I hacked my clementine boxes, or, don't you wish you had thought of this?

Do you buy your clementines in those sporty wooden boxes or crates? By sporty I mean old-fashioned, cute, and seemingly re-purpose-able. (Isn't that what sporty means?)

(I got the photo above off of the Darling Clementine website, which is really colorful and informative, and I sure hope they let me keep this photo on here!)

So I buy my clementines and think -- goody! I'll get a box out of this deal. Maybe those of us whose grandmothers lived through the Great Depression just have a hankering for stuff that comes in other stuff that can be made into stuff, like feed-feedsacks-dresses, but I for one just wish that everything came in handy re-usable packaging, and I get vexed when things come in packaging that not only can't be made into something else, but can hardly be used to store the thing that it packages. Do you know what I mean about this? Like sugar. You can't keep sugar in a paper sack, unless you like bricks of sugar with ants running all over it. You can't keep flour in a paper sack, unless you like moths springing out at you.

And what was I just opening the other day...oh yes, cream cheese. Cream cheese, as we all know, comes in a cardboard box AND a sort of foil-y wrapping, and both of those things simply stink at keeping cream cheese feeling contained once you open it up. And, needless to say, you certainly can't re-use them. For all my life I've been sort of silently cursing the way cream cheese comes packaged.

Anyway, back to clementine boxes. I always have this jumping feeling in my frugal soul as I purchase my clementines, because the box really seems as if it will be useful and handy. But it really isn't. They stack, but they don't display, and to get into one you have to lift off the others, which isn't always practical. So I had a bunch (6 to be exact) doing some sort of duty in the pantry, but not really helping all that much when you got right down to it. Cute, but not so clever after all.

Until the hack! Today I just found myself saying one time too many, "Why doesn't this thing have a removable side?" and decided just to remove it.

So without further eloquence (recognize The Quiet Man quote?), here is -- The Clementine Box Hack #1! (Well, a little more eloquence: this video is of my box hack in situ; the next one is the actual hack -- but wouldn't you love a little peek at my pantry? I'd kind of like to see yours! -- and by the way, I hardly got my pantry ready for this video. Another time we'll have a proper tour):




To see how I did it (it's pretty simple, but this is a video that is narrated by the charming Bridget, so you won't want to miss it!) -- The Clementine Box Hack #2!:

 *UPDATE: Take the piece you removed and put it under the front! You can glue it there. Sometimes you can just flip it around and under. That adds necessary stability to the front of the shelf.*

Hey -- if I can do it so can you!

Alice's quilt

I finished this quilt in July and sent it off to Alice in Canada. It was hard to part with! I think you've all seen it in person, but I need pictures to get me through separation anxiety.

Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of the whole thing spread out (the ones I have are too dark), but you can use your imaginations.

You really CAN find a featherweight in Grandma's attic...

I'm going to post about the kitchen redo, I really am. I am trying to clean up enough from the painting to get good shots, and in the meantime I'm canning tomatoes and pears and painting furniture with the leftover paint...so it never really gets clean, you know?

But I want to show the quilters out there (are you there? I'd love to hear from you!) what I found in grandma's --not attic, but in her mother's bedroom. Yes, a genuine Singer Featherweight!

I looked in a dusty corner and saw it... she gave it to me (it was her idea!)...I brought it home and here it is:


I opened it...


Don't you love it?



I haven't used it yet, but I cleaned it and took off that label, and I'm so excited!



And whoopsies -- a little peek at the kitchen! :)

I can't help myself.

Okay, girls, I'm posting this for The Nester and her Mistreatment Club. I know I don't have to explain myself to you.

You already know that I mean to be professional and careful in my decorating choices. I really do. And then something comes up and...I just fling something up there...and secretly I like it... and so it stays there forever. Sometimes I wonder what people think when they see what I've done -- ("WHAT was she thinking!!" is the most likely exclamation they stifle, I suppose).

Here is a good example. The valance is done properly, albeit minimally.



The "cover" for the hanging bare bulb is my thought after seeing a lovely punched tin lantern in a vacation house. Sort of the same, hmmm.

The "curtain" is because I need something to keep the eastern sun out of a hot summer day, and so I grabbed this little tablecloth



and, if putting such a thing up with a hammer and tack qualifies as a mistreatment, then the fact that I used thumbtacks for this --

(and please ignore that pulled out bit of hardware in the "properly done" portion of the thing...)


-- and, yes, completely untreated, uncrafty, bare-naked clothespins for keeping it up --




-- makes me an abuser, I think. I window abuser. A decorating abuser.



I promise a "before and after" of the completion of "phase II" of the kitchen redo... soon...