Repurposed Sheets... Boxers!

I have been looking at garage sales for fabric and I have found alot of old sheets, they normally aren't marked very high and some funky patterns. So, here's my latest: Boxers. All the boys needed new boxers. They sleep in them, not fans of pajamas, and they did request that I not add the fly, so I just folded that part of the pattern in and sewed them up really easily.
I love the polka-dot fabric. And I think sheet fabric is really comfortable. I was even able to get some PJ pants and shorts made for little Titus. 1 sheet has alot of fabric in it!


My mom is the queen of patterns. :-) So I just barrowed a boxer pattern from her. It had all the sizes one could wish for from size 6 boys to Men's XL, all seperate, so I didn't have to trace anything! Yay for me!



Jesse loves the color orange, (can you believe someone had something that bright on their bed, do you think they were even able to sleep??) and I found an orange sheet. I made him a couple boxers and added a little mushroom to one of them so he could tell somewhat of a difference. I picked a mushroom because I catch him drawing mushrooms alot.

Kitchen Drawers #7 & #8

I don't know what to call this drawer... but it has foil, wax paper, baggies, etc. Not alot to do here- removed a couple qt. sized bags I kept, that had been used but probably with granola or something that I figured I would use again and I've forgotten, so now they just look dusty and when am I really going to wash them out and use them anyway?
A couple bag closing things that I won't use, a tortilla chip and the bag that holds the paper bags... not needed.
The "tupperware" drawer. I have 1 lonely piece of genuine tupperware. The rest are ziplock containers. I get rid of anything right away if it breaks, so nothing do to here.

Kitchen Drawer #6

The bib/wash cloth drawer. Spacific wash cloths- only for little hands and faces, nothing else. Because I am OCD with wash cloths. There are bath wash cloths- only used when bathing. Cleaning, only used on floor/toilet, etc. Dish clothes, only used for dishes and then these- only used for little people.
I have made bibs for the kids and so there is a pile of girl bibs and a pile of boy bibs. This drawer didn't loose anything and took 30 seconds to refold 2 bibs.

Kitchen Drawer #5

The towel/oven mitt drawer.

This one is not that hard. I'm going for simple here... so let's see.

Put the apron in the "rarely used drawer"...


Got rid of 4 Ikea dish towels that are very cute, but leave fuzzies on glasses if you use them to dry and really don't soak up enough for a hand towel... and then a cute snowman towel that I pull out at Christmas time. Do I really need a towel I only use 1 month out of the year? No. And a nasty pillow case. Weird, one may think. Unless they have a 12 and 13 year old boy folding laundry. Then, it's quite normal. It gets trashed.

Kitchen drawer #3

So, I open the bottom drawer... my "rarely used utensil" drawer... and I see the steak knives our friends got us last year, because we kept having them over for BBQ and pulling out little paring knives. :-) Maybe I should take them out of the package.
Well, to do that, I need to clean out the eating utensil drawer, because that is where I want them.

Lets see... nut crackers... which I have never used, but you know as soon as I get rid of them someone will give us a bag of nuts, or I'll want to start eating apricot nuts... or something like that, I think I heard they were good for you... I'll put those in the "rarely used" drawer.

A couple paint brushes. I don't remember, but yes, I used them in cooking something.

I opened the knives... and then cut myself. Dork.

I don't think I need to keep washing plastic silverware. Again- Dork.


I had to pull the eating utensil drawer completely out, because it's broken. I decided to put the dry dishes away, well, the silverware and filled the drawer back up. Then, since it was out, I decided to try and fix it. Yes, it was that easy. I don't know why I'm so lazy as to not even look and see how the drawer broke. That look all of 1 minute to get a screwdriver and screw it in again, and Da-Dah! Now I have a working drawer. Whew! Glad that's over.














I didn't toss anything out of the rarely used drawer, I do use my cherry pitter, meat mallet and skewers... and yes, someday, the nut crackers. But hey, at least the steak knives are ready for our next BBQ!!

Next Drawer- Kitchen

OK, next drawer down. This is my large cooking utensil drawer.
I took out some rarely used items- the potato masher and pasta spoon. I put them in the "rarely used" drawer on the bottom. I took out my canning funnel and put it with the canning stuff and same with the extra canning jar lids I had in there.
I got rid of a serving spatula.

2010 in 2010... the Beginning!

I talked about this here and you can also download the chart here.

I went into the kitchen today and looked in my drawers.
Drawer #1: Small cooking utensils.

This isn't a bad drawer, because it's one of my main ones and I can't stand fighting to find the things I need.

I removed 2 basting brushing... I left 2, one silicone one for basting/brushing oil on pans and one natural one for cleaning my grain grinder. I moved a serving spatula down a drawer.

Putting Away 6

I cleaned up the bedroom and then decided I wanted to sew... Then I brought up all my boxes. Silly me. I got them all out and then sewed 2 simple things and didn't touch it. So I got annoyed with myself, packed all the boxes up and kept out 2 projects to work on- one needs 2 more seams and then some hand stitching, the other is just 2 pieces of fabric right now. Brian took the sewing boxes back downstairs for me. He's such a tolerant man. :-)

Getting Rid of... 32

Instead of going back into the bedroom, I thought I would clean the top of the piano today. It's been bugging me and we're having company tonight. I need to clean up my sewing table too. I worked on a few things and then started cleaning. Maybe I should just pack it up and put it away again...

I was able to throw a nice stack of papers away off this piano. But most things just needed to be put away. I dusted everything when I was done, so it looks pretty again.

Getting Rid of... 27

I was inspired to keep going-- so I attacked it again! I went all the way this time. I stuck Brian's scouting papers in his bedside table. Guess I'll have to ask him to sort that pretty soon, it's getting pretty full.


That crock is our "candy bucket". We don't eat alot of candy. I don't allow alot of candy. So then the boys get a "candy day" once a month. They'll watch a movie and get to eat as much of their candy as they want while the movie is playing. Once the movie is over I pick out any thing that is good if I want to and then throw the rest in the trash and they start over. Sadly, it fills up fast! They get candy from all over. I can't believe how much candy people just give to kids randomly!


I cheated in one area... that box. I put it in the pile of other boxes in the corner of the bedroom. It's one of those misc. boxes that has little bits of everything in it and I don't know where to put any of it!

Getting Rid of 20

Decided to attack the top of the dresser today. It's a catch all... and kind of a scary one at that!! I just got rid of 20 this time. Didn't want to overwhelm myself with saying I was going to clean it all off or anything.
Notice Brian's candy jar is getting empty? We had a Christmas Party and I needed one more gift. So I dumped as much as a could into a gift bag. :-)

Getting Rid of... 6

I wrapped the Christmas Presents! I should have done it the first of December, eh? Oh well- it's done and it's still a week before Christmas. I didn't get Naomi's done, she was there with them, so I just wrapped the others that we had there. I picked up a bunch of kitchen sets when I was in Portland OR, at IKEA this last summer, so I have her Christmas, then birthday, then Christmas, then birthday again. :-) They are really nice and like the ones that we use in the kitchen- ceramic dishes, stainless steel pots, etc.
I should probably go downstairs and clean out the drawer to that dresser. It's just sitting there with stuff in it. I had to bring the dresser up for Titus' clothes/changing table.

Getting Rid of 20

In the master bedroom. I just got rid of 20 here. It's kind of an overwhelming area to me. We have some Christmas presents here... maybe I should take them out and wrap them, since it is December. I've had them since June. I watch all year for deals and snatch up Christmas presents when I can.

Getting Rid of... 11

This is Brian's side of the bed. I just put away/threw away things that I knew I could and I left his things there. I'm not going to go through his papers. Some of them are Money Magazines, some are Boy Scout papers... I'm just not going to mess with it.

Getting rid of... 26

So, this time I went in and planned to get rid of 20... but I had alot of little things there beside my bed. I had a couple pairs of earrings, some of Naomi's hair bands, nails from when I took down pictures to paint, etc. 20 would have gone by way too fast. So I did either 1 big or 1 "unit" of small things. I was enjoying seeing it cleaned so I just kept going and counting until it was done. 26 things/units. Some things got thrown away, some just got put in their proper areas again.

Getting Rid of... 16

We pulled out some of the Christmas decor, not the tree stuff yet, but all the other things that we have around the house. I really like nativity sets, I have 2 and would like 1 or 2 more. There is one at Costco that is absolutely beautiful, it's quite large. I just figure, if I'm going to have Christmas decorations, they should remind us what what Christmas is all about! It's so humbling to think of our great Savior, mighty, glorious, amazing... down here on earth, born in a place where animals are normally born, as a helpless baby, pooping and peeing all over himself, just to show us how much He loves us.
Wow!

So, here's a box of decorations that I have just kept, oh, because people have given them to me. I had thought they had put alot of thought into it, but was visiting another friend and she had a very similar decoration... from the same person. I realized then, that it was just a general gift, the giver must have found a bargain and stocked up for "all those people she had to give gifts to". I didn't look at those decorations so fondly afterwards.

RIght before pulling out the decorations my friend Suzanne had sent me this article: Friends Don't Give Friends Clutter for Christmas. How fitting!
So... I stuck them all in the give away box, asked the boys to look at them and make sure they were ok with giving them away. (Something about Christmas memories and decorations... I don't know!)
So, they were just fine with getting rid of those- out they go!!

Getting Rid of 20

When Brian and I got married I was following Flylady. She is great and I love her advice. She is spot on with everything. Talking about how the reason our houses aren't clean because we are such perfectionists. That's right, perfectionists! We know if we go in there it won't be perfect. We have maybe 5 minutes and that's not going to accomplish what we want, so we just give up before beginning and don't bother doing anything.

I don't know how I got out of the habits I had with her system. We moved, I got pregnant, I stopped. I shouldn't have.

Anyway, one of the things she has you do is get rid of 27 things each day and work on one area at a time. So I decided I would do something like that. Today I picked a corner of our bedroom and I got rid of 20 things. It actually made a big difference, didn't it?!
I didn't throw them all away, some I put where it belongs, some I put in the give away box and some I did just throw in the trash.

2010 in 2010

In 2008 I did this for the first time. You can read about it here.
Sadly, I didn't keep track of all the stuff when I cleaned out the basement, or I would have had the 2009 in 2009 chart filled out. I know I got rid of that much stuff.
Stephen loves numbers and so he will count stuff as he sees me taking it out the door and he'll mark it down. But the boys were visiting family for a couple weeks when I was working on the basement, or he would have done it for me. I was just in too much of a 'get it done' mode, I forgot about counting/charting.


The other day, Brian came home from work with this:



That's right. I guess he likes the way the house is looking and wants to get rid of more stuff!!! :-)
Here is the chart if you would like to download and use it for yourself.

When I Cleaned Out the Basement

Back in August our toilet overflowed and it leaked down into the basement. On top of this:


Actually, it was worse that this picture. But the water only went on one quarter of this mess and thankfully it was mostly clothes and blankets that I was able to wash, only a few things needed to be thrown away. So I was forced into cleaning the basement. I had been wanting to get rid of a bunch of stuff for a long time, we are planning to remodel that (you know, after the kitchen is done) and I didn't want to have to "store" all of that junk. So some friends came over that are excellent at purging and gave me a hand. It's so great to have someone there that is not attached to your stuff and they can say things like this:

Them: "Really, you need to keep this broken tea cup you never use?"
Me: "Yes, but my mom gave it to me."
Them: "Hasn't your mom given you other things you like/use?"
Me: "ok- get rid of it."

Kristy and Laura- they are the engines behind this. :-) Kristy happened to be having a church garage sale where the profits were going to a Ukraine medical mission trip that our church does every year. So I gave her a ton of stuff. I kept a few boxes, sewing and scrapbooking supplies, winter coats/clothes to grow into, Christmas stuff and a couple trunks/cedar chest that I can't part with. I was able to fit all that underneath the stairs. It's about an 8' x 5' area. And the pile of stuff doesn't even go to the ceiling- I can see over the top of it!
I was able to get rid of so much stuff and I didn't count it- which is too bad, because I would have filled my 2009 in 2009 chart. *sigh*.



Here's some pictures of the carpet that was down there.