Happy Halloween!

Decluttering, and my latest scrap busting projects

Today I've decided to change a bit the format of my weekly decluttering updates. 

I have been actively decluttering and last weekend I finally got rid of three of the bags of clothes I had set aside for donation. There is still one bag left, which hopefully will meet its final destination next Saturday. And I have also been on top of paperwork, to avoid accumulation. 

But what I have been mostly working on are scrap busting projects. Anyone who crafts has been confronted at some point with leftovers of materials from several projects. Since some of those materials are often expensive, we have a tendency to hang on to them and think they may still be useful in the future. We don't exactly know what for, but they still may be useful.

10 Halloween Free Printables

Halloween is almost here and although we don't actively celebrate at our house and I don't even decorate, the kids do enjoy dressing up, and they will have a Halloween party at school tomorrow.  

So, since the beginning of this week, I've been browsing around and selecting a few free printables that we can use, and then I decided to share here a few of my favorites. 

Nothing creepy, because I'm not into that, but a lot of great printables in any case. 

Scroll down for details and links.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - landscapes and ruins

Initially I had planned to share something else today, but they I found in my camera some pictures I took while on a bike ride with my husband a while ago. 

 

I had totally forgotten about them but I clearly remember the day now. We were almost the only ones around and then, all of a sudden, on top of a hill, we came across some ruins and stopped there for a while. 

There were no signs, but later we googled the place and it used to be a village since well before the Roman occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, though these later buildings look pretty similar to other Roman ruins we have scattered all over the country. 

 

Happy Wednesday,

DIY play food: a bag of candy

Following last week's Box of Doughnuts, this week I bring you a Bag of Candy. Play candy, to be exact, made of fabric and ribbon scraps and bits of polyester filling. 

My daughter loved the concept, especially because this is Halloween week and her dolls now have their own bag of candy!

Here's a small tutorial on how to make them:

8 Delicious Fall Pie Recipes

The weekend is almost here and since the weather is turning gray, I'm betting we are going to stay indoors again, which usually leads me to a marathon of cooking. And what better thing to cook in a rainy fall afternoon than a pie?

Pies are my fall comfort food and there are literally zillion recipes around. I have selected eight of my favorite recipes to share here. Four are desserts and the other four are mostly vegetable pies, because I just love them! 

So, here are 8 Delicious Pie Recipes that you need to try this fall!

No clutter in 2015: week 42 update

I initially thought I would not have a lot of time last weekend to work on decluttering, but the weather turned out to be my friend. We had a serious storm on Saturday and ended up staying indoors on Saturday and most of Sunday too. The result: three more bags of kids clothes to donate. I'm totally streamlining the closets in our house. Now I just have to deliver those bags (hopefully next Saturday) and I'm done with the closets for a while.

My husband decided to joint the decluttering feast and also got rid of several items, some of which had been stored in our garage for quite some time, so, all in all, the past week was very productive in our house. 

The good weather is back so probably next weekend, if it holds, I won't have a lot of time for decluttering, but intentions do count, right? 

I have a couple of shelves I need to go through, because I'm not even sure what is actually stored there, and that is usually a strong sign of clutter. 

I also want to continue with the projects to get rid of fabric and felt scraps, so I hope I can fit everything in.  Let's see how it goes and I'll update here next week. 

Happy decluttering,

Wordless Wednesday - at the park

These were taken a while ago, on a lazy afternoon at the end of our holidays, when we spent some time at the park. The ducks were as sleepy as we were, but the flowers looked lovely under the summer sun and there was one lone stork walking around as well...
 

 

 

 

 

Happy Wednesday,

DIY felt food - a box of doughnuts

With tutorial and free pattern. 

Ever since my daughter started to actively use her play kitchen I've been obsessed with making play food, mostly using felt. But I'd never bothered making patterns for it until now. 

Recently, while toying around with a few potential blog posts, I decided to create a series of DIY play food tutorials. 

The Box of Doughnuts is the first in a (hopefully) long list of ideas I want to share. Mostly because I love all the potential of these pieces of felt in terms of all the embellishments you can make. 

When making this box of doughnuts, I gave myself one additional challenge: I had to use only felt scraps, which is a great way to declutter too.

6 terrifyingly cute Halloween crochet projects

I know I've said it before, but I'm not a huge fan of Halloween. Actually, anything even remotely creepy has me running in the other direction. 

So, this week I decided to search for the cute side of Halloween (yes, there i one!) and mix it with one of my favorite hobbies: crochet. The result? Some very nice small and easy crochet projects that anyone can make for Halloween. 

As usual, I picked projects that do not take a lot of time (anything that takes longer than a day to make is just not going to get done in my house right now) and with clear instructions or self explanatory pictures. And a lot of cuteness, of course!

No clutter in 2015 - week 41 update

Have you noticed that there are only 11 weeks left of 2015? That means that I have only two months and a half to complete my goal for this year: a clutter free house. And I still have a long way to go...

Although I've mentioned several times here before that I need to go through my craft closet, select those materials I actually plan to use and get rid of everything else, I still haven't managed to do so. Or not as much as I wanted to.

Still, last weekend, I focused on a real stash buster: I created the reusable gift bags tutorial. With this tutorial I can (and you can too!) create cute gift bags using nothing but fabric and ribbon scraps. 

One of the bags was already used for a birthday party we attended last Saturday, and on Sunday I took the opportunity to sew together a few more. Though I still have a huge pile of scraps, I think the reusable gift bags will be very helpful in the upcoming holidays season, in several ways: I will not buy more wrapping paper (saving money and reducing the space needed to store wrapping paper on yet another closet) and I will get rid of a lot of scraps (decluttering).  

If you missed the reusable gift bags tutorial I posted last Monday, click below to check it out. 

Plans for next weekend? Of course. 

One more stash buster project is under way, this time to reuse felt scraps (of which I have a lot too), though I'm not sure if I will have time to finish it in the next few days,  since I'm creating a digital pattern to share with it. 

And I also want to complete the "inspection" of my son's clothes closet. Earlier this week I managed to put aside a few pairs of pants that don't fit anymore, and some shoes too, but I'm sure there are more clothes in there up for donation.

Since I now also have a friend that is interested in girl clothes, I need to go back to the old clothes boxes and check if there are a few more items that I can also get rid of. 

Uff, decluttering is hard work. And what's worse, it takes time. Though my house is not completely clutter free (and probably never will), I'm getting a lot better at not bringing unnecessary items into the house, which is a good thing, right?

Happy decluttering,

Minions party pack - free printable

Hi everyone, today I'm sharing a printables party pack I made for a Minions birthday party at the request of a friend. 

 

Wordless Wednesday - Lisbon

Before our summer vacation, I took my kids with me to Lisbon for a small tour of the city. 

While it wasn't easy to take pictures with two small children in tow and a crowd of tourists strolling around, I did manage to get some nice shots. 

 

 

 

We got to ride in one of the old trams but didn't manage to visit the castle, which my son really wanted to. We'll have to plan that for another day. 

Happy Wednesday, 

DIY reusable gift bags tutorial

Let me start this post by asking you two questions: 

One: have you ever noticed how, the morning after Christmas, the trash bins are overflowing with discarded wrapping paper, gift bags, etc?

Two: do you have fabric scraps at home? The kind of scraps that are too big to throw away but too small for regular sized projects and just end up taking space, though you don't have the heart to get rid of them?

If your answer is yes to at least one of these questions, then you've come to the right place. Today I'm going to show you how you can easily use all those fabric scraps to create cute gift bags, which will not only reduce the waste of paper on birthdays and holidays but can also be reused by the recipients for a variety of other purposes. 

I may never buy another roll of wrapping paper as long as I have fabric scraps at home!

And they are so easy to make, there's really no excuse not to use them!

10 Amazing DIY Fall Wreaths

While fall is clearly not my favorite season (I'm a spring/summer kind of girl), I do love fall colors. And I love wreaths, even if rarely can find the time to make them. 

Recently, I was browsing around Pinterest and I came across some beautiful fall wreaths. The problem? Most of them were Etsy links and, while some were pretty awesome, I would cringe at spending so much money on a wreath. 

And so I came up with the idea for this post: sharing some amazing fall wreaths that everyone can make at home. 

I searched for wreaths with clear instructions and easy to find materials that can be completed at a much lower cost than the ones for sale online. Here are my favorite 10 DIY Fall Wreaths:

No clutter in 2015 - week 39 update

This week I've been putting in a lot of extra hours at the office, so decluttering has been on the back burner. But last weekend I managed to pass on two huge piles of clothes that no longer fit my daughter. 

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - watching the sky

While it may seem strange, taking pictures of the sky is one of my favorite pastimes. Sometimes I look out the window and suddenly find myself running for the camera, hoping to capture forever that special light or the particular shape of a cloud. 

I love sunrises...

Free Halloween Banner Printable (sharing)

I got the link to download this banner in the mail today, from JessicaSprague.com and decided to share it since it's totally free!

Easy & Inexpensive DIY Baby Blanket

I have been a lazy crafter these past few weeks but yesterday I finally managed to finish a project! Yay!

 

This baby blanket is probably one of the easiest projects I've ever tackled and, in retrospect, I don't even know why it took me so long to get it done.

No clutter in 2015 - weeks 37 & 38 update

Last week I missed my weekly decluttering updates to post about the basic rules to get rid of clutter. 

I gave a lot of thought to that post, trying to convey the lessons I learned this year on my decluttering journet and, at the same time, keeping it as simple as possible. Since the purpose of decluttering is to make your life simpler, a post about decluttering should, in my opinion, follow those same lines.