january organizing.

what is it about january that makes you want to pull everything out of your house, either clean it or get rid of it & then put it back all beautifully organized & color-coded? maybe it's just me. i usually get a major cleaning & organizing bug right after christmas instead of at 'spring cleaning' time. this year, yet again, there's a bit of baby nesting in the mix- 6 weeks or less to go!

this is actually a project i did a few months ago before we moved, but january felt like a good time to share it in case the organizing bug has bitten you too. remember when i labeled all our kiddo crafty stuff? that's when i discovered this cool organizer/container that my dad's wife [a jewelry designer] was using to store her bead projects-in-progress. it is a "photo and craft keeper," essentially a plastic suitcase with a handle full of little removable sections made for 4x6 photos. each section & the whole suitcase itself snaps together really securely! i immediately started thinking about all the things that could be organized in it...

i held my breath the first time i tried to put one of the chunkier puzzles in a little section- i'm just ocd enough to be annoyed by one puzzle having to live somewhere else when all of the rest of them are nicely organized in one container!

it has even held the 100 piece ones we usually get at the dollar tree. i tear off the edge of the box that shows the finished picture & the number of pieces- you can tuck it right into the section with the puzzle. and kiddos can take one puzzle out at a time to work on it rather than dumping all the puzzles into a big ridiculous mess of lost pieces.

currently ours is storing 5 sets of flashcards & memory/matching card games, 6 puzzles & we still have 5 empty slots to fill as we need them! that's way better than a bunch of torn up cardboard boxes that the puzzles come in, constantly losing pieces & trying to organize those boxes neatly in one place.

my favorite part? it fits perfectly on the shelf of an expedit. you could even fit 2 side by side!

see it hiding there on the top right cube at our old house?

i'm kind-of hoarding these little suitcase containers now- i get them at michael's with a 40% off coupon. i have this one in the playroom, have already gotten one to use for my own jewelry & beading project-in-progress & i'm thinking about getting one to start getting our photos out of cardboard boxes & at least protected, if not organized. but i know the photos will probably take several containers, so i haven't even started on that!

maybe next january...

watch out, world...

momma's got a brand new favorite way to label stuff. it's easy, it's cheap & it's fully customizable.
[spell check says customizable is not in fact a word. i beg to differ.]

all it takes is masking tape & a colorful sharpie! i get so tired of picking out or making cute labels for stuff just to have the sticky wear off or not stick to things to begin with. the only solution seemed to be to more permanently attach them [with something like hot glue] & sometimes risk damaging the item. 

while pretty simple & basic, to me this way is much better because you can cut the masking tape to size & use any number of sharpie colors! i went on a bender the other day & labeled all of my kids' crafty stuff & half of our basement this way. i especially love it on these clear boxes since not much else will stick well to them & the kids can still see what's in each one. and let's just say all my spray paint is very happy living in its very own labeled crate on the shelf.

when you want to use the container for something else, it's quick & easy to remove! win, win, win! 

what are you labeling lately?

little artsy crafty organization!

i only have 1 kid [so far] who is only 2 years old, and already it's so easy to feel like all the toys & art supplies & little tiny things are taking over the whole house. i'm such a nut for organization that this only proves to fuel my fire for pretty organizers. and if they can be made totally cheap or almost free, then even better!

even though there's something great about a huge bucket of crayons just waiting to be dug around in...
[gotta love all the smudges & fingerprints!]

i've noticed if they look messy, k is more likely to make a mess with them [ie: finding great joy in chucking them across the room rather than coloring with them. & we had our first coloring on the walls incident this week. eep.] and as she gets bigger, if they look messy before she even starts using them, she's much less likely to clean them up in a nice way & keep them nice for next time.

enter the internet & its wealth of genius bloggers who are making incredibly cute organizers for just such a problem! here are the ideas i'd like to steal for our little artiste in the making:

who can resist anything color-coordinated, especially if it's this bright & fun? definitely not me. this montessori-inspired tin can color-coordinated crayon holder [by mom's crafty space] is super easy to make & so colorful!

i seriously love this pbk knock-off spinning organizer [by the crafter's file box] made with a lazy susan & brightly colored mini buckets [honestly, you have me at 'mini buckets' for just about anything!]. i've seen these little brightly colored buckets at target bunches of times & have always wanted a reason to buy a whole stack of 'em! another great idea i saw was adding a bigger one in the middle so there's a place for paints & sticker books & staplers & those awesome little kiddo-safe scissors. love it!

martha's tin can caddy seems perfect for bigger stuff like markers or paintbrushes or rulers etc. & even has a handle for easy transportation to & from your workspace & again, is made out of super cheap materials like recycled cans!

how cute would all these little caddies look lined up on a shelf waiting to be pulled out to make little kid masterpieces? i always believe that pretty sorters & organizers make you want to put things away if only because it looks so nice & makes things so easy to find later when you need them. it's a self-fulfilling prophecy- if everything has a home, it's easy to put everything in its home & be totally organized! yay!

i'm not gonna lie, i'll probably have to make all three. [i may or may not already be saving mandarin orange cans for the crayon one.] i'm already picturing them in my imaginary kiddo-friendly craftspace. now if only i can pass on this obsessive organizational ferver to my kids...

tutorial update!

because you know how much i love organizing things... i just had to tell you that i updated my tutorial page, so if there's a specific project you're looking for, odds are you can find it right here!

tutorials, patterns & inspiring things!

you can always find them quickly by clicking on 'tutorials' link up there on the top bar right below the leaf&letter logo. yay!

if you're looking for something fun & new to work on, be sure to check- you might have missed one!

info photos.

i am terrible about remembering details... terrible. which is probably why i take so many photos, so that there will be lots of photographic hints to help me remember where we were & what we were doing. the only thing about that is, then i have files and files of photos on my computer that need organizing or worse, stacks and stacks of printed photos from the pre-digital days.

recently i've been seeing in lots of places fun ways to put your info right into the photo while you're taking it. sure, it takes a little more planning ahead, but how perfect is that when you're going back later and trying to remember how many weeks pregnant you were in that picture, what year that first-day-of-school picture was from, or which birthday you were celebrating? i love anything that saves a step and makes things easier later! also, i like to make shutterfly photo books instead of scrapbooking much anymore, and this would eliminate so many steps.

the one idea i immediately stole from two friends of mine is holding up the number of fingers to indicate how many months pregnant you are in the photo! [of course, this also means i must stop taking these really bad mirror self portraits and ask my completely willing-to-help husband to take them instead so i'll get a halfway decent one].

so it will be so much easier to remember how many months pregnant i am here:

and once the baby gets here, i'm totally stealing this super cute idea from the young house love "youngsters" to document the baby at each week or month.

they even have a full post about how they do it. they genius-ly took their baby's monthly pics in a plain white onesie and added the numbers by computer later [i'll totally be using picnik!] LOVE that blog.

as we keep celebrating little birthdays i think it would be great to hold up a little number sign for the birthday boy or girl [remember the cupcake 1st birthday? i already have a frighteningly large 'idea file' for her 2nd one coming up!]. i'm wishing i had done that last year, but no harm in starting this year, right? here is a cute example from blonde designs:

and when my kiddos inevitably grow up & get big enough to go to school, i think this idea for the classic first day of school photo with your child's school year, school name, and teacher's name all included is so cute! [and just the sort of thing i will need to help me remember]. borrowed from the super organized and inspiringly simple blog of shim + sons:

i've been thinking too that if you were in a pinch for time or had no way to make a pretty sign ahead of time, you could also have your child hold up a blank sheet of cardstock or plain ol' printer paper and add the information later. again... picnik. amazingly easy!

i was just sorting through several boxes of old photos that i inherited from my parents after my mom died [inherited isn't quite the right word. we're sort-of babysitting them] and there are so many that i don't know the details of... sometimes the year is printed or written on the back, but that's the only clue... nothing about what town we lived in, why we were living there at the time, what schools we went to, or what in the world some of them are. i hope to start taking incorporating a couple of these types of ideas into our family pictures to keep myself straight!

[photos are thanks to each individual blog, except for my pregnancy one. please visit their blogs for more info!]

mmm... organization.

i have pretty much taken up residence in this aisle recently:
and you'll never believe where it is... walmart! they have this new line of really cute, really cheap, nice quality office organization supplies! i've been working on getting all of my craft supplies sorted and stashed, nicely and neatly, so that in the precious moments of time i have to i go down to the basement to craft, i can actually find what i'm looking for.

i'm a firm believer that everything has to have it's place to be able to be put away. and since our basement is a 'hard working space' [as the decor blogs say], combining my craft area, a garage-type area, our attic-storage type stuff, and hopefully eventually a small playroom area, it needs to be organized to remain livable. oh, and all the walls and floors are unfinished, but luckily, we were given a large carpet scrap in great condition for the main area.

and seeing as how the craft corner has been in various stages, starting with this photo when we first moved in and progressing steadily over time to a truly frightful mess, it was time for some serious storage work:
i swear, i think everything in these boxes came out and multiplied itself by at least 10:
well, it had been a disorganized disaster long enough. i should have taken a better 'before' picture, because those don't quite do the chaos justice. we moved the main desk upstairs, and i set up my craft show table for some working surface.

i had some wire shelving cubes that i started sorting my fabric on, and ended up getting two more and the cubes (from walmart!) for storage in them. i LOVE that everything has it's place now, and i can just pull out the particular 'drawer' i need and have all the supplies right on hand for shipping out an order or working on a project. i'm hoping to spend much less time looking for and gathering up the needed supplies and go straight to working on something... before the inspiration is gone or the wee one is up from her nap!

i'm still working on it, but here's a little sneak preview of the almost-done craft room!

the yarn book.

after all that talk about making a quiet book for my sweet baby k, wouldn't you know i made her mommy one first! [well, sort of...]
i tend to do tons of crocheting when the weather is cold, and i realized when sorting through my yarn stash not too long ago, that i am in need of two things: a crochet hook holder and a way to organize my crochet patterns. i rely way too heavily on my memory [which is terrible and ends up in a lot of wasteful trial and error] and hoping that i can google my way back to that really great pattern/tutorial/idea i once saw online. also, there were tons of little scraps hanging around from where i had jotted down a pattern as i worked it, or cut out from the back of a yarn label, etc.

and as we all know, a pile of scrappy mess = an opportunity to creatively organize! yay! so i took one of those little $1 plastic photo albums [which i find actually useful for many things, including a mini coupon folder, you can see it here on our family blog] and decided to make a cover for it.

i started by writing out all of my most-used patterns, my basic tried-and-trues, on some index cards and stamped the little titles on them.
then i stopped long enough to pull a wee explorer out of my living room yarn basket [not an uncommon occurrence around here].
i winged the construction of this one big time. i took a piece of felt that was a little more than the height of the book, and made sure the sides were long enough to fold over the inside covers to make a little flap it would tuck into. then i added some fabric strips on the inside of the front and back covers.
i tried out two new experiments... the first was 'writing' with yarn by sewing it on with a zig zag stitch. i sewed a piece of striped fabric onto the little cover and roughly pinned the word 'yarn' but ended up free-handing it as i sewed. tricky, but it turned out cute and fun!
the other experiment was that i had been wanting to try a little fabric covered button and stretchy loop closure. the stretchy loop is a hair elastic [un-used of course!] folded in half and stitched right into the back cover. then i closed the book to see where the button would need to lay to close securely. success!
i also made space in the back for a few little yarn swatches... scraps of yarn i've used in the past attached to their labels, so that i'll have laundering info and name/brand info if i ever want to use that exact color or type on another project [or for mending any little damaged spots in something i've made].
its so nice to have all the little scrappies gone and everything in one place! now i think my day planner feels left out and a little naked!

welcome!

thanks for joining me from ellebee studio! i'm so excited to finally have this new blog up and running. as i said before, i'll always love ellebee studio, but i'm looking at this name change as a chance to hopefully revamp, re-do, recreate, and revive. a new start, in a way!

i have lots of exciting plans for leaf & letter. i've started twittering (tweeting? twittereeting?) and will have an all-new etsy shop up and running soon. for now, the old shop, ellebee studio, will all be clearanced to some get-it-for-a-steal prices.

for now, i'm hard at work redecorating our townhome, and trying to finish lots of home-y projects. thanks for your patience with me as i transition to the new!

idea book.

with all these recent ideas and new inspirations floating around, i decided it was high time i figured out some sort of organization system for my little sketches and thoughts. i have a terrible and deep-seated habit of writing my genius {haha} ideas down on random scraps of paper, and i do mean random... envelopes, receipts, and even one of those recycled paper coffee cup cozies from starbucks. enter the fun {and also recycled paper} goodness straight from the target clearance rack for less than $5:

found space journal by new leaf paper. their tagline is "paper with a past. and a future." how cool is that?

it is 100% post consumer recycled, the covers are actually from some type of cereal-type boxes with a cute leaf and butterfly print on the other side. it's the perfect size for a folded-in-half piece of printer paper {which i often grab to sketch on since it's unlined. and convenient.} and i've just been punching holes in the other scraps of paper and sticking them right into the little binder clips!

now i can work up to having all my ideas in one place, if i can remember to start carrying it with me everywhere, and can stop stressing about the little scrap of paper that got away! i also plan to jazz up the cover with some stamps and label stickers when i get a chance.

my next organizational thought is some sort of giant notebook wherein to store all sorts of patterns i've jotted down here and there, my favorite online tutorials printed out with their corresponding pictures {for fear that i will click the links one day and they might be gone gone gone}, and directions/patterns i've cut out of magazines. maybe i will keep with a theme and try out their binder as well!

still making progress!

believe it or not, i'm still making progress at unpacking/organizing/making something other than a mess of my craft room... both my stuff from the move and the things i inherited from my mom. i've been sort of charting how far i've come by the big bookshelf that i had earmarked for all the fabric from mom (something i've never really experienced organizing before, since mine has always been scraps or smaller pieces like fat quarters... now i have actual yardage to deal/work with!)

here's how it was a few weeks after the move:

and here it is this week with some of the fabric starting to get organized:


i moved some of the clear plastic boxes to my desk that hold the items i use regularly (stamps, adhesives, ink pads, and punches) because honestly, i got lazy and tired of having to get up and go back and forth each time i needed something! (my desk and the bookshelf are on opposite sides of the room- not that far at all, but still).

and of course, there is still a huge rubbermaid tote and a half in the garage, full of fabric and other crafty goodness, that must come out and be organized! it's still on my pre-baby to-do list, so i'd better really get to work, seeing as how i only have 6 and half weeks left!

at least all the surrounding boxes on the floor are unpacked and put away, but that's only thanks to overnight guests having to stay in this particular room (my studio doubles as a guest bedroom when need be).

back to work!

a little mental break.

it's been a few weeks and i am just now emerging from beneath some really busy times! it started with switching to a new doctor in greensboro, and starting to go every 2 weeks instead of every month now that we're at 29 weeks pregnant with our sweet girl K! It's completely ubelievable and exciting that we only have about 12 weeks to go! (well, 13 technically, but i'm trying to think positive... sleeping at night is becoming an olympic event!).

follow that up with a new nephew last week! he was born september 10th to very happy parents and a very excited 4 year old big sister! of course, matt and i drove into raleigh for the day to be on hand for lots of love, snuggles, and pictures.

this weekend brought matt's ordination as youth pastor at our church, and the happy but big job of hostessing a lunch at our house for lots of extended family! it was great to have about 20 folks from both sides of the family gathered to celebrate matt and his accomplishments!

in the fray of it all, i had given up on trying to make the designer's downtown market happen on saturday as i had planned. i had to forfeit my entry fee, but after all the stressful planning all week and having a cold on top of it, i decided it was better to be able to stay home and get some rest rather than trying to make the second trip to raleigh. it ended up being a good call since we had so much more to do than we thought to get the last minute touches on the house and the food for the lunch party.

even though i felt like this would be the last craft show i could participate in (and definitely would have been at this point) and was very disappointed to miss it, i know that there will be some time in the future once i've adapted a bit to being a momma for more craft shows, and for the creative juices to keep flowing. in the meantime, i did make a sale to a family member for her christmas list... a necklace and a pair of earrings... and she picked out a lovely little pendant for herself as well! (i'm being a bit cryptic here to keep people's christmas surprises a surprise!) here are her selections:

my mission this week is to get all of these lovely items i had stocked up for the show posted in the shop and available for more christmas shopping pleasure! soon the shop will be all-new and i'll get petite bee nice and filled as well!

the never-ending battle.

it's been a bit of a rough week here craft wise, trying to get my craft room organized, which always feels like a never-ending battle. i have so many ideas and new things i want to try, and things to get ready for september's downtown market, but i feel like i can't effectively do any of it until everything is organized. so half the time i either can't find something because it's still somewhere in the stacked up piles of not yet unpacked, or i know i've unpacked it but can't find it anywhere!

one of the things i'm most excited about is my 'new' bookshelf (new to me, but re-gifted so to speak from another room in the old house!).

it's obviously still a work in progress, but it is coming together pretty well, and i can picture in my head this vision of organized loveliness, where i can find everything i need right when i need it, and have weeded out all the things that i never use. that's really hard for me, because i seem to be a bit of a hoarder of supplies anyway, and then i've inherited a ton of great stuff from my mom when she passed away in january. in that vein, i've decided to start a secondary etsy shop to help pass on some of the supplies that have piled up that are perfectly great, but that i know i won't use. right now that shop is empty, but i hope to get it going by this fall (hopefully by the end of september).

studio supplies

my (somewhat lofty) goal as of right now, is to have my new fall products (a mini-revamp of the whole shop!) available by september 1st, and then unveil a completely new etsy shop specifically for petite bee (my baby products) and the studio shop both by mid-september.

i'm very excited about the new products i have lined up for ellebee this fall, lots more notecards, a few new petite cahiers, and plenty new jewelry of course! the jewelry is really exciting to me because it's where i've done the most experimentation with new techniques and i'm really proud of how it all turned out! i feel like come september, my shop will be much more cohesive and much more representative of what i really enjoy making! i can't wait for you all to see it!

for now, the entire shop is still completely on summer sale!

found it!

i wrote a few posts back about plans for super-organization of my craft room in the new house after we move, and i can't remember if i actually referenced the magazine or not (probably not, since i couldn't remember even the name at the time) but, as luck would have it, in a waste-a-few-minutes-before-dinner-out-with-the-family trip to books a million last night, i discovered it! it was a special issue from cloth paper scissors magazine called "studios" and the picture on the front was what i was remembering... wire baskets full of beautifully arranged folded fabrics, sorted by color. exactly my goal for my supplies!

(photo thanks to quiltingarts.com!)

in the end, i decided it wasn't worth the $10 to read about other people's craft rooms- i'd be much better off spending that on a basket or something for mine- but the makeover from the front cover was definitely inspiring!

around the studio.

i've been doing a bit of work here and there on some new ideas for petite bee, hoping to get some things made and up in the shop to see if there is any interest in handmade baby things. seems like there would be, right? this is what a project-in-the-works usually looks like around here:

i guess because we don't know which gender our little B will be, i've been drawn to lovely greens, tans, yellows, light browns, and neutral linen in the meantime for petite bee. i'm finding it's very hard to find gender-neutral items that are

1. truly gender neutral (aka, no sneaking in of a bit of blue here and there) and



2. still cute, sweet, and adorable despite not being permitted to scream the obvious "boy" or "girl"

i've run into this so much so in my own shopping, that i'm considering making petite bee almost exclusively packed full of lovely neutral items to fill that void (though almost anything can be easily spiced up with a pink bow or blue boat to differentiate). and wouldn't it be nice to have a go-to place to make gift-giving easier for those who are too early in the pregnancy to know yet or (ahem... crazy enough to) want to be surprised?

the other slight dilemma i'm debating is whether to open a separate etsy shop exclusively for petite bee. as of now, i have just enough things posted that it's slightly bothersome to me to have the shop in such a jumble (and i don't want it to become too difficult to navigate). however, you don't want to have to send folks too many different places to shop for fear that they'll lose interest. any brilliant input on this idea?

also currently on a halt are any attempts at organizing my studio for now. anytime i get anxious or worried at the confusion i soak in the one little corner that does actually look nice and organized:

(and yep, that's me in the red shorts in the reflection! hi there!)

the red "B" bag on the left is the one i did the no-sew monogram tutorial on, and the one on the right is a new laptop bag bought on clearance from target because of the ellebee green trim!

i am excited though, that i've applied to be in show where i'll be allowed to sell only supplies (with a bit of ellebee advertisement thrown in, to be sure!) which will help relieve some of the supplies-overload situation from the loads of things i inherited from my mom. i've done this show before, back when it was humbly called the crafter's flea market, and now it has "grown up" into the designer's downtown market. The lady that organizes it is really nice, and it usually has a great turn-out among not only people wanting to buy handmade things, but also people who make things by hand themselves (thus the high hopes for releasing some of these supplies back out into the world). so i'll have lots of work on my hands getting them all packaged, priced, and labeled!

mmm.... organization.

i had to laugh because i just saw a friends re-run (approximately in the season 8 or 9 or so era) where chandler decides to get a new job, so monica makes a big, labeled, organized set of files of different ideas for jobs he could pursue. it's alphabetized (of course) and they start with advertising, which is what he decides to go for... so he apologizes for her having wasted her time making the rest of the files when he picked the first one. monica replies, "are you kidding? i got to spend 8 hours alone with my label-maker!!!"

if you haven't met me, i'm a little bit like that. ok, a lot. i do have a bit of a crazy love for organizational supplies.

so, if you haven't seen this website, see jane work, it's a must! i also had to laugh when i saw this "office of the week" totally decked out in ellebee green:

my husband laughs whenever i say that because he thinks it's funny that i have claimed ownership over an entire shade of color for my business. i just love the color! in my dream world, i would have wall-to-wall bookshelves for my craft supplies, and they would all be organized in little labeled boxes and wire baskets full of color-coordinated fabrics like that top shelf up there. supplies are so much more inspiring when you can see them all at once!

they also have lots of fun, cheeky notepads and other office goodies with a bit of personality to make the day go faster! i've already decided i need these for corralling my craft magazines, i love the brown:

(ps- photos are thanks to seejanework's website).