Organizing cubes

Here are pics of my huge work area constructed from the cubes meant to organize scrapbooking materials. These are the cubes that you can get at Michael's and I think I have even seen them at Target. They are made by a company called Jetmax.

So far (it has only been a week) I love these. The finish is really durable. The kids' glitter glue came off easily and the finish didn't mar when I accidentally dropped one cube on top of another.

There are only a couple of drawbacks so far and they really are very minor. The first one is that they aren't really "cubes". If they were cubes, they would be the same size on each side - but they aren't. That is really only an issue if you try to arrange a large table like I did and different cubes are facing different directions - eventually, the sides won't match up.

The only other challenge I had with them is that the back side of the cube is not MDF like the other sides - it is much thinner board. Since the backs are thinner, you cannot attach the desktops to the backs of cubes, only to the sides. So, as you can see, I had to fill the center of my table with more cubes instead of just using desktops. On the other hand, now we have even more storage.

These pics were taken before I shimmed the all the cubes to make a nice level tabletop. As you can see, the kids started moving in their stuff right away.

Stitching pics next time! Thanks for stopping by.

The best laid plans

I never actually said the words "I'm on the wagon" but I kind of kept it in the back of my head that I have more stuff than I can possibly use in my lifetime - but even worse, I have run out of space to put it all. So, I have really been pretty good for the last 7 or 8 months. I have tried not to purchase anything if I didn't already have a place for it - storage-wise. I even spent weeks this summer cleaning out and organizing my pantries and linen closets. The shelves are even labeled to prevent anyone (mostly me) from stashing something else in a temporarily open spot.

Over 12 weeks or so I have been purchasing those modular storage cubes from Michael's so that I could build a big desk/storage area and get back the cabinets that were being used for the kids' arts and crafts materials for the last 10 years. (It takes a long time if you keep waiting for the coupons). Anyway, it is done! The kids now have a huge (56" square) area for their projects, puzzles, whatever plus a ton of storage space. And I got two kitchen cabinets back. That's when things went downhill.

See, I figured I had new space to fill - because you certainly can't have empty cabinets. So off I went enhancing stash and getting lots of cool little tools. Now - of course I don't keep my stitching stuff in the kitchen, so I had to kind of rotate stuff from other places. Wouldn't you know it! Once I moved all the placemats, tablecloths, and other kitchen-y thing from their various places all over the house into the newly-freed kitchen cabinets, there really wasn't any space freed up anywhere else in house! How can that be? Boy did I mess this one up.

Now I think I need to stitch a few extra hours in the day to free up some stash space. I wonder how that idea will go over with the family.

Anyway, I do love the cubes from Michael's. One cube came without the required hardware and their customer service sent it out to me. I had it in 3 days. None of the cubes came with any chips or dents and they were all easy to put together.

I did get some stitching done - but not a lot. I do plan to have the Boo! Club finished this week.

And a little more...

Thanks for visiting!

Unofficially Fall

I hope everyone had a pleasant, safe Labor Day weekend. I think nearly everyone in the U.S. is back to school now. The local private schools started today. Most of the public schools around here started last week - a few even started the week before last. The leaves are already beginning to change, the pick-your-own apple orchards were all busy this weekend - and its only going to go up to 68F by Thursday. Its un-officially fall.

We had a relatively laid back Labor Day weekend. The kids have been in school for 4 days and already one of them was sick. I guess he picks things up quickly! I hope that applies to everything else at school as well. So, the kids and I stayed home for the weekend.

I did get some stitching done - but I also had to do quite a bit of frogging. Complete lack of focus. Hopefully, I'll get my act together again soon. I really like the Crescent Colours floss.

Here's one of the last hurrahs from my garden. I believe this is Champagne Elegance - a reblooming iris. This is the first time it has ever bloomed even though I have had it for 4 years. I'm not sure I love it - but this year I am happy to see anything doing well in the garden. It definitely seemed like the summer that wasn't.

It sure feels like Fall

It really does feel like fall. The temps have been in the 70s during the day. It was actually 49F at night this week. The kids are lucky - they started school this week with perfect weather. Given how chilly the first part of summer was, we were worried that everything would start to average out now and it would get really hot for the end of summer. Instead, it feels more like October except that the leaves haven't changed yet.

With the kids back in school I thought I would have all this extra time on my hands. Instead, I seem to have jumped headlong into the various projects that I had hoped to get done over the summer but didn't. I think I'll have the basement all cleaned up and organized and well-lit just in time to drag out all of the Christmas decorations and make a general mess of it again. Then there's the huge box of daffodil bulbs that will arrive here early next week. I forgot I even ordered those until the shipping email came. Then there's the conversion of the "living room" (really just another room to dust) to the kids' work/play room. That's my current project. And I can't wait until its done.

I've been falling asleep too early at night to get much stitching done. I did finish the "Black Cat" design on my Boo! Club piece. Hopefully I'll get some stitching time tomorrow.