From dress to binder cover {a DIY}

Like many New Year’s Reso fans, I have a goal of getting our life organized this year. Really though, who doesn’t want to be organized? (Husbands… and men/boys in general don’t count ;)) What a serious {task} organizing is! Yikes! At the beginning of the year, I began a project I call “Organize Our Life” because I’m weird like that. And boy, is it a project.

Two pack rats (hubby more than me, not to throw him under the bus or anything, hehe), many temporary living situations, seemingly always on the go, etc, etc, excuse after excuse and boy does it pile up to huge mounds of odds and ends, some sentimental and memoury associated things (mostly my stuff because I save EVERY memorabilia), the we-can’t-throw-that-out-because-we-might-need-it-someday stuff crammed in boxes that aren’t properly labeled, bags and more bags (you know, because we go camping and hiking so much these days :)), my breast pump is somewhere in the pile of boxes we literally haven’t opened and used since we moved into our current temporary home of… ahem, a year.

We’re both at a place where we want to get rid of things, de-clutter, organize and simplify. Oh, that sounds so nice…but easy it is not. Right? So, I put together a binder titled “Organize Our Life” and began…

I was on a roll. So excited and inspired. WOOHOO! And then slowly but surely as each new week came, not so much. I began dreading it. This big ugly beast of a binder wasn’t helping much. I needed a break from the organizing, walked into our craft/office/playroom/pile-everything-in-here-when-guest-come-over room and swiped a binder from Ted’s little collection then headed right towards my crafty stuff and grabbed the following items.

Hot glue gun, sciscors, fabric scraps (in my fav shade of pink), a fabric flower, an old dress with a torn strap that I last wore when I was skinny minny me at 3 months pregnant with Chase and swore I would fix and fit into again someday (I think I now have 3 boxed full of clothes labeled ‘Jami’s skinny clothes’, HA! Someday, maybe. It will be like Christmas!! ;)) What you don’t see pictured here is felt (or just use some kind of fabric you could use for the inside covers).

Now for the ghetto fab DIY :) It’s not perfect but, I {love} it and it’s super simple. You probably have everything you need lying around.

First, I measured both the binder and a few inches to spare on the fabric so I could overlap it. You’ll see in a sec.

Cut the fabric.

Carefully hot glue the fabric on. It’s not pictured but you then cut any extra fabric you may have.

You can buy felt for $.25 a piece at Hobby Lobby. I decided on using felt because I liked the way it looked and I felt like it could hold the fabric down pretty well without me needing to use my sewing machine to make this entire cover.

Add some pretties if ya want. I used the ruffle from the dress and then added my little flare to it.

And, ta-da. This took me no time at all. This DIY will probably seem so weird to some and to others you might totally get why I needed this change. It does help for minds like mine that do not have the gift of organizing naturally :) Add a little creative spunk and perhaps peeking inside each day won’t be so bad. Wishful thinking? I’ll let you know at the end of the year ;)

A few tools that have  helped me IMMENSELY and I personally could not do this whole “Organize Our Life” thing without;

• printables that other seriously awesome, gifted, organizing-love’n people created… for us… for FREE. You can go to see some of the free printables I’m using currently. And this amazing site – where most of what I use are currently from. They have a totally free day keeper printable with days of the week and all sort of amazing things.
• organizing tips and brilliant ideas from .

Hope you are {inspired to create} and maybe (dare I say it on my blog? Who am I? :) get organized!!