The Tiny Tink Basket: a tutorial

I know you guys are going to want to make a million of these! They're so fast and fun and useful. I'm already planning several for friends. these three are currently living in my sewing space and holding all sorts of things like pincushions, clover clips and rolls of thread.

Start by gathering your supplies: coordinating exterior and interior fabric, embellishments and some thicker fusible interfacing.

Cut four 5.5"x7" pieces of fabric, two from your exterior fabric and two from your interior fabric. Now cut two 5"x6.5" pieces of fusible interfacing. (These are horizontally laid out.) Now iron your interfacing onto the backs of your exterior fabric pieces. At this point you can choose your front piece of exterior fabric and stitch on your embellishment choice.

Once you have that done, place the right sides of your interior fabric pieces together and stitch along the sides and the bottom, leaving an opening at the bottom, about 2.5" long. See my purple guidelines in the top left photo. Take the exterior fabric pieces and place right side together. Machine stitch along the sides and bottom using your interfacing as a guide. Now cut out 1.5" squares from the corners, lining up your ruler with your stitches and measuring from there. See the lower right picture.

Now machine stitch the corners together on both pieces so you have flat bottoms. Put the interior fabric inside your exterior, right sides facing and machine stitch along the top to join your pieces together.

Flip the basket out through your bottom opening in the interior fabric. Once you've got it turned the right way out, you can close up your lining opening and machine stitch it closed. Now position your interior lining just a bit over the top edge and top stitch to finish your basket. You now have a cute little fabric basket! Go ahead, make a whole lot more, you know you want to!

Okay guys, I hope this is helpful for you and if you're on Instagram, use the hashtag #tinytinkbasket so I can see your creations. Happy crafting!

Cheri

DIY Magnetic Pinbowl

Want to make a quick and easy magnetic pinbowl? Of course you do. I needed something very compact for my sewing space and this two dollar dipping bowl from Target was tiny (budget-friendly) and perfect.

To make your own, you'll need a bowl or small plate, preferably something not too deep since you don't want to be reaching your fingers into a bowl full of sharp objects that you can't see. You'll need some extra strong magnets. I found these small silver ones at Home Depot. Also, some E6000 for extra strong staying power.

Now, here's the hard part: Glue the magnets to the bottom of your dish. That's it. Seriously. Once you have the supplies, you'll need about two minutes to complete your bowl. Happy crafting!

Cheers,
Tink

I'm hooked: a DIY hanging station

So you know all those beautiful knobs and drawer pulls that are all over the place now? I have a slight addiction. I pick them up all over the place and have a stash ready for when a project pops into my head. Like this one. A sweet little hanging station for behind the door.

This version is simple. All I did was cut a piece of pallet board down to the size I needed, and drilled three holes clear through, large enough for the hardware on my drawer pulls to fit through. The tricky part is drilling a hole large enough to fit the nut on the backside, but only halfway through the board. You want to be able to make your hardware completely flush with the back of the board so it hangs nice and smooth on the wall.

When I had all the pulls/knobs tight on the board, I took a metal saw blade on my Dremel and cut off the backs of the screws that were sticking out past my board. I didn't take pictures along the way, but I'm sure I'll be making more of these, so I'll try to remember to document the steps next time.

So after about 15 minutes, I had myself a custom hanging station for the guest room. Give it a shot, they're extremely easy. And I just hung mine up with a couple of drywall screws that you really can't see unless you're looking too close...

Organization ADD: The kitchen

It might look like a big hot mess with all these up-close photos, but I promise you my kitchen is organized. For the most part. There are drawers that are somehow overflowing with items, when just a year ago they were comfortably full. But I won't show you those... Instead, here are some of the more tidy areas.

Bowl and plate storage, and vintage Pyrex on display:

Stacking storage for cutting boards and muffin tins along with the pots and pans pull-out pantry which also hides the grocery list chalkboard:

The island storage that is constantly changing with the bebe's whims. Currently it's housing all my linens and plastic-ware for bebe-friendly play:

And this is our coffee/tea station, the newly organized spice drawer and my decorative platter storage {using a pot lid rack from IKEA}:

A couple of air-tight containers for the counter, and our family dry-erase meal planning board on the side of the refrigerator:

And here's my ingenious idea of using a magazine holder for roll storage, along with one of our less 'neat' drawers chuck full of silverware and chip clips:

Don't be afraid to use baskets in your kitchen cupboards to keep things concealed that you don't use often. Or use them to keep loose items in drawers from rolling around. We have a couple in a drawer to keep snack bars and bebe snacks at bay. And think outside the box for storage ideas. If you create multiple uses for one thing, than you won't feel bad about your purchase and you can just keep moving it around the house if you get bored like I do. I tend to reorganize everything every few months.