Junk Cabinet Organizing on a Budget!

Sooo its time for another post where I embarrass myself with a "before" photo that shows off just how disgusting I really am deep down. This time its our junk cabinet -- the cabinet in between our kitchen and tv room that contains pretty much 2 types of items -- weird, rarely used home items or benson's belongings. Feel free to judge me, cause I'm judging me just looking at the picture again...

For some reason January has become organizing month in my head, so when it rolled around, I decided this grosssss cabinet was first priority, but knew I couldnt really spend more than a few dollars to get this baby organized. Challenge acceppptedddd. (how i met your mother reference.. anyone get it? no? im the only one who still loves that show?? oh well).

So to start, I took everything out of the cabinet & got rid of what i could & categorized what was left over. Then I gathered some bins I had around the house that weren't being used and made a beloved trip to the Dollar Tree to get whatever else I needed. (love you $tree!).

I gave everything that needed to be in the cabinet a home of sort in either a bin, basket, or tupperware container & after adding some perhaps over-the-top homemade labels to the mix, my lovely little organized masterpiece was complete!  

You can actually see whats in there now, wahooo! Just hoping it stays this way! 

Oh & here are a couple of pics of the countertop below the cabinet.. I cleaned it off & made it a little cuter at some point during the cabinet organizing process! 

Alright thats all for now... hope you are inspired to do some January organizing!! 

DIY Christmas Card Books

This Christmas my sister-in-law asked if I had any ideas on good ways to store/display/organize the many Christmas cards we receive each year. I didn't have any ideas at the time, but love me a good challenge so I started hunting for ideas! We wanted something cute, but that would be easy to do year after year. I googled and pinterested around and couldn't find much until my mom forwarded me a blog post one day with the great idea to make books for each year of christmas cards. I loved the idea & it seemed simple enough, so I created some covers and made my own version for my 3 years of cards... I'm in love!!

Once I tested things out and decided this was the way to go, I emailed my sister-in-law with the instructions and she began making her books.. Her house has lots of clean, pretty neutrals, so we decided to go that route for her covers and I think they turned out so cute! 

So many years of xmas cards with cute family pics to look at -- love it! 

As for instructions on making the books, it's really pretty simple.

1. Print your own 5x7 covers for each year on card stock or purchase them from me (see details & pricing at the bottom of this post!)

2. Stack your cover and cards as neatly as you can, turning vertical cards in the same direction.

3. Using 2 punchers of a 3 hole punch, make 2 holes in the top center of your cards.. I did 2 or 3 cards at a time, but I suppose you could do more if you have a fancy-schmancy hole punch. 

4. Use binder rings to hook your cards together (mine are the 1" size but you might need larger ones if you have more friends than me :) -- you can find the rings at office stores and I even saw them at kroger) 

**A good idea is to put your family christmas card as the first card after the cover for each year...

Once you're finished, you'll have lots of cute books to have out during the holiday season! There are many ways to display them. You could hang them on a wall...

Or display them in a cute basket...  whatever works best for you!

Hope this inspires many of you to start saving your christmas cards or if you're like me, to get them out of the dusty storage closet & into cute, organized books that can be displayed year after year! 

**As I said above, my christmas card book covers are available to purchase! 

Here are the details:

Choose between red & green or neutral. Fonts will be as shown in the photos of my sister-in-law's books (above). There are 9 fonts used that will repeat themselves throughout the years. Covers are printed on smooth white 100 lb cover stock. ***ALL PAST AND FUTURE YEARS ARE AVAILABLE!! I can go as far into the future as you'd like! :) Email me at eleanorboynton@gmail.com with the years and colors you would like and I will send you a paypal invoice to make your payment. 

Cover Pricing

1 to 5 covers - $3 each

6 to 15 covers - $2.50 each

16+ covers - $2 each

***US Shipping is $2 regardless of how many covers ordered

Please let me know if you have any questions! --Eleanor (Oh Louise!)

Crafty Christmas Idea - Displaying Vintage Ornaments

Lately I've had an obsession with finding & buying vintage Shiny Brite ornaments... I've found boxes of them for as little as $2 at thrift stores near my house and have bought really cute tiny ones in the shapes of bells on Etsy - I love them all!
That being said, I kind of have a lot -- even my Christmas tree couldn't handle any more of them, so I had to find other ways to display my beloved Shiny Brites. :) Here are a couple ideas I tried out using things around my house..

Wooden Candle Holder

Perfect for our windowsill!

 (with my $1 poinsetta, thank youuu home depot black friday)

Cupcake Stand

Crafty Christmas Idea - Mason Jar Snow Globes

Whenever I see something expensive that I could potentially make myself, I just cannnottttt help myself and typically end up trying to make whatever it is.. many times spending way too much time in the process. But ya know what, its fun and I usually end up with something I love in the end..

Soo what did I attempt this time? These mason jar snow globes from anthropologie. Mine look pretty similar and by using things I had at home & buying a couple of mini Christmas trees, they cost me a total of about $4 for all 4 rather than the $25 - $38 anthropologie charges per jar!  yay! & booya anthro.

Happy crafting & merrryyyy christmas!

Made By Sugar New Website!

My mom's decorated cookie business, Sugar has a new website! She makes the most beautiful, detailed, creative cookies that you've ever seen... I promise, just look at the gallery!!
Here are a few of my favorites...

owl cookies for a woodland themed baby shower

some made with holes in them for hanging...

baby shower cookies - cute colors!

fall and thanksgiving cookies... lovin the turkey

wedding themed cookies... great for bridal showers, out of town guest bags, rehearsal dinners, favors at the wedding

and my fav of course...christmas cookies!! adorable for holiday parties at work or with friends!

Don't forget to stop by the new Sugar website to see more pics of cute cookies and to find out how to order! 

Fall Wreath with Felt and Burlap Fringe Flowers

Our new fall wreath made with felt and burlap flowers! yay fall! 

Here's how to make the fringe flowers (use felt, burlap or whatever):

1. Cut out long strips of felt or burlap (I used my cutting board and did lots of strips at a time)

2. Stack a few strips of felt and using some sharp scissors, cut fringe on one edge all the way down. To this to all of your strips. 

3. To make a flower that has 2 colors all mixed together, stack 2 different colored felt strips on top of each other and start to roll. When you begin rolling, fold the first 2 fringes over to make the inside of your flower. (For a flower with the middle fringe one color & the outside fringe another color, attach the 2 strips together with a dab of hot glue to make one long strip... then roll.)

4. Use a dab of hot glue to hold the end of the strip to the rolled flower. 

5. Cut a circle of felt or burlap out and hot glue it to the bottom of your flower to keep it together.

6. Spread out the fringes to reveal your beautiiiful flower!

7. Put the flower on your dog's head. I suppose you can skip that step if you want though.

'

Hope you like our new fall wreath! 

Chevron Water Bottle Labels and Caitlin's Wedding!

My lovely and oh-so-beautiful friend Caitlin asked me to design water bottle labels for her outdoor wedding at Laguna Gloria in Austin,TX. Kind of hard to tell in the photo but they have an ivory chevron print in the background with navy writing that says "Cait & Chad" and their wedding date. So much fun to be a small part of their wedding!

Photography by The Nichols

And what's way more exciting is that Caitlin's wedding was featured on Style Me Pretty yesterday. Check our the post and drool over how amazing everything about her wedding was!

Pretty Fall Flowers!

Last night Peter came home from work with some flowers for me... but not just any flowers, FALL FLOWERS! yayyy! This man knows the key to my heart... seasonal gifts. hahaa But really, its true. Especially when its not quite the season yet but i really want it to be... man oh mannn is he smart!

So pretty! Thanks again smart, sweet husband of mine!

Armoire Redo - Before & After!

Peter's parents gave us their old armoire when we moved into our house & the plan from day one was to paint it, but for some reason I didn't get around to it until now (aka 2  years later). haha oops! 
Anyway, here is the before & after..

And here's a closeup of the new handles & the lacy paper I added to the panels to spiiice things up.

The "new" handles were taken off of something else a while back & I printed the lacy paper myself, so the only cost for the project was the paint (mosaic tile by behr), about $14. Yay!

The Washroom Christmas Goods

To those who know & love me (most of the time!), it is a well known fact that I'm a bit obsessed with Christmas. And for some reason the over-the-top anticipation is starting even earlier this year. These stockings and other Christmas goods from Etsy shop, The Washroom are not helping my premature Christmas giddyness!

Look how cute these stockings are... and they are handmade!

And this advent calendar...

And JOY pillow with little burlap flags... so cute!

Go check out the shop for yourself! There are also lots of cool vintage items that would make perfect additions to your Christmas list. Or mine. :)