DIY Necklace Organizer - Organizzatore le Collane Fai-Da-Te

I decided that this spring instead of updating my wardrobe I would update my accessories. This has meant some recent purchases of necklaces and no where to store them so I decided to create my own necklace organization display.

Here's how I did it:

1) find an antique hanger
2) nail some smal nails into the pants bar.

Easy-peasy and super cute!

Need more jewelery organisation DIYs? Check out my earring organizer here! It's one of my all-time most popular posts!

P.S. the hanger doesn't HAVE-TO have your last name written on it. In my case that's just a happy coincidence!

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Ho deciso che questa primavera invece di aggiornare il mio guardaroba vorrei aggiornare i miei accessori. Così ho acquistato di recente delle collane e nonsapevo dove metterli. Ho deciso di creare la mia organizzatore di collane. 

Ecco come ho fatto: 

1) trova un appendiabiti antico 
2) inchiodare alcuni chiodi piccoli nella barra dei pantaloni. 

Troppo bella!

Hai bisognia di organizare anche i tuoi orrecchini? Leggi questo post. è uno dei migliori sul blog!

♥ Jess

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Walk-In Closet Inspiration from Salone del Mobile 2014 - Cabine Armadio dal Salone 2014

Here are just some quick walk-in wardrobe snaps I took from the Salone on Saturday. Beautiful clothing storage means you're more motivated to keep it tidy.
More from the Salone in the next few days!

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Qui ci sono solo alcune cabina armadio scatti veloci che ho preso dal Salone di Sabato. Bella immagazzinaggio dei vestiti significa che siete più motivati ​​a tenerlo in ordine. 
Altro dal Salone nei prossimi giorni!

♥ Jess

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Summing up Sunday: 2014 - Week 1

This week has been a whirlwind and has gone by in a quick blur.

New years was a last minute thing on our part because initially we were supposed to have a few friends here, but one thing led to another and no one could come! :-(  Instead we went to our friends' Linda and Claudio's house to celebrate with their friends and family as well as to meet their new baby son Giorgio. He is sooooo super cute!

I dedicated the first few days of the year to caching up on Sera's memory quilt and even started sewing some pieces together.  It's really much more satisfying than just cutting up all that baby clothes is.

I've also been on an organising/purging/cleaning kick and managed to tackle the compactum where we keep all our outerwear, our laundry 'room' (it's really a closet in the kitchen/den), my 'home office' (the closet upstairs) and Sera's toy kitchen.  Feels good to accomplish things.

YesterdayI made some doll clothes for Sera's Barbies (tutorial to come!) and then we went to Piacenza for lunch with Mauro and Carlotta.  Really a lot of good fun and good food!

A few photos from the week:

• sparkly glitter New-Year's nails
• first brekkie of the year: pomegranate, banana & clementines
• Sera learnt to draw 'Humpty Dumpties'
• lots of work on a memory quilt
• all dressed up for New-Year's party
• our newest friend Giorgio
• Sera slumber party
• playdate @ IKEA with Lele
• baby bloomers to Barbie clothes (tutorial post coming up this week!)

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Hitting Goals in January

Well, January is underway and despite having Sera at home with me until she's back at school on the 7th I've managed to cut new squares for her memory quilt and sew up the blocked ones that I cut last year.

You might recognise the fabric with the balloons from this skirt alteration I did in May. Well it's now on its third life being reused again in the quilt. Reusing fabrics has brought me more joy than I ever thought it could!

Other things I'd love to tackle January:

• plan Sera's 3rd birthday party; decide when, where, who and a budget!
• master grocery list planning in order to be able to do one on line order a week and avoid the chaos that is the local super market.
• de-clutter and donate clothes from my closet. No one needs 7 black tee-shirts!
• pack away tree and ornaments before it gets to be silly.
• drop off de-cluttering junk at the mercatino so that maybe it can get reused by someone who wants it
• assign new shots to animators on Hick! and work through the last tweaks on the rigs.
• catch up with some friends I haven't seen for a while
• create my Project Life spreads for November and December 2013 as well as the archived ones since January 2013.
• go get my documents of Italian citizenship at the Questura
• catch up on some medical tests and checkups

What have you got on your list of to-dos for January? How do you organise your time and goals? I've tried every software and app on the market and find that a pen and paper and a simple calendar works best for me... Speaking of to-dos and calendars, I must hang out new one for 2014!

New Years Resolutions for 2014

Happy 2014 Everyone!!

I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating last night and that the stress of finding the perfect party or thing to do didn't make you forget that every night is special, not just New Years' Eve. I hope not too many of you are bloated from overeating or hungover from to much champagne and you can start off 2014 on the right foot.

I do have a habit of making resolutions every new year, but then, I also make resolutions every week so that's not much of a surprise. I like to keep any promises to myself on an improvement basis instead of a "change this horrible aspect of myself or habit" basis mostly because, let's face it, I'm already pretty great -wink, wink- and tiny improvements are easier to achieve, and less messy than turning a whole set tea table of a personality upside down because of some arbitrary and partially inaccurate mathematical calculation which is roughly associated with astrology. Talking trash about the Gregorian calendar again Jess? Yes, it's a late-December tradition around these parts.

Let's get to it:

1) get back to meditating EVERY day. With our recent trip to Montreal, jet lag, seasonal flu, laryngitis, travelling to Taranto and then the Christmas festivities I lost my meditation momentum and I've really felt the effects. Maybe some people can keep their balance, grace and direction without taking those 20 minutes a day off from thinking, but I'm not one of them.

2) work consistently on completing my short film Hick! ... For the past three years this resolution read 'finish Hick!' But this year I finally understood that it's not so easy and there's some weird developmental and dharma issues surrounding this film project for me and that I have to be careful not to put pressure on myself about it or I become like a deer caught in the headlights and freeze up, stopping work altogether. In the times when I just relax and work a bit at a time I really gain momentum and the film seems to just create itself. Being an artist is annoying don't you think?

3) surround myself with positive people I admire.

4) Continue my Project Life binder and keep organising all photos on a monthly basis. It's so important to have a family record and photos are a great way to do it, but they're not much use sitting on a hard drive somewhere...

5) Compile and edit all home videos.  This one is going to be tough... It involves hours and hours at the computer sifting and searching, but will probably be quite fun too.

6) Improve this blog and get more readers.  I love knowing that there are those few of you out there who are following the blog. I started this project mostly for me, but am happy that some of you have reached out and told me that in some way it's also been something that you've enjoyed. I hope to be posting frequently in 2014 will lots of exciting new projects, ideas, recipes and more!

7) Finish Sera's memory quilt project. I'd like to get this done before we think about moving into a new house because then I'll be needing a new bed for her as well and I'd like to design the room around the quilt.  Luckily, our new house project seems to be dragging its feet and there's not much news on that front, but I'll keep you posted!

8) Spend more quality time with Sera and Fabri.  Specifically find new, age specific ways, of spending quality time with Sera every day and make more date-nights with Fabri... maybe finding a trusted babysitter?

9)De-clutter the entire house and remove anything I don't need or love. There's so much stuff floating around here and I realise that its taking its toll on my energy and creativity... Time to wipe the slate clean and give all this stuff to someone who really wants it! I'll be tackling this project a drawer or cupboard at a time and going slow, but it's something I'm determined to get to.  It also means that I'm going to be more careful about what I buy and let into the house. I like these two blogs for de-cluttering inspiration MPMK and Unclutterer.

10) Keep to my new diet and healthy way of living. I have had such wonderful results from removing grains, dairy and nightshades that I think I'll probably never go back to a diet where I just eat anything I see. I do miss nightshades (more so than grains or dairy believe it or not) but not having fatigue or swollen hands is a huge incentive for keeping it up.

I think 10 is enough for the moment. If I have everything on the list accomplished by September I can always make new resolutions at Rosh Hashana, Jewish New Years'.  Also I think it's best not to bite off more than I can chew and I'm already feeling that my mouth is pretty full.

Have a lovely January 1st everyone! I wish you love, joy, prosperity, freedom and grace in 2014!

Dream Home Search

Recently we've been spending loads of time looking at apartments, lofts and houses to potentially buy if we ever decide that we're serious about moving and get our place on the market. It's not easy, because although I'm the type of person who can see potential in any living space I'm also in love with my current home and am reluctant to move if it means compromising.

I like to walk through empty spaces and imagine myself as a future me and the things I would be doing in them. There was the bathroom yesterday with enough space in it for a sofa and I saw myself surrounded by candles soaking in the luxurious tub. There was also the terrace with the view of the alps, in my mind I had already hung a hammock and installed an outdoor fireplace. On winter mornings I could sip my tea while gazing out and thinking about the vastness of those peaks and feel a part of this wonderful universe. There was the loft with its own separate office space where I could set up an intense art/craft/office/meditation room... I even thought about how I could rent the space from myself, set up a business and deduct the rental from my taxes.  I find it amusing that I think of all these things cause not only do I never light candles when taking a bath, I also don't regularly drink tea and currently don't have plans to start a business. I fantasise about other versions of me that I imagine the spaces could unlock. 

My current home has unlocked new versions of me in the past five years: my kitchen and living room have made me a gourmet cook and celebrated hostess.  My patch of cement outside the front door has made me an urban gardener.  My tiny itty bitty office has developed a blogger, animated filmmaker, quilter, seamstress, scrapbooker, knitter and toy maker and has unlocked new crafts and hobbies that I didn't even know I was capable of. My staircase and various Ikea furniture have turned me into a carpenter and handyman and other home-owning disasters helped me become an electrician and plumber as well.  This home has also been the one that has cradled me throughout the biggest change in my adult life of becoming a parent... And being a stay-at-home mum means it has been there for me even more-so.

What do I want in a new home? Well, the more places I see the more confused I am and somehow at the same time the clearer my vision.  Here's a list of what I've figured out so far and some examples:

-I want enough space to have a space for everything and everything in its place. Though I declutter regularly there's still a need for order and that comes with having enough storage to keep what you do need hidden away.

-I want a real bedroom for Sera as well as myself.  Currently I am sleeping on the open upstairs landing of our loft and Sera is in a tiny space that we separated with plasterboard walls. It's big enough for now but probably won't fit a single bed and there isn't too much space to play. Though there's no siblings in the cards I'd hope that Sera's room would be big enough to accommodate two, just in case.  The next house we live in should really be the one we're going to be living in for the next 10-15 years. I'd also like a bit of privacy when we have guests. 

-And speaking of guests I've got them sleeping on a twin air actress in the middle of the living room when they come. Considering my living room is also my lounge, office, kitchen and entryway and is pretty much the exact size of the air mattress you can see how that might not work too well. 

-I'd like a bathroom for at least each level of the house. Potty training and pregnancy have both taught me about the need for easy access to a bathroom. It would be wonderful to have an old fashioned tub and some glamorous curtains incorporated in some way.  I automatically reject any home without the possibility of a tub somewhere.

-I want a bit of outdoor space to call my own where we can catch some vitamin D and do some more urban gardening. It can be a garden, terrace, balcony, whatever. Ideally it would be big enough to setup a wading pool in the hotter months. 

-I want a third bedroom so that I can use it as an office/craft room/guest room/meditation room. I want it to be the cleverest and most multi-tasking room of the house and my own personal sanctuary (sounds selfish huh?)

-an amazing kitchen would be next on the list with huge entertaining possibilities. I love preparing food for people and entertaining and even though I manage in my current kitchen I'd just adore something more functional and stylish.

-the most important room of the house would of course be the living room/den. I want height and light and all of my books and nick knacks prominently on display.  It's the room where we will spend most of our time and therefore should be the biggest and most functional.

So, it's a tall order, especially for Milan where property generally starts at €3000 per square meter, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed and eyes open for places that might be suitable.  For the meantime however, I'm perfectly happy in our cosy loft exactly as we are.  I'll let you know how it goes!

Check out more of my dream home inspiration on Pinterest!

Project Life!

How did I only find out about Becky Higgins' Project Life line of scrap booking products today? I'm so excited!

I'm not a scrapbooker (I know, hard to believe cause there are very few crafts I don't dabble in) but I'm about to become a lazy scrapbooker thanks to Project Life. Here's what it's all about (copied and pasted from their about page):

Project Life^® is a solution-based approach to scrapbooking that was created to simplify the process in order to allow you more time to enjoy life! It requires no glue, no scissors, no tools, and no skills of any kind. The design of our products takes the guess work out of layout design so that you can focus on recording your everyday moments through your photos and journaling. The simple design is stylish and makes it possible for you to complete more pages in less time.

What it consists of is a binder and photo sleeves, just like an old photo album (remember those, before photos were no longer something you could touch?) and a kit of pre-printed and themed or coordinated card stock cards which you can place in with your photos and scraps mixing and matching.  When I saw this post about setting up for photographing Project Life albums I fell in love with the concept.  It will also fulfil my need to do something about the guilt I feel for not having printed a single photo or album for Sera since she was 4 months old (too much knitting, quilting, animating and other pressing responsibilities).

I ordered the kit you see above (Honey Edition) as well as a black chevron binder (cause we all know I still love chevrons) and 60 sleeves. From what I can tell most people do a spread per week, but that's pretty unrealistic in terms of my time so I'm going to aim for one per month if not one per season.

I'm hoping to be able to share my progress with all of you.

Chevron Delight - a laundry basket makeover

When I first bought my laundry basket I did so out of necessity and chose the least ugly of a vast selection of very ugly baskets.  I had told myself that I would redo the cushion and make it match the bathroom.  That was five years ago.

I guess it takes me five years of ugliness before I get to my limit because this week I'd finally had enough of the chartreuse, purple and poo-brown stripes and dismounted the lid from the basket for its makeover.

I know the chevron trend is almost over but I really like the look and never managed to get around to making anything with the style... So here goes.

The cushion was made from what seemed like a cotton canvas and wasn't really easily re-upholstered so I decided to paint it as if it were a normal canvas and hope for the best in regards to wear and tear. I used 3 coats of acrylic gesso to cover the horrible stripes and proceeded to tape out my chevron patten with normal masking tape.  I then repainted white over the tape to help it stick down and to not let it bleed too much. I wasn't worried about having perfect borders because I was going for a messier look so I wasn't too concerned with how much the tape stuck down or how neat the points of the zigs and zags were.

It was hard to choose a colour for the stripes, but in the end I decided on a grey that would match the bathmat we recently purchased. I found it a bit softer than the typical black on white chevrons.  When the white coat was dry I used a stripling motion with a quite dry brush to get the effect you see on the final basket.  I then waited a little while longer and peeled off the tape before the paint was completely dry.

I still haven't decided whether or not I'm going to paint the actual basket itself, but since it matches the floor of the bathroom I feel like for the moment it stands out a bit less with its original brown.  I suppose It could be a project for another day.

household binder

My home; when it's neat.

I spend a lot of time at home. It's my castle and fortress and small corner of paradise.  When it's neat and organised I'm at peace with the whole world.  When it's untidy and disorganised I feel like there's always something I'm supposed to be doing and that I have a battle waged on the universe.  It's crazy, I know, and even more so because I'm naturally a very very unorganised and untidy person.

In the past I have tried various systems and tricks to convince myself to pick things up as I go along or to put things back where they belong immediately after using them, but in my case it really requires discipline.  I would always rather be crafting or working on Hick! or playing with Sera than I would like to be cleaning up after myself.

A few years back I found a site called Flylady which promised to be my 'personal on line coach' to organising my home and clearing out clutter.  Sounded good but I took on to much at once and stopped following the system after a few months of an admittedly much tidier home.  The principle is pretty simple... join flylady and you'll get bite sized instructions of what to do in your home every day to keep it neat and clean. They call them baby steps.

One part of the system is to create and organise what they call a 'control journal', which is basically a binder where you keep all the important information for your home and family's lives to make things run smoother.  If you have a look on line you'll find a similar concept in terms such as home management binder or home management journal.

Since I've decided to try out weekly family meetings as suggested in the book I'm reading 'Positive Discipline', and since in that book the meeting needs to have someplace where you jot-down ideas during the week I remembered how much nicer it was to have the house nice and tidy when I followed my control journal. I dug it out and dusted it off, removing the stuff that made it complicated and brought it up-to-date.

So far it has:

an example of free printables you can find on line.
These are by Jamie at DIYhshp.blogspot.com

-a section with my important daily (repeating) to-dos such as:

• making my homoeopathic medicines
• laundry
• meditation
• tidying for 15 minutes a day (with a timer so I don't get stressed and overwhelmed)

-a regular daily to-do list

-a long-term to-do list with things to be scheduled

-a section with meal plans. Special thanks goes to my hubby, who even if he thought it was ridiculous, got on board for family meetings this week and help me plan out dinners for the whole month!

-grocery list this is divided into smaller lists based on the category of the food, dairy, meat, produce, cleaning supplies etcetera.

-a section where we can list the meals we like and dislike.  This list will be added to as we go along so that he next time we do meal planning we have a list of dinner ideas we can just point to.

-important phone numbers... docs, neighbours, family, poison control (though this is also on the fridge)

-monthly calendar with any birthdays I could remember written out on it. This will be easier next year because I'll have the reference already!

-packing list in a dry-erase envelope so that I can tick off items as I pack.  This one is awesome because we're going away to Tuscany tomorrow and it took me 45% less time to pack!

-a page sheet where we can jot down ideas for the meetings and outcomes of what was discussed. 

other pages I would like to add in the future:

- a seasonal cleaning schedule

-weekly cleaning schedule

-weekly calendar with overview of what's coming up each week

-favorite restaurants & takeaways

-movies to rent

-books to read

-chore chart (for when Sera is a bit older and starts doing chores)

My home management binder is still a work-in-progress and I'd love to be able to find the time to do some custom layouts and stuff like that. At the moment it's really really basic.  If you'd like to become a bit more organised and are thinking of starting your own binder then you can find some really great free printables on line, including these really lovely ones over at DIY Home sweet Home.