So Sew Organized

Who is ready for a little blogging challenge ? Just the thing to bring us out of our “winter blues” and get excited for the summer months! Have you ever heard of the concept of “ 5 Fat Files ??” It is a practice I was introduced to in college through some of Elizabeth George’s books, such as Life Management for Busy Women . An excellent book, should you run across it! Here is the motivation behind 5 Fat Files: There is so much information readily available today. The click of a mouse, and we have access to more websites, blogs, tutorials and videos than we ever have time to look through. How on earth can we use it to our advantage and not get overwhelmed? And besides that, how do we find the time to wade through all that info and actually retain information that is useful? By building 5 Fat Files, of course. I pick 5 areas that I want to learn more about. Anything on the face of the earth that I am interested in. I limit it to 5 so that I can really focus on learning something and no...

I have been debating for the whole month of March what to do for a specific DIY project this month. ( You can view January's here and February's here ) As the end of the month approached, nothing that would work yet weather wise was coming to me (I have a bunch of painting projects I want to do, but not until the weather is predictable enough {hah!} to drag stuff outside to paint.) Then, as I worked last week, I decided my big clean up project could be my DIY project for the month! I spoke about it here , but basically I am working on cleaning up a lot of garbage and junk that was left at our house from who knows what, laying in our yard and taking up half our garage. When we moved here, our things just kind of got piled on, and now everything is a huge mess. I want to reclaim the space on the lawn, do some landscaping in those areas, and organize the garage. I can picture how it is all going to look when it is done, and I couldn't be more excited! Besides just simply ...

To celebrate this beautiful Friday evening (aren't Friday's just the best of days?) I have a FREE printable for you! I have to admit that I don't have a recipe binder, but a reader asked if I could make a printable to match the others for a recipe binder. If there is one thing I love, it is making printables that meet the needs of my readers! This blog would be pretty boring without you, so passing on some love in the way of printables is the least I can do! Anyway, back to the printable. How did I get on the sappy train? I really was not sure what all is included on a recipe binder page, but here is what I came up with: Then I thought that maybe there are some people out there that prefer to write teeny tiny and save space, and would like two recipes to a sheet. So I shrunk everything down and came up with this: Hopefully this will be a help! I could totally do a B&W version or size it for a half sized binder, if you prefer. After making these sheets, I began to see ...

Are you tired of spending lots of money at the store? So are we! And today we're going to chat about a few things we can do to save money at the register... Nicole: Hey there! We are so excited to have a guest with us today! Holly: We want to introduce you to our friend from college/Nicole's roommate for a year: Emily Matthew! Nicole: Emily, could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Emily: Sure! My hubby and I have been married for about a year and a half. We moved from beautiful PA to cold MN right after we got married for Jared to attend seminary. Right now, I'm teaching piano lessons and being a wife-y. :) Holly: Well, if you can handle cold winters in MN, you can handle our craziness here! Nicole: Isn't that the truth! If we're not mistaken, you have an interest in couponing, thrifty buying, and saving money, which is what we want to talk about today! Holly: 'Cause we all love a good deal!! Emily: I love saving money!! Holly: So how long have you guys ...

There is a lot of hullabaloo over Pinterest these days. If you haven’t gotten your invite yet, let me just tell ya, its the greatest thing since sliced bread. Here is how most of us use it: We jump right in with both feet when we get our invite, making boards, and repinning like crazy. Anything and everything gets repinned if it looks halfway decent (and even if it doesn’t). We don’t really think about the pins...we just repin. And usually we leave the description of the pin exactly as the last person had it...so our pin says “This is the easiest way to clean toilets!!” even though we’ve never actually tried it. Raise your hand if you’ve done that. Yeah, mine goes up. One day I pin a zillion recipes (because thats what my followers were pinning) and the next day I’m pinning wardrobe styles and the next day its DIY projects flooding the page. And I’ll probably never even look at those pins again. But its Pinterest...its eye-catching, inspiring goodness. I was the above pinner, until I s...

I realized that, while I've blabbed on and on about planning binders and created fun printables (which so many of you are putting to good use!) and talked about goal setting and planning in general, I never actually showed you how I put my binder together for this year. I really am putting my binder to good use, too! Here is the inside scoop on my planning binder .  As you can see, I use the same binder that I decorated with pretty paper for last years binder challenge . I still love the bold colors and pretty stripes! I use a 1/2 inch binder , which is super small, I know. I love the thinness of it, though, and remember I only have little 'ol me to plan for. It is getting quite full, but for now I am going to put off upgrading as long as I can. I just love the thinness of it that much! This year I made a point of putting the front inside cover to good use: I keep some scratch papers there with notes jotted on them, as well as a stack of Post-it stickies . I found that if I ...

It's all over now. Store-bought playdough?? No way! No going back! Buh-bye, nasty, crumbly, smelly stuff. We're officially hooked on phonics fruity playdough! I saw this recipe on a blog . I loved it, pinned it, and then actually did it . I feel like I really did what pinterest-ers are supposed to do! You can get all the deets on Laines blog , but basically it is just an easy playdough recipe using household ingredients and kool-aid to make it fruity! Who would have thought?  Here are some pictures of us making it! Mixing it all together We used cherry and lime kool-aid to try to make a cherry-limeade scent (my favorite!). If I did it again, I would use less of the cherry kool-aid. We put in the full two packets, but I don't think that was necessary. It smells good, just a little on the cherry side. Unless you ask Rachel, who thinks it stinks and smells like cough syrup . Ah well, you win some, you lose some. :) She enjoyed playing with it, despite the smell! :) Th...

It is clear that “I {heart} books” is going to be my mantra for this year. It’s true, I do love ‘em. Through high school I read books every moment of every day that I wasn’t absolutely required to be doing something else. Pretty much eat, sleep, and read. Then through college I worked in the college library. I like to think that I pretty much ran the place. :) And despite the frustrations and boring times, I really did love that job. Surrounded by books? I can do that. Even if I didn’t have time to read any of them. So really it comes as no surprise that I continue to babble on and on about books. Hope you don’t mind. I just think they are important ! “Readers are leaders” so the old saying goes. And its true! I mentioned when I made my 2012 reading list that in order to read 24 books this year (2 per month) I was going to have to add some new ones to my shelf. I am planning on re-reading a bunch, too (go to this post to get those deets) but I wanted some more new ones as well...

I'm not a fan of cooking - its probably my least favorite housekeeping activity, right down there with vacuuming - but today I have a recipe for you that even I can handle. 3 ingredients . I can do that. I am not sure what made me think of it, but the other day I remembered a lady making these cookies for me. I was staying the night in her home while traveling with a college group, and she told us she was going to show us how to make the quickest, easiest cookies ever. Well folks, I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but its true. Here is the recipe: You'll need these ingredients: Yup, that's it. Promise. Measure out 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup of sugar , and dump it all in with your egg . Mix them together. And you'll have something that looks like this: It is suggested, but not required, that you get a cute volunteer... ...or two. Well, he didn't help much, I guess. ;) Rachel wanted to try this recipe with me, and cook some in...