Tackle It on Tuesday: Car Seat Blanket

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I like to work on projects, of all types. I love that we have access to so many resources that can be made into beautiful items to display, use, and/or share with others.

Last week, I started on this car seat blanket with the yarn I purchased at my favorite yarn shop up in the foothills. The pattern was free with a purchase, and I thought this yarn would be perfect for this project. The blanket will measure 14 inches wide and 20 inches long when complete. I have about 8 inches still to knit before the blanket is complete. 

We had our yard sale over the weekend, which means I was able to clear out more boxes from the craft room. I know this room still needs a lot of decluttering, but I am really happy with the progress being made in here!

One reason I am happy that progress is being in the craft room...there is actually room in there to work on projects! God continues to bless me with opportunities to earn money for my next trip with Compassion!

This time, I will be making some curtains for a friend. Her family just purchased a cute little trailer. She is working on adding a glamping factor, and she asked me to make the curtains for her! 

So this week, I really didn't finish any projects, but I have made good progress on a couple of projects. I would love to know what projects you are tackling this week. Share them with me in the comments below.

Tackle It on Tuesday: The Craft Room

I have a love/hate relationship with my craft room. What a blessing it is to have the space in our home to have a room dedicated to be filled with many craft supplies, tools, and books to complete the many craft projects that I love to work on.

But unfortunately, I am a Queen of Unfinished Projects! Which leads to piles of projects all over this room, well, because there is room in there to pile them up! Since our trip to Mexico in January, I have really been thinking about how much unused stuff we have in our home.

I love to cook and bake, but when I have two shelves of cookbooks in my home that I haven't used in years, should I keep them?

And as much as I love to sew, do I really need to buy all those patterns just because they were a dollar each? I mean really, how many jumper patterns for little girls does one mom need?

In all of my decluttering tasks, I found these treasures that were printed at least two years ago. Rather than enjoying these photos of my children up on my wall, these have been hiding in one of many piles in my craft room. Really sad, isn't it...

Now don't get me wrong, I do really love my craft room. Knowing that I can go in there and find craft paint, felt, scrap fabric, and many other craft supplies keeps me out of the store spending money that I shouldn't be spending. But when I look at the piles of projects that have not been finished, or some even started, it makes me uncomfortable. As my daughter would say, that money could have been spent on a Compassion child. 

Thankfully, most of the items I have been clearing out of my craft room are still in really good condition, and I am hoping to sell a lot of stuff at an upcoming yard sale with the money to be used toward my upcoming trip with Compassion to Colombia. 

So what am I going to tackle this upcoming week? Getting those precious photos matted, framed, and hung up on the wall, so I can enjoy the blessings that God has given me here.

What will you be tackling this week?

Tackle It on Tuesday: Change of Plans

Just so you know, I am a blog-on-the-fly kind of a blogger. I don't have weeks worth of drafts prepped and ready to publish, I am lucky if I can put together 2-3 posts a week. So on some weeks, when I think I have the perfect post put together in my brain, life happens and my perfect post takes a different turn.

You see, last week, after I wrote my last Tackle It on Tuesday post, I was all ready to share with you how I would be tackling a pile of Food Network magazines I have been wanting to go through.

The magazine subscription was a birthday gift from my sister a couple of years ago. I have been wanting to go through them and 'pin' some of the recipes onto one of my Pinterest boards. But then yesterday, I listened to this podcast with the title, Freedom From Stuff.

The podcast really made me think about how I handle some of the 'stuff' in my home. Which brought me back to this pile of magazines. While I enjoy looking for new recipes to try with my family, there are other things I could be doing with my time. And if you look close enough, you can see that those magazines have been taking up space in my home for a while. Time for them to find a new home!

So speaking of stuff, there are things that need out attention every now and then. During the podcast, Joshua and Tsh had mentioned that as much as we try to simplify things in our home, there is always 'stuff' coming into our homes.

And right now, I have a sock drawer overflowing with socks. In a perfect and completely organized world, as soon as I purchase new socks, I would take the time to go through my sock drawer and give the 'old' socks to my husband for the garage. But, because I don't take the time to do this, I end up with a drawer full of socks that I can barely close because it is overflowing with socks! Yikes!

Rather than beat myself up for this happening (which is what a lot of us do), I plan to take a bit of time one day this week and clean up this sock drawer (and probably the underwear drawer too, but I probably won't be showing you pictures of that drawer!)

Do you have an area of your home or a task you have been meaning to tackle for some time? Plan a bit of time this week to tackle it. Let's encourage each other to tackle these tasks, so we have more time to enjoy our family and friends. Ready? Let's go!

Tackle It on Tuesday: Pinterest Spring Burlap Bunting

Last week, I shared with you a fun project I had found on Pinterest to make a Spring Pom-Pom Burlap Bunting. I already had most of the supplies on hand, so on one afternoon, I cut out all of the burlap and fabric.

Spring Burlap Bunting supplies

Taking the time to cut out all of the burlap and fabric was the longest part of this project. Plus I had enough supplies to make four of these. The quick and easy part was using the glue gun to put it all together! Overall, I was able to put these together over two afternoons.

Four finished projects!

So you might be asking, "What is she planning on doing with four of these?" Well, I am glad you asked! Last year, I used my Gifts from Our Little Corner Facebook page to post things for sale to earn money for our Compassion Mexico trip. Because I would like to go on trips in the future with Compassion, I am going to continue using that Facebook page to post items for sale. So, if you would like to purchase one of these for your own home, be sure to pop over to my Facebook page and let me know which one you would like!

Now onto my project for this week...

Craft room clutter

One of the blessings of having an extra room in our home is an area to work on craft projects and having an additional area to store things. One of the drawbacks of having an extra room is it kind of becomes a dumping ground for a lot of things...ugh!! And most of this clutter is my own doing. Now that my daughter's drama performances are over, my goal is to spend time this week putting these things where they belong. Wish me luck!!

Tackle It on Tuesday: Clutter Piles

Do you struggle with clutter in your home? I wish I didn't, but I do. Rather than take care of things as they come into my home, sometimes it seems easier to just add things to a pile and handle it later. So this last week, there were three areas of clutter that I wanted to tackle. How did I do?

No more clutter piles here!

So how did I tackle the clutter piles? One night last week, I had rice cooking on the stove. During that 20 minutes, I attacked all three piles of clutter. Sometimes, just devoting a set amount of time to tackle these projects is all it takes.

Now onto my next project! We are heading into our last week of drama performances, so I am going to have a little more time to work on some bigger projects now that we will not be driving back and forth to class/performances. I found a sweet spring burlap bunting project on Pinterest that I want to make.

Spring burlap bunting project supplies

Everything I need for this project (except the pom-pom garland) was already in my craft room, and I should have enough supplies to make at least four of these. The part that will take the longest is cutting everything out. That might be a good time to listen to a podcast or two.

What are you working on this week?