Supplies Reorganisation (Apartment Decoration) : Chocolate Container

One year my friend Jonny bought a plastic container filled with chocolates for all of our friends at school for Valentine's Day. 

It was packaged something like the pic on the right. All I remember was that it was very delicious and I loved the bottle/jar that the chocolate came in.

So I stole it from him when it was done. It would have gone in the trash otherwise! (and that would have been horrible! :O )

I thought I would find something cool to do with it instantly but a year later it still remained on the top of my bookshelf collecting dust. (I may have forgotten about it)

Then one day before I started a new semester, it came to me. I was cleaning out my apartment and sorting all my supplies. I was having trouble keeping all my colour pencils, markers and highlighters in order and I just knew I finally found a use for the jar.

As you can see below, here is the jar. I decided to spruce it up a bit by tying a bow with some pretty cloth ribbon that was attached to a floral arrangement I got for my birthday. (Recycling Ftw!)

The rest is simple. 

I used rubber bands to organise all my tools, so that they would be easy to retrieve and look ordered in the clear container.

The next step was to fill up the jar :) I found all my implements stood up nice and straight in the jar with the rubber bands. Especially since I was not filling the jar to capacity right away.

Also if you look carefully there is a little raised bump in the middle. It helped me organise all the stuff in a nice circle and put shorter drawing implements in the middle for a little height. It also of course meant I had to make smaller bundles of instruments. For instance, as seen below, my pack of 12 colour pencils had to be split into smaller bundles of 6.

All filled up!

Here's a look at the final product!

 Here is it in its natural habitat, i.e. on my desk.

I really loved this craft solution, because it was simple and easy to do. It was an innovative solution to my disorganised drawing implements. I just adore jars shaped like that one for aesthetics. Plus its practical, and it is so much easier now to find what I want when I want it. Yay for cute and practical :D

If I had another, I must say I definitely would use it as a memory jar. What would you use yours for?

Also, do you have any easy but cute storage solutions for apartment living? Let me know in the comments below.

As always thank you for visiting my blog. I hope that you continue reading :)

Supplies Reorganisation: Pill Box

T-9 days before I head back to school. I am in the process of reorganising my craft supplies to be packed away as school is going to be taking preference and cleaning out my apartment.

Here is one inexpensive reorganisation tip for all your small trinkets: Pill Boxes.

I have tons of small objects from my various crafting projects: buttons, jewellery clasps, beady eyes, rhinestones, beads, etc. Storage can sometimes be a problem because I could never find them all at the same time which is an issue because I forget what I have and then buy more supplies.

The Solution? Cheap Pill Boxes. I picked up mine for under $10TT at Pennywise.

Just open them up and fill them with your goodies.

The great thing about these is that they are kinda transparent so you can see what you have stored inside, and each column pops right out so you can take out just what you need.

Do you have easy craft organisation solutions? Let me know below.

Thank you for reading  and cheers to cleaner work spaces!

House of Jaipur Finds and other Crafty Supplies

The gorgeous wrapping paper from House of Jaipur

Last week I visited the House of Jaipur. It was my first visit to this Tea House and I was blown away! The food was delicious but the deco was definitely a winner in my books. I had their lunch with a special someone and I felt as if I were transported to another world. Adjoining the little eating nooks were rooms filled with even more beautiful finds.

Of course you could purchase any of the items seen while you dined. Vivid hanging cloths, oriental pillows and throws, ornate boxes and jewels, notebooks and gift bags! I love browsing places like that. My only regret was that I forgot my camera at home as the visit was spontaneous.

Anyway the point of this was that I found the most gorgeous "gift- wrapping" paper there. I'm using quotations because that is what they referred to these sheets of paper BUT I think they must have some other "better" purpose. They are too beautiful to be ripped apart when opening gifts!

Tea Strainer

I did see however notebooks, envelopes and gift bags covered in the same, if not similar paper. I thought that was a nice use. Very classy.

From my last post you saw that I made some wrappers for Tea bags. House of Jaipur was one of the recommended places from my tea-drinking friends to pick up some delicious gourmet tea. They sell them loosely however. So I either would have to make my own Tea bags from Coffee filters (because I can't think of anywhere that would sell the cloth tea bags individually in T&T, which could have led to custom heart shaped tea bags) or I could have scratched the entire tea/envelope operation and simply purchased a Tea Strainer or a Tea Ball.

Tea Ball

For some reason, I forgot about those things, even when I do have about 3 "Tea Balls" in my house.

At home we use them around Eid to put cloves and cinnamon in when making our Sawine, to add flavour and keep the cloves out of out bowls when we're ready to eat. Nothing is worse than biting a clove accidentally!

So now I have been educated. lol Those metal things are really for tea! and I can now buy loose tea leaves because I know how to use them. lol

In other news, I had a shopping trip to West Mall and I found my next craft project for Valentine's Day. This big glass jar! I found at a home-goods store while I was looking for coloured cupcake liners.

I'm not going to say what I'm using it for, just in case my Valentine reads this, but those mini-envelopes look like they may have found a home :D I can't wait to fill it up!

My shopping trip also yielded some new patterned paper and tissue paper. Turns out I bought some of the same patterned paper last year for Valentine's Day and only used a tiny portion of it AND I almost bought some kite paper in a fancy design that I had in an unopened pack already! I forgot they existed because they were stored at the bottom of a bag.

My sorted paper pile!

In light of this, I have decided that it is about time that I sort through all my materials and clean up and repack my Arts and Crafts cupboard. I probably haven't touched some of the things in there since I put them in in High School and it is rather dusty! I certainly have the time now and once I start my clinical years, it is rather doubtful that I would be using my supplies with the same frequency as I am now.

Cheers to new projects and a cleaner workspace!