I had a huge project on my hands last week called Cleaning and Organizing My Office. Whoa, it was a massive undertaking and I realized that what I really needed was more storage. But I really hate spending money on storage items. I just feel like I shouldn't have to spend a fortune to be organized. And coincidentally, I had been saving all those cardboard boxes that come from my photo lab. So I created some recycled cardboard storage!

Like this one. I call it Recycled Cardboard Box Hanging Shelves:

Here's what I did, in case you have 4 boxes that are the exact same size.

1. Cut off the flaps.

2. Cut out a window in the front so you can better see into them.

3. Then take your first box (it will be the bottom box). With an exacto knife cut an "x" in each corner of the bottom. Then I used a pencil to make a very small hole where I cut. It just needs to be big enough to thread twine through.

4. Cut 4 pieces of twine that will be long enough for the whole shelving unit. Now thread them through each corner hole. Tie knots underneath to hold.

5. Take your next box and repeat step 3.

6. Now, measure 10 inches up the twine that is coming from the bottom box and make a mark with a sharpie. Do this on all 4 pieces of twine. Tie knots right at those marks. Then you can slide the next box on.

7. Repeat steps 5-6 with two more boxes.

8. Tie the shelves onto a wire shelf. Or if you don't have one, you could tie them onto two hangers on a rod.

I filled them with small odds and ends that never seemed to have a place in my office such as my marketing materials (extra business cards, brochures), paper clips, binder clips, whole punch, battery chargers, etc.

This next one wasn't as well planned out and I won't bore you with the details of how I created it. It was more of a "make it up as you go" project. I needed a place to put all of my ribbon. It was always rolling around loose in 4 different places. So I made this contraption called Recycled Cardboard Ribbon Organizer:

It's amazing how much more motivated I feel to work when my office is clean and organized!

I ordered some wool felt online and when they came I gasped at how beautiful they are. The colors! The way they are rolled up and tied with twine! I'm in love!

They are almost too beautiful to use, but I wanted to have some nice wool felt for the ideas I have rolling around in my head. In the meantime I'll keep practicing on the synthetic stuff.

I swear I'm not that obsessed with owls. But it just so happens that the last two creative projects I've done with my hands have involved owls.

This latest project was a Christmas/1st birthday gift for our friend Henry's nursery. His mom Kathleen saw these woodland creatures I made last year and thought Henry would like to have one. So I made him his very own owl art!

I made this by starting with a blank 10x12 (I think) canvas. Then I painted it a mustard color using a mixture of acrylic paint. Henry's nursery walls are blue, so I thought this yellow color would be a nice complimentary color.

Then I spent some time cutting textures out of magazines and catalogs. I was mainly looking for browns and oranges with subtle texture. Then I just started cutting out pieces! All of his little feathers are separate pieces of paper.

When I was done I coated the entire canvas with Mod Podge.

The other day I dragged poor John out for a walk around our neighborhood. I wanted to get some pictures of the massive mounds of snow around here. But to get the idea, you really need the scale of a person. So we froze our buns off to get these photos. But I'm glad to have these as a record of the crazy winter we are having.

Sidewalk

Giant mountain

Stop sign

Pretty crazy huh? It was all starting to get a little ugly this week with the melting, slushy, dirty snow. Until yesterday, when I woke up to a beautiful frosty day.

These stunning wintery scenes make the cold a little more bearable for me.

I went for a little drive out in the country this afternoon. The sun was shining and the scenery was very pretty.

As I drove over a hill I was suddenly surrounded by wild turkeys. I couldn't adequately capture how many there were because many of them were behind a bunch of trees, but there were at least 50.

I eventually left them and continued checking out the scenery.