The Friday 15

I'm an organizer. Anything I have in the house is placed just so. Straight lines, edges matching, labels facing out. I'm also a paper goods hoarder. I used to be, that is.

Just look at my basement from 2014.

While I don't hoard paper products anymore (don't have the space), I do tend to buy consumable items on sale in large quantities at rock bottom prices. I usually stick to tried and true brands but occasionally will branch out and try something new. Clearly this new brand of soap I purchased wasn't our favorite because look how many we still had that hadn't been used. It was almost enough to fill up my entire 15 for the week. My, oh, my.

I'm finally getting rid of them after way too long. How long have I had them? Well, here's the embarrassing part...I found my order from Amazon with a purchase date of June 2014. They've been sitting around here for four and a half years. Yikes!

No more though. Goodbye to 15 things that no longer serve a purpose!

Encouraging Words Project Excitement

I knew it was coming. The time was almost here. The February edition of Woman's Day magazine was coming out.

If you've been around here for a while you know the Encouraging Words Money Pocket Project is a biggie for me. I drop the little pockets everywhere I go. I’ve left them in restrooms and airplane magazines and sugar containers. I’ve left them in windowsills and tip jars and hotel room drawers. I’ve left them on buses and taxis and trains and cruise ships. And in shopping carts, store shelves, and doctor offices. Sometimes I place one somewhere once a day and other days I drop them off multiple times.

Why?

Because I know we all need a little encouragement at one time or another. I know that sending positive vibes out into the world will come back to me many times over. And I know in my heart that the world would be a better place if we fill it with positive ideas, words, and actions. 

This week was one when more people would be learning about what I do. But I had to go to the store to find out for sure. 

Yep, the February 2019 edition of Woman's Day was on the shelves.

I read through the Kindness Project deeds. Yep, mine is there.

Which makes today a day more people just might decide to try their hand at bringing kindness and joy to the world.

It also makes it a day that at least one person in Boise was in the right place at the right time, reading the right magazine on the right page.

Of course I left one in the magazine for someone else to find.

Want to know more about the Encouraging Words Project? Check it out here!

Make Scrap Fabric Christmas Tree Ornaments - Tutorial Tuesday Flashback

Like I mentioned last week, in the spirit of simplicity, on this month's Tutorial Tuesdays I will be sharing some of my most popular sewing and crafting videos of all time. (Don't worry, I'm still working on filming new ones for later.) Today's tutorial is from December 2011.

It was the day I talked about why live Christmas trees were so problematic for us. (Here's the original post from that day, in case you're interested.) It's the second most viewed tutorial I've filmed with over 77,000 views on YouTube.

For this project you will need:

• fabric scraps
• backing fabric
• batting or felt
• ribbon
• sewing machine
• matching thread
• Iron
• Rotary cutter
• Cutting ruler
• Cutting mat

Disclosure: Deb's Days is a participant in affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to affiliated sites. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Your purchase helps support my work in bringing you new sewing and crafting content.

Now available in my Etsy store as a digital download with the written directions, step-by-step photos, printable templates, and link to the tutorial video. Click to find out more!

Looking for more Christmas sewing and crafting projects? 

Looking for more fun Christmas projects?

Check out some of my other patterns and tutorials!

Christmas may be over, but here is something for those wanting to get a jump start on next year. Click the step-by-step how to video and learn how to make your own homemade fabric scrap Christmas Tree ornaments:

Sewing for Good Sunday

I've been so excited for this first Sewing for Good Sunday of 2019. If you've been around my blog for a while, you know sewing for charity has been important to me. I tried to count out exactly how many things I had made over the years but lost count. (Just check out the charity tab at the top of the page. You'll see why I lost count.) I did find that I had 183 blog posts about things I made for charity. 183! Between quilts and pillowcases and turtle pillows for kids and stockings for soldiers I had written about it on the blog 183 different days.

We can now make that 184. While I like the Sewing for Good Sunday title, this post should really be titled Why You Shouldn't Start a Project in the Middle of the Night.

Like I said, I was excited about today. I was up late last night so I decided to wait until midnight rolled around to get started. (Wanted it to officially be Sunday.) I went through my fabrics and pre-cut squares and found some patterns to work with. I arranged and rearranged and swapped out colors and rearranged again and came up with this at 1:06 am.

After that hour-long process I still wasn't happy. I decided it was time to go to bed and start again in the morning. Before I headed to bed I cleaned up my work area and put the fabrics back into the Ziploc bag with the others.

That's when I found these beauties that had been shoved at the bottom of the bag.

My 1:19 am discovery

The excitement of finding blocks I had already stitched together made me want to stay up even later and make a plan. I grabbed my graph paper and got started.

1:37 am

And of course you can't come up with a plan without getting started sewing on the plan. So I found some strips of fabric that would work for part of the quilt. 

1:47 am

I considered going to bed after that. But again, you can't come this far then just stop. So I sewed some scraps together to make a wide blue border.

2:10am

Looking at the time I decided I should call it a night. I neatly piled the fabrics on my workspace and put a light colored spool of thread and bobbin in my sewing machine. I then grabbed the can of compressed air to clean up my sewing machine so it would be all nice and fresh and clean in the morning. (Now I know I'm not supposed to be using compressed air to clean the nooks and crannies and bobbin area, but it was after two in the morning and I was looking to be speedy.)

And that's when my compressed air can started behaving badly. Sometimes when I hold the button down too long the compressed air freezes things. But this compressed air was bubbling on the surfaces. On the outside of the machine. In the bobbin area. And even on the bobbin itself. What the heck was going on with the compressed air?

I then realized what happened. Notice anything interesting about where I store my black and white can of compressed air? Notice what I also store right next to it?

2:13 am mistake

Yep. I had sprayed WD-40 all over my sewing machine at 2:13 am on a Sunday morning. If that wasn't a sign it was time to go to bed I don't know what would have been.

After a WD-40 clean up (my sewing machine is so shiny now!) and a good night's rest I headed back to work. And by one in the afternoon I had this sewn together. Batting is cut and backing is picked out, even.

Time to set it aside until later and start piecing the next one. I'm thinking I'm liking these colors.

I snapped my fingers and now those fabrics have been sewn together into blocks that look like this. (I wish it was that easy!)

But now I feel a nap coming on. I'm not about to get myself so tired that I mix up WD-40 and compressed air again. Check in next Sunday as I figure out what to do with these next blocks.

Royal Princess Resources

Is there a topic you'd like to see more about? How about any questions about the Royal Princess or about cruising or Princess Cruises? Just ask! A

The Friday 15

A couple years ago I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. If you haven't read it, you should. It'll change your ideas about "stuff". Marie also now has a show on Netflix called "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo". I've been binge-watching the show this week and realized I've been doing a lot of the things she proposes long before she ever wrote about them.

Pile all your clothes on the bed and then decide which ones bring you joy? (Joy = keep.) Yep, I did that back in January 2014.

I can report I got rid of most of that pile. While some of the keepers from back then have now since been replaced with others, the number of items are still low. In fact, if I were to create a new pile of all my clothes today it wouldn't even take up a quarter of the bed.

Go through all your books and only keep those you wish to take with you into the future? Look at what we had in 2012...

Oh, my. We had a lot of books!

Here's all we have left now...

Now when we want to read something new we check out an e-book from our local library.

Clothes and shoes and books and kitchenwares and garden items have been pared down. Christmas decorations are much more manageable and a huge salt and pepper collection has been sent on its way. 

We're getting closer but aren't there yet. While I've been on a minimalism path for several years, hubby's kidney failure in 2012 helped us re-prioritize our lives. Simpler is better. Less is better. With that in mind I keep looking for items that don't bring joy to our lives. 

Here are 15 more this week. More Christmas and clothes. Where does this stuff come from???