Little boxes, filled with ticky tacky, little boxes...

My craft room is a mess as you can see here and here. And I really need to do something about it as I can't bear the thought of walking in there and creating anything! In Better Homes and Gardens magazine, one of their storage tips is getting cheap galvanised shelving and organising all craft items in matching baskets with labels. Lightbulb! More upright shelving would be a more effective use of space than the shelves I currently have. So this idea has been kicking around in my head for about a month now, lack of funds has hampered any progress thus far. While trawling the interwebs for any information on laser cutting, I came across this blog and this pattern, for cute little fabric boxes. Lightbulb v2.0! I could make some of these boxes to store small items in and make my craft room more, more?? chic, styling, funky? matching?
Now I haven't touched my sewing machine for a number of years...As you can see by the dirt and dust here!

This machine is pretty special to me. It's an ancient Singer. My Dad bought it in his small country town op shop for five whole dollars! He was so impressed with it's condition and quality that he went back to the op shop the next day and gave them another five whole dollars! And he gave it to me! Blessed! (it's about the only thing my Dad has given me in the last 10 years - he doesn't believe gift giving) And it really is a beauty! And kitsch. And a little Stepford Wife <3

Fabric - what a mission. My local fabric store had a 50% off sale. Pandemonium! I am also terrible at making decisions. But with the help of my crazy (and awesome) mumma, I did it!

Heavy interfacing, dark russian blue for the inside, floral pattern and red linen for main and contrast, ribbon for "handles". And away we go!

Cut

Iron

Pin and Sew!

Finished!

Three more done!

Things I discovered along the way...

• I didn't sew over my fingers! Although it did get a bit hectic there at one stage!
• Measure twice, cut once. The box with the red base seems to be a little larger than the rest.
• Iron at every step. I didn't iron down the top seam of the first one and it didn't finish off as nicely.
• Get some at least semi-decent sewing scissors, or a rotary cutter.
• Cut in a straight line! There has to be some trick to this, just gotta!
• Less stiff interfacing for the small boxes and maybe stiffer for the larger ones.
• 1m of each kind of fabric, really goes a long way!
• I had fun :)