Sometimes I think I am so clever

Sometimes I can think I am so clever. Remembering all sorts of little tips from Martha Stewart and the like.

Remembering that steamers make a great transporter of flans and pies for a picnic.



Remembering how my mum taught me to iron linens by wetting the whole cloth and then wrapping it up for an hour or so before ironing.


(beautiful tablecloth courtesy of my mum from her travels in Portugal)
Remembering that popping your baking trays in a low oven after washing them, dries them thorougly.

And then I just get too clever and try to dry out my favourite cake tin....and all of a sudden, feel like such a pill.

Looking Lovely and Feeling Organised.

Remember the post about my laundry? Well I have admitted defeat, it is no longer a laundry. Rather, it is a workroom where I also wash the clothes . Growing stock, growing production levels and growing mess for my Ella and Kate business have meant any effort of sorting and ironing clothes in that room are pointless. I have had to have a rethink about how I worked the space and have made a few changes.

A trip to Ikea, (after a full day of planning with the catalogue) a few minutes with a drill and my handy husband have resulted in this lovely workspace. Everything at hand, right where I need it.




Still space for all of my lovely handmade gifts.



And, check out how deliciously neat this cupboard looks! Gotta love Ikea for organisation.


Top that off with the fact that my winter range has been finalised and is almost ready for both my website and retailers and boy it feels good!

Organised - Part Two

Procrastinating....

This Sunday night's task was to organise our photos in to photo albums. Hmmm, the type of task I have been meaning to do for about three years, the type of task I don't actually enjoy doing and the type of task that I know will feel soooo good when it is finally complete.

I actually feel pretty chuffed that I have managed to sort the photos for printing, print them AND purchase three photos albums.

But instead, I am sitting here checking my growing list of bloglines and writing this post. I am such a wonderful procrastinator.

As another addition to my posts on organising, here is a little brainwave I came up with. The Bits and Pieces Box.



It's for all of the bits and pieces you find lying around that belong to games once played, jigsaws once put together or polly pockets once dressed. All those annoying bits you find after the tidying up has been done. Rather than digging out the box they belong to and putting them away, which takes too much effort for me, these pieces go into this box. Safe and sound for next time. And I particularly love using this Huggies box for this purpose because of it's little opening. It's sort of a one way hole.

So, there you have it. A little attempt to make life simpler and sweeter. Now, on to those photos.

FIVE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MY LAUNDRY...

I have been meaning to do a series of posts on my favourite things. It started with my teapot and hasn't gone much further. Here is another addition. It is my laundry, the real workhorse of the house. It is the room where I wash all the clothes, dry all the clothes in wet weather, iron all the clothes (except for shirts), make all my bows and sew. It stores all of my business supplies, some of our wine, all the household chemicals and cleaning cloths and all my vases and display objects (and there is a lot of them).

This small room is super engineered, every square inch is utilised. I wonder if the walls will collapse one day. They will be crying out as they fall, they just couldn't take it anymore. So here are the parts I really love:


1. Made to measure. I love appliances that just fit into the cabinetry space. The bench is deeper than the usual 600mm and made to match the depth and height of our washing machine. This makes a snug fit and means that the sink could be put widthways, freeing up more benchspace. I usually find undersink cupbards to be messy so this one is a single cupboard, rather than the usual double....more usable space once again.



2. My clothesline: I had a few spare centermetres of wall on the otherside of the door so I thought this would make a great space for a customised, integrated clotheslne, of course we put the ducted heating vent underneath. I can dry a load of clothes overnight in the winter. Although I love to hang clothes in the sunshine, this is a great second best when it's not shining...perfect for Melbourne's winter. It also holds my tissue paper for packaging up Ella and Kate orders. Above it are two shelves for laundry baskets and boxes for my Ella and Kate supplies.

3. The pretty details: because practical can be pretty.


These tiles match the colour of the walls perfectly.

Cathy made me the gorgeous peg bag and gave me some extra fabric to cover the benchtop ironing board. The laundry powder box and my storage boxes all co-ordinate. You can have form and function, have a look at the shelving,the plate stand for my Ella and Kate WIP and the glass jars and bowls on my windowsill.


And of course there is new spool rack.


4. Sewing corner. In this little cupbard is my sewing machine. It is all plugged in, just ready to pull out and sew. This part of the bench drops down in height so I can sit and sew. The three laundry baskets(whites, darks and ironing) underneath can be pushed to the back and I have room for my short legs. I keep a fold up Ikea chair on the back of the door.

5. Speical momentos. I keep some of the special things that the girls have made me here. All of their special pottery creations are on the windowsill, along with my scissors and tools.



Yep, there isn't much that hasn't been thought of. I would like to say that it is always this tidy but that would be a big fib. And, I would love an extra foot or two of space but considering all that, I do love my laundry.

Organised - the charger cupboard

Rivetting title, I know!

Not many blog-worthy things going on in our nest at the moment but I thought I would pass on a quick little organising tip that I share with most of my clients when they are planning new houses/renovations.

It is called The Charger Cupboard. It means no more ugly chargers left on kitchen benches, no more wondering where the charger for the camera is. It is all here and out of site. Our's is on a shelf in the broom cupboard, above the brooms and vacuums. We chose this spot as I can charge my cordless vacuum whilst it is away. In here we keep all the chargers for our phones, cameras, drill etc, a bucket with all our adaptors, extension cords and timers and our wirelesss modem. All neat(well sort of), labelled and out of site, just the way I like anything that doesn't have aesthetic value.



Just make sure that if you are planning on one of these that there are enough power points, don't overload them or you will really have trouble!

And just becuase I do love all things to be beautiful, here is a pretty picture. The latest decoration of My Wall. I picked up most of these doillies at an opshop a few weeks ago. I have many plans for them, just wait and see. But until then they are randomly arranged on my dresser. The ad-hoc arrangement of these circles complements the ad-hoc arrangement of circles above (you know the ones every blogger is doing)