Twiddle Thumbs: 10/4/09

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Cupcake Hotpad

I had so much fun with my "name the dress form" contest last month!!! It was fun watching Brown Sugar and Poly Ester so close the whole contest. I felt bad when Brown Sugar only lost by 5 votes. So, I came up with this cute little hot pad for a consolation prize.

It turned out really cute and how fun to have a cupcake hotpad! I sent it in the mail a couple of days ago, so I hope you get it soon!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Super Quick Placemat Pillow

We've had fun with place mats in the past, (see here) and now we're going to have a little season fun with them. Behold the place mat pillow!

Instructions?

Find an adorable holiday themed fabric place mat.
Cut a piece of coordinating fabric to the same size as the place mat.
Place right sides together and sew around 3/4 of the edges with a 1/4" seam allowance.
Turn right side out and stuff to desired firmness
Discretely sew open end shut
Enjoy your fun new throw pillow that required no embroidery, applique or Ric-Rac.

Want another quick Halloween/Fall pillow idea? Check out this one at la*T*da!

Monday, October 5, 2009

The Holidays

I love the holidays. I love the changing leaves and the crisp air, making fun costumes and treats,

finding ways to show gratitude for my blessing, being with family, carols, brightly lit trees, etc. WAIT!!!!! Whoa, whoa, whoa....Hold on a second. What's the date? It's already October?! The holidays are here, like it or not.

I am not a planner when it comes to planning daily routines, jobs or meals. But when it comes to the big things, I like to think I do pretty well at planning and staying on top of things. I thought I'd share my holiday planner with you. Feel free to tweak as necessary to fit your family and needs, but please don't sell this. (Unless you send me some of the profits. wink, wink.)

My organization journey started about 6 years ago. I joined FlyLady and in the midst of all my emails from her was one that boasted a free downloadable (is that a word?) holiday planner promising a season of ease and comfort and free from the craziness and stress that unfailingly seems to creep in every season. I grabbed it from her site and have used it every Christmas since. (If Christmas isn't your thing, it would be pretty easy to alter to fit your December celebration needs.) Last year, I added a Halloween planner and making it's organizational debut is my Thanksgiving planner. I could not survive the 3 month holiday season without it. It is quite literally a portable brain.

(Side note-my favorite part of the planner is not only do they have a section for gifts to buy- but also one for gifts to make!)

For my planner, I use a regular 1/2" binder. I slipped a cover page in the front and each holiday has it's own divider (kept in a page protector). As you can see, I kept them simple but festive. Following the dividers are my planning pages for each holiday. There are places for shopping lists, traditions, decorations, food, etc. Be hind each set of planner pages I like to keep some notepaper for random notes that don't fit elsewhere. In the Christmas section, I do keep the Christmas card page in a page protector. It gives me an easy place to store stamps, address labels etc. until I am ready to put my cards together.