Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 508
Emily’s New Cupboard
Hello Everyone
Emily’s mum decided a couple of weeks ago that she wanted to invite some people to stay over Christmas and she wanted to put a couple of camp beds up in Emily’s room for children to sleep on.
But when she saw the state it had got into, she was very worried.
The room seemed so much smaller under all the mess!
Emily protested that it wasn’t her fault. She said that there just weren’t enough places to put everything away.
All she could do was hang things on the floor!
Her mum had a think, and decided to call me in to help.
Salty Sam to the rescue!
The plan was for me to build Emily an extra storage cupboard in the alcove where she presently had her desk. Her dolls’ house was on the desk and consequently there was no room for her to do her homework on it.
Everything was in such a muddle!
Before l could start, some space needed to be cleared for me to work.
Emily’s mum said the first thing to do was to sort everything that was strewn about the room into categorized piles.
All the dirty clothes should go in the hamper in the bathroom.
All the clean clothes could be put out of the way on her bed for the moment.
Any toys that her playmates had accidentally left behind should be put by the front door.
Any lunch box stuff and anything for recycling should be left on the kitchen counter, and any papers she didn’t want could be left on her dad’s desk to be shredded and put on the compost heap.
Any bath toys and bubble bath bottles could be put in the bathroom.
Soft toys could be put on the bed for now.
Everything that was left should be put into different piles; pens and pencils, notebooks, school bag stuff, school work, story books, dolls’ clothes, beach toys, board games and other toys.
All the things from the desk, dressing table and wardrobe were taken out too so they could be put back in a more orderly way.
Then Emily’s mum and dad moved the desk to put it against another wall.
Everything was cleaned, dusted and vacuumed.
Emily’s mum had bought some storage supplies from the shops to help organize everything.
Together they sorted out all of Emily’s things and put them neatly away on hangers, in drawers or in storage boxes and baskets.
What would not go in the dressing table or wardrobe were left in the spare bedroom for the time being.
Then l had room to come in and work.
So this week l got started.
Firstly, l put some wallpaper up in the alcove. When you don’t need much wallpaper you can sometimes find a left over roll or two in the shop at a good price.
When you buy wallpaper to decorate a room you have to check the dye batch number on each roll matches in the same way as knitting yarns. Some rolls get left behind in the shop to go in the odd rolls bin and are sold at a lower price than they were.
You can’t wallpaper a whole room with a roll or two but you can wallpaper part of one.
Having wallpaper inside a cupboard makes it look really nice.
Then when the wallpaper paste was dry l put some shelves up.
l had bought doors ready-made, but l had to make a frame around the alcove to fit the doors into. Everything had to be measured very carefully. The frame was attached to the floor, ceiling and walls.
Auntie Alice gave Emily a little table that she could put her dolls’ house on. The little table came from one of her spare bedrooms and it fitted neatly into a corner of Emily’s bedroom.
l took a wooden box and put four legs onto it to make a stool for her to sit on by the dolls’ house. Auntie Alice covered a board in a pad and some fabric to act as a top. With hinges on one side of the top allowing the lid to lift up, the stool became another place to store things in.
When l had finished making the cupboard, l manoeuvred the desk back into place.
l put a cork board in a frame on the wall above the desk and two shelves above that. l put ends to the shelves so that books couldn’t fall off the ends.
Across the front of the bottom shelf l stretched a piece of cord and put some brightly-coloured, painted, wooden clothes pegs to use to hang paintings and keys. A calendar could hang on the cord too.
There were other pegs on the desk top to use to clip papers together.
A planner calendar was put up on the cork board. lt had boxes on it to write in – this is a good way to get yourself organized.
Emily’s mum made a homework caddy out of a shoe box covered with wrapping paper. Kitchen roll tubes stuck to the sides were perfect for putting pens and pencils in.
Also on the desk there were three magazine boxes to put books and papers in and a file tray made out of five empty cereal packets covered in wrapping paper too.
There was a vase for putting tall things in like rulers, knitting needles and paint brushes.
ln the top drawer of the desk was a container of a six pack of yoghurt. lt could be used for putting things in like paper clips, rubber bands and the drawing pins Emily would need to put things up on her cork board.
There was also a cutlery holder to get more things like pens, pencils and felt-tip pens organised in the drawer and some jars with labels on the lids so that you could see what was in them without having to lift them out.
ln the drawers beneath, there were trays of different sizes and plastic clamshell and fruit boxes with lids on for more bits and pieces.
Two baking tins with marbles between to make a lazy Susan was put on a cupboard shelf along with a small suitcase and a small sewing box that Auntie Alice had found that she did not want anymore.
There was a kitchen roll holder to stack bracelets on.
There were two shoe racks put in each corner at the bottom to make more room in the wardrobe.
There were lots of storage boxes and baskets to use for toys and if you couldn’t see what was inside, labels could be tied or stuck to the front.
Door pockets to keep dolls in were put behind the cupboard doors with tape at the bottom corners to fix them to the door so they wouldn’t move about; because that can be very annoying.
Auntie Alice had made knitted storage bags for the dolls’ clothes.
Strong metal hooks were put over the bedroom door, attached to them was a basket for hats and gloves and it had hooks at the bottom of it for bags or jackets or dressing gowns to be hung up. There was a large, plastic box for wellington boots and sports equipment between the door and the wardrobe so that the basket on the door would not hit the wardrobe.
There were some box bags to provide under-the-bed storage for winter jumpers or summer dresses and beach wear depending on the season – and an extra blanket for frosty nights. There were three boxes to go on top of the wardrobe too.
Auntie Alice made some bed pockets out of some fabric for the side of the bed to keep teddies and bedtime books in.
Three corner shelves were quickly put up in the corner above the bed.
Then came the fun part – Emily could finish putting everything away.
Keeping your things in order helps to calm your mind and also helps it to work more clearly.
Being organized saves time when you are looking for things and reduces stress when you are in a hurry.
A lot of people put tops together, trousers together and dresses together in their closet or wardrobe.
You might find that putting outfits together is a better idea and saves time when getting ready to go out.
You can put clothes together in categories instead like: lounging about the house clothes, school clothes, party clothes, Christmas clothes, playing in the snow clothes, beach clothes, gardening clothes, rainy day clothes, play date clothes, clothes for travelling in and so on.
Drawer dividers really help keep drawers neat, or you can use trays or boxes to create compartments inside a drawer. lf a gap is left at the side of the trays and boxes, it will be another compartment for something like an umbrella or camera or toy that is kept in a box.
lf you put T shirts vertically in deep drawers, they don’t get squashed and you can see every one you have at a glance.
There are lots of various size storage bags, storage trays and storage boxes and also money boxes too on these blog posts for you to make to help get yourself organized.
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Thank you!
And see you again next Fun Friday!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bob: Do you know where Spiderman got his education?
Bill: No?
Bob: The World Wide Web!
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
When Emily has finished putting things in her cupboard, there were still a few bits and pieces that didn’t have any boxes to put them away in.
Her mum found three ice cream containers.
She covered the tops of the lids with left-over wall paper and put a rectangle of wall paper on the fronts to cover the labels. She made a pattern with some newspaper before she started cutting the wallpaper because there wasn’t much left and she didn’t want to waste it if what she was doing went wrong.
Then she put a white sticky label on each front over the wallpaper rectangles to write what the contents were.
The boxes looked really nice. They were sturdy and stacked up well.
Then she bought another kitchen roll holder to stack hair scrunchies on, Auntie Alice knitted Emily another couple of little storage bags – and everything now had a home!
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Quick Quiz
What do these idioms mean?
- it fits like a glove
- to walk a mile in his shoes
- to have something up one’s sleeve
- belt up
- to get shirty
- to speak off the cuff
- he would give you the shirt off his back
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A CHRlSTMAS TREE FOR A DOLLS’ HOUSE
After Emily’s room looked so neat and tidy, she decided that her dolls’ house could do with a dust and a tidy up too.
After she had finished, she wanted to add some festive decorations to the house for the dolls to enjoy Christmas too.
So Auntie Alice made her this tree.
This tree has tiny, shiny, coloured bells on it that look like baubles.
But you could use beads of even French knots to decorate your knitting instead.
You will need a bottle top or very large bead to balance the tree on.
There will be more dolls’ house decorations to make on next week’s post.
TREE SIDES (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and green dk yarn cast on 13 stitches
Knit 4 rows of garter stitch
Decrease 1 stitch at the beginning of the next 2 rows of garter stitch
Repeat the last 6 rows 4 times
Don’t cast off – leave the stitches on the yarn you cut off and leave enough for sewing up the sides
TREE BASE (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and green dk yarn cast on 40 stitches
Cast off
TO MAKE UP
- Sew your baubles onto the knitting with sewing thread before you construct the tree
- Sew the sides using over-sew stitching and right sides together
- Turn the tree the right way out
- Stuff it to get a good shape
- Curl the knitting for the base into a disc and sew across it again and again so that it is solid and insert it into the base of the tree then sew into place
- Sew a shiny bead onto the top of the tree
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- it fits like a glove – it fits well
- to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes – you can’t know what it is like to be in someone else’s position until you are in it yourself
- to have something up one’s sleeve – to still have a hidden resource to use
- belt up – be quiet
- to get shirty – to get annoyed
- to speak off the cuff – to speak without a prepared speech
- he would give you the shirt off his back – he is very generous with other people
Embroidery Stitches
