craftzine



This is very much my style:



This one is not for yarn, per se, but I love the idea. I also end up with lots of empty dog food cans.

Knitted Storage Containers

Forgive the snagging, but this is amazing.

yodafatkitty may be my new favorite person, in that she had a whole post about knitted storage containers, pattern links included. And she also kept talking about her Starbucks mug. So from the one post, I have deduced that she loves 1) knitting, 2) storage containers, and 3) Starbucks. In short, my favorite person.

Organizing: Putting Away In Plain Sight, Part 2

Please refer to my earlier post here for clarification on my love of fabric bins -- it is extensive. But moving on . . .

This week, HOW TO use cereal boxes as storage without looking like a preschooler and/or hoarder.

While you have now learned of my love of fabric bins, it may help to remind yourself of my love of yarn. It is also extensive. I LOVE yarn. I would like to clarify that I am not a "yarn snob"; I define "yarn snob" as someone who 1) knows the difference between alpaca, merino, and llama by blind smell-test; 2) cares about the difference; and 3) would never be caught dead in the vicinity of Red Heart Yarn and/or a Michaels store. Now, some yarn snobs are lovely people, I'm sure, and probably got their start on acrylic yarn like the rest of us. I just don't have the time or budget for their kind of stash. That being said, I will tell you of MY love of yarn . . . every color ever! For some reason, I forget that yarn comes in every color imaginable. For example, on a recent trip to Michaels (I do not hide my love of Michaels, and often schedule dates with my girlfriends that center around the newly opened uptown store) I had only two things on my list -- Ninja Turtle Green yarn and Candy Melts. I turned the corner to the yarn aisle, and I swear, I had a tiny little orgasm. Vanna's Choice, my preferred brand, had expanded its section to include not just the basic colors, but now multi-prints, one that may or may not have been the exact shade I wanted in my nursery. Due to my stupid, grown-up budget however, I put down the perfect, orgasmic color, gathered by Ninja Turtle Green ("olive"), and walked away. And died a little inside.

As you can imagine, I have not always been so disciplined, and my stash has grown and grown. According to my Ravelry stash, I have 101 different varieties (102, if you count the new Olive from last weekend). I have gone through a great deal lately, with my Alphabet Blanket project, and I've been careful to only buy new yarn when I need it for a specific project (stay tuned for the reasoning behind "Ninja Turtle Green"). The main reason for this is that I was running out of places to put all this yarn, and promised myself I'd use up a majority before buying more.

When we moved into the new apartment, the yarn ended up in piles in the 2nd bedroom. Now that that bedroom will soon be renamed "the baby's room", the yarn had to to go. Also, in an on-going attempt to make it look like grown-ups live in our apartment, I needed to plan for how to store/display this yarn in an organized fashion. Cue the cereal boxes!!!

. . . the what?

What's the easiest way to get a lot of boxes? Marry someone who eats a lot of cereal (it also helps if the only thing you can keep down/don't mind coming back up during your many many weeks of morning sickness is Chocolate Cheerios). How do you make these boxes look good? A trip to Party City will suffice.

HOW TO:  Turn Cereal Boxes into a Pretty Storage System

1) Start with the thing you want to store and a few month's worth of assorted cereal boxes of various sizes. You'll want a few large (big ol' box of Plain Cheerios) and a few small (not sure if the Chocolate Cheerios only come in smaller boxes, or if I just refused to succumb to the desire to by like 64oz of breakfast chocolate).

Thing I need to store: Yarn

My cereal of choice

2) Gather Materials

• Cereal boxes, flattened
• Various rolls of wrapping paper, perhaps in complementary patterns or colors
• Tape
• Scissors
• Ruler (optional, depending on your degree of anal-ness)

3) Cut cereal boxes into desired shape. You may wish to create Magazine Files, where you would cut the sides diagonally. I just cut each box in half, creating smaller rectangular boxes. Tape up top and bottom flaps to close the boxes on one end.

4) Cover with wrapping paper as you would a present, folding the end of the paper down into the open side of the box.

Tip: If the folded edge of the paper will be showing on your shelf, and you do not have good "invisible" scotch tape, roll the tape the put it on the inside of your folded edge.

You can also use glue or a tape roller, which may seal the edge more completely.

This will keep the edge clean and less present-looking.

5) Repeat with all boxes in various papers. Stuff with stuff. Admire.

Kitchen Command Center

. . . is what my home is in need of. badly.

We have this amazing island in our kitchen, which has become a catch-all for, well, ALL! Drying paint brushes, keys, receipts, mail, dinner, dirty dishes, clean dishes. And I'm finding it harder and harder to remember things (like bringing my lunch or remembering to check if my shirt has stains on it before I leave the house), so I need a place for everything so I can put everything in its place.

Cue the Container Store!!! (and IKEA and BB&B and Pottery Barn . . .)

I love love love this thing:

It's magnetic so you just stick your keys on it.



This is the "Daily System" from Pottery Barn. I think this may be what I need. Hooks for keys, slots for wallets and phones. Pottery Barn, however, is a little pricey.

But these!

The exact same system, at Bed Bath and Beyond, for about $10-$15 less for each piece.

I ended up with the File Bin, for mail and magazines, and the three-tiered storage unit with the key hooks, for keys (obviously), wallets, phones, and iPods. I decided against the calendar, even though it would probably help; we are notoriously BAD at writing things on calendars, or even remembering to switch calendars to the next month.

Now we just have to get them onto the wall . . .

Yarn Storage . . . the saga continues

So we're almost finished painting the bedroom -- just a few touch-ups here and there. And I've been trying to figure out how to dispose of the empty paint cans. But then *BING* (that's what inspiration sounds like, btw) -- am I NOT always complaining about storing yarn?

It can't be too hard to clean them out, right?

a large version of the coffee can wall:

Unfortunately, of all the crafty things in my house, I have no pretty paper. Michaels, here I come.

Also, I overheard my dear husband discussing with his buddy the "random crap in jars" phenomenon. Apparently, all women have their random pretty thing that they insist on decorating with, and that men don't understand until they move in with a women. His buddy's girlfriend has marbles and glass stones in vases and jars (quite literally random crap in jars). Chris thinks that my random crap is yarn! I of course got all in a huff about this, until he explained that it's only because it's physically impossible to utilize all of it at the same time (his definition of random crap). The yarn that is in use at the moment is not crap; the rest is. I guess I can see his logic . . . that doesn't stop me from throwing his Notre Dame/Boy Scout/Red Sox/anywhere he's every been Mugs out the window.

Now that I think of it though . . . a jar might not be a bad idea . . .

More organizing day-dreams

Things are slow at work (things=me), so I'm running down the clock by day-dreaming about my new crafty corner (the corner of our new living room that I will slowly take over). At first, I will probably just use the 2nd bedroom. However, as my goal is to fill that room with babies as soon as humanly possible, I need to backup plan.

Also, I love Google, because you can search things like "How to organize yarn", click Image results, and your work is done.

I want the storage to be pretty, like a fancy yarn shop. When I go to yarn stores, I love the way the shelves look almost as much as I love touching the cashmere.

So I want something more like this

and less like this

Just a few ideas . . .

Magazine Holders

Along the same lines, I could turn the holders around and cover them with super cute wrapping paper; this way, I could make them pretty and match-y, even if my yarn leftovers don't compliment to room's decor.

And for a cheap alternative, I can make the magazine holders out of cereal boxes. Luckily, my husband LOVES his cereal, and hopefully it will be cheaper once we move out of Manhattan ($6.50 for Cheerios! I don't think so!!!).

Hanging Canvass Shelf

Depending on where this corner ends up, I may or may not have a closet, so I'm not sure where these would hang. However, I could mount the top "shelf" to the wall, and hang it from there.

Shoe Organizer

Image a few of these stacked on top of each other, or lined up side-by-side along a wall?

And finally, this is less practical, but adorable:

Decorating Ideas for my Crafty-Corner

So my husband and I are in the process of buying an apartment! Very exciting!

We have put in an offer and actually spent this morning reading through the contracts. We have a potential closing date of May 31, 2010 (but that's not official yet).

Towards the beginning of this process, I was very careful not to "move my stuff in" in my head, because I didn't want to be disappointed if things fell through. But now I'm giving myself a little freedom to mentally decorate, especially when it comes to the baby room (already painted with a mural of green grass/sky/flying Dumbo) and a crafty-corner for myself.

Currently, my yarn is tucked away in every corner of our apartment (in drawers under the couch, in a hanging shoe organizer, in a bookshelf, and in bags shoved behind the couch). If we had removable couch cushions, it would be under there as well. I'm trying to devise a better way for organizing and storing it in our new place.

Stage one: DON'T BUY ANY MORE YARN BEFORE WE MOVE!!! That's actually going pretty well; I've been able to make several gifts without buying more yarn, which is pretty impressive. Sort of like throwing together an awesome dinner with foods you happened to have in the pantry (which I ALSO did this week!). HA HA!

Stage two will be figuring out the best (and prettiest) way to store the yarn I have. I came across this post yesterday in the Craftzine Blog, and I LOVE it!

These are coffee cans covered in contact paper and mounted to the wall. I was thinking of modifying this a little and mounting the cans individually, like picture frames. I would cover them with either black or brightly-colored contact paper (bright primary colors?), and attach a picture hook on the back of each. Then I could mount them all over one wall, or in one corner, and fill them with my yarn. AND if I needed to take the yarn with me while I traveled, simply take the can off the wall, throw a cover on it, and toss it in my bag!

As a cute addition, I could turn the cans/caps into dispensers (the caps have holes for the yarn to feed through).