A Plastic Bag Holder

While my mother was here to help me prepare for Clara's arrival, she dealt with a grouchy toddler, a grouchier me, an almost-entirely absent David (who was working like a maniac to make extra money for after the birth when he would have to take time off) and sleeping on an inflatable bed in the middle of my livingroom.

But I really think one of the worst parts for her was dealing with my plastic bags.

I stuff them under my kitchen sink cabinet, you see.  I take the sturdiest one and I fill it with its weaker counterparts, and then I shove the full bag o' bags under the sink where they sit forever.  Because I can't throw them out.

My mother, who is the sort of woman who cleans the coils behind her fridge, was appalled by this orgy of plastic bags.  And so she told me she was going to buy me a plastic bag organizer.  What she hadn't taken into account was that I live in a town of 4000 people.  Walmart is our biggest store.  Walmart is almost our only store...

Anyway, she couldn't find a plastic bag organizer.  But did that stop my mother, intrepid organizer of slovenly bag storing?  No, it did not.  She MADE me a plastic bag organizer, instead.

And it works really well, so I thought I'd share her method.

Get a pillowcase.  Lay it flat and cut off the closed end near the seam.  Use a running stitch to tidy the edge and then fit it into an embroidery hoop, preferably one with a loop to hang it with.  This is your top opening.  Now open the hemmed edge of the pillowcse slightly and bring through a piece of elastic.  Sew the elastic ends together and the hole you made to slide it through.  This is your bottom.  Now, when you hang the holder on the wall you shove the plastic bags in at the top, and pull them out one at a time from the bottom.

If you find yourself obsessing over your own messy bags, you can try it yourself!

Making picture cards

Every year we get a big stack of Christmas cards and every year I display them and then toss them out. 

Then a few years ago I started saving some of the nicer ones that had small, clearly defined pictures on the cards, and cutting out those pictures to use as gift tags on presents.  This works for the cards that are small, or have little pictures on them, but it doesn't work for the bigger cards, unfortunately, some of which are beautiful.  And so over the last few years I've kept a growing Ziploc bag full of the cut out fronts of Christmas cards that I think are lovely, and can't bear to throw away, waiting for inspiration to strike me on what to do with them!

This morning it struck!

Samuel has loved to look at them (like Mama, like son in regards to art) and since I have no practical reason to keep them pristine, I gave him a stack and sat him on my bed.  Friends, he sat quite happily sorting them into piles and naming objects off of the cards for, oh, maybe 45 minutes!  Which translates into twelve gazillion hours for a 21 month old.  He showed me the Christmas trees, the cats, the angels...and he was actually surprisingly gentle with them.

So I carefully counted out my favourites (and his) and decided that I would laminate the cards and give him something wonderful to do as 'quiet work'.  A simple, simple little way to keep my busy boy, well, busy in a useful way.